The dreaded "Humps for ¼ mile" sign. The regulations continue, rightly, to insist that all road hump schemes are properly signed in advance.

Speed cushions on Warwick Road. These can easily be negotiated at 30 mph by choosing the line carefully. Obviously if drivers do this the amount of attention they can devote to looking out for children and other hazards will be correspondingly reduced.

A close-up of the cushions in the previous picture.

A reversed sign leaves drivers unclear whether they are leaving or entering a 20 mph zone. Placing a hump so close to a junction can cause problems for motorcyclists.

In the absence of any signs to the contrary, the speed limit in a built-up area is 30 mph, right? Well, it isn't here on Derby Road, as it forms part of a 20 mph zone, where no repeater signs are needed if the limit is enforced by traffic calming measures. Yet here the humps are sufficiently far apart that exceeding 20 mph would not be difficult. How are drivers to know that is the limit, particularly when similar traffic-calmed roads are still 30?

A close-up of one of the standard humps installed within the 20 mph zone between Parsonage Road and Heaton Moor Road. These humps are better designed and less severe than many round-top humps installed in the early 1990s, and can be comfortably negotiated at around 20 mph.

A raised feature created at a gateway to the 20 mph zone on Tatton Road South. The fact that the council have put cones around it shows they recognised the potential danger, particularly as it is on the side of the road away from the street lights.

Another view of this raised feature. Here, in bright sunlight, it is obscured by shadow and not at all obvious. There's only one 30 mph sign (with 20 mph on the other side), even though government regulations require two. The cones have gone but nothing has been done to make the feature more visible.

This chicane on Alexandra Road was installed in the early 1990s, but has now had a speed cushion added in the middle of it. The road surface is already breaking up at either side of the cushion.

More triple speed cushions on Alexandra Road.

A raised platform at a junction on Moorside Road, one of the main roads through the area, which retains a 30 mph limit. The red tarmac on the ramps was added several months after the platform was installed - perhaps because they weren't clearly visible and were causing accidents? Magnificent clouds, incidentally.

Sutton Road is now part of the 20 mph zone mentioned above. But there should be a 20 mph sign on both sides of the road, and traffic calming measures are conspicuous by their absence here. Cobbles do not count as "traffic calming", although representatives of Stockport MBC have apparently claimed that they do.

Here's another example on Fullerton Road - 20 mph zone signs (there are in fact the correct pair, although one is out of shot), but not a road hump or repeater in sight.

In another part of Heaton Moor, Stockport Council have decided to impose a 20 mph limit without any humps, but with conventional 20 mph terminal signs as shown in this picture.

A repeater within the 20 mph limit. Obviously this is much less stressful for drivers than humps, but it is questionable what effect it has on actual speeds. On roads such as this few drivers would do above the mid-20s anyway.