There are lots of ways to calm traffic in a small village.  Speed bumps, chicanes, permanent speed cameras, even vigilantes (I almost became one of those when one idiot tore through the lane that my children and cats cross, driving at 60 mph).  Speed has become more of a problem since sat-nav and if the main road to the east of Marlborough starts to stack up people start to find their ways through the narrow lanes to the west where Lockeridge is located.  Now expensive traffic measures require cost justification based on some crazy mathematics.  Normally to get the investment to protect a child form death, it is first necessary for a child to die for the village to get enough points.  Its the sort of extortion racket normally run by dragons demanding virgins on an annual basis.  Either way the local community found a more novel way (casting lots having been rejected), namely organising a competition to create traffic calming scarecrows.  I think is is a great idea, and a rural one of adaptive innovation; from crows to cars only requires one consonant to be lost a verb to be changed.

Competition over, the scare-cars are now located all over the village.  My daughter almost went off the road when she saw the first coming in late at night, but as I told her you need to expect the unexpected!  Full set below, great model, great example and few more scared rat runners will prevent the need to resort to another country practice, namely the construction of a wickerman to deal with unwelcome intruders.  Some more examples below and the full photo stream here (if you click on the Flickr link on the main blog you will see the full photo stream with some other pictures of houses in the village (I am building material for WIkipedia).