What is the purpose of speed humps?

I have been visiting Dunfermline specifically and Scotland in general on a regular basis since 1978 to stay with my sister and brother-in-law, Vanessa & Geoff Melville, of Broomhead Drive. I have seen many changes to Dunfermline in the last 30 years, many good, some not so! I will let the reader be the judge of which is which.

I have seen vast housing estates built in what was once field and farmland, the new Queen Anne High School, the relocations of the bus station, the new Kingsgate complex, over-budget slowly-developing Carnegie Leisure Centre and the attempts to make central Dunfermline shopper and vehicle-friendly. However, I cannot understand the local council's desire to burden residents with speed humps; in combination with roundabouts, traffic lights, speed limit restrictions, on-road parking and potholed roads, making travel chaotic and often dangerous.

What is the purpose of the speed humps? To slow vehicles? Save lives on the roads?

If it is to slow drivers; 4 wheel drive vehicles and motor cyclists can both navigate the humps without losing an iota of speed.

From my experience it is only small vehicles that are slowed, often causing damage to wheels, tyres, rims and bodywork. If it is to save lives, I read the remarkable statistic in the Dunfermline Press during my stay that there had been only six fatalities in 2009 in the whole of the Kingdom of Fife with a population of more than 360,000 people. In comparison, in 2010, Western Australia's road toll was around 200 with a population of 2,500,000.

In my Scottish travels I have rarely seen other local government authorities create so many speed humps, so I suggest the local council removes or redesigns them to slow the vehicles it should be slowing, sweeps the winter grit still on roads and footpaths and effectively fills in potholes.

Andrew Pritchard, Katanning Travel Centre, 102 Clive Street, Katanning, Western Australia