I WRITE this letter as a gentle warning to all drivers using the B3227.

The local Highways Team have taken away the 40mph signs in Norton Fitzwarren.

This now means that from Cross Keys, right through the village, the speed limit is 30 mph.

It is still noted by the Speed Watch team that most vehicles are still going well over the speed limit once they get to the crossing going out of the village.

The Highways team feels it is not advantageous to put up signs showing speed limits because the Highway Code makes it very clear that where street lighting is in place, the rules say the speed limit is 30 mph.

But to be honest, until the government of this country make it mandatory for all vehicles to carry a copy of the Highway Code and that drivers read it, then we all know that when possible and if they can get away with it drivers will break the speed limit because to most drivers in the Norton area their mobile phones are more important than watching the speedometer and watching for that old age pensioner trying to cross a very busy road.

It may interest Highways and Somerset County Council that the B3227 carries, on average, some 800 vehicles an hour and there are no useful crossing points apart from the one outside the Co-op, so most people crossing the road in Norton take their lives in their hands.

But as we are a small village and on a B-road, the powers that be feel they do not need to worry about the likes of us, we are as we are told, not important.

But I tend to look at thing this way, we pay our council tax and are entitled to some sort of help when it comes to keeping speed down in the village.

I would like to see on the new signs coming into the village temporary speed signs just to advise those drivers who have never read the Highway Code, or know that lamp posts mean 30 mph.

Even if they were put up for six months or a year, I feel this would help to make drivers realise that things have changed.

MIKE PALMER
Norton Fitzwarren