no garlic please

As a campaign is under way to lower speed limits to 20mph in urban areas in the UK, Ted Dewan is using his Oxford residential street as a test laboratory for the Roadwitch project, a series of creative ways to reduce traffic speed.

His "DIY traffic-calming happenings" have so far included an 11-feet high rabbit, a big bed (for a sleeping policeman), a fake crash scene for Halloween, fake corpses spread on crossings, and the setting up of a living room in the middle of the road.

"There's an element of fun and mischief, but underneath is the ambition to encourage people to re-examine how roads are used," says Mr Dewan. "With the living room, it was the most direct way of saying 'We live here. This is our living space.'"

Initially the street was legally closed, to allow the setting up of the outdoor living room, then it was then re-arranged to allow traffic to pass through, but Mr Dewan says the reactions of motorists showed how motorists expect nothing to stand in their way.

"A driver of a 4×4 didn't so much disapprove - he was too crazed and violent for that. He seemed to be made psychotic by the idea that roads could exist for anything other than him to drive on," he says. This motorist deliberately drove into pieces of the living room furniture and then called the council to demand that they shift whatever was left lying in the road.

There were gender differences too. Male drivers didn't seem to like the idea of driving across the carpet. But female drivers were less sympathetic and more aggressive, with a stronger "get out of my way attitude".