Recycled PVC speed bumps: the smart choice for a wear part
A speed bump is a consumable: even rubber ones must be replaced every 4-5 years in high-traffic areas. Here's why recycled PVC offers the best value for a wear part — and how to pick the right height for your car park.
People buy a speed bump the way they’d buy a wall: once, forever. That’s a mistake. A speed bump — call it a modular hump, a traffic calmer or a road ramp — is really a consumable. Every day it takes the weight and vibration of hundreds of vehicles, and no material withstands that indefinitely. Even a vulcanised rubber speed bump, reputed to be near-indestructible, must be replaced every 4 to 5 years in a high-traffic area: fixings work loose, reflective strips dull, modules crack or separate.
That leads to one question: why pay top price for a product you know you’ll have to replace? At EHS — Euro Highway Safety, we made a different call: offering recycled PVC speed bumps at the best value, produced by a specialised European manufacturer. Here’s why it’s the rational decision.
The speed bump: a consumable in disguise
Unlike a bollard or a barrier set on the perimeter, a speed bump is crushed directly by the wheels. Each pass transmits a load of several hundred kilos to its fixing points. On a company car park, a loading bay or an estate road, that’s thousands of loadings a week.
The weak points are always the same, whatever the material:
- The fixings: anchors and bolts are under constant strain; this is almost always where degradation starts.
- Retroreflection: cat’s eyes and yellow strips get dirty, scratched and lose visibility — a safety issue, especially at night.
- The material: cracks, corner tears, UV fading.
The upshot: even premium rubber speed bump makers recommend periodic replacement in intensive use. Real service life in a high-traffic zone is around 4 to 5 years. In other words, you’ll buy this product several times over the life of your car park. So the real question isn’t “which speed bump is the most bulletproof?” but “which has the best cost per year of use?”.
Materials compared: what you’re really paying for
| Material | Purchase price | Service life (high traffic) | Weight / install | Ecology |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vulcanised rubber | High | ~4-5 years | Heavy, robust install | Good (often recycled) |
| Premium (virgin) PVC | High | ~4-5 years | Medium | Low (virgin material) |
| Recycled PVC | Affordable | ~4-5 years | Light, quick install | Excellent |
| Metal / cast iron | Very high | Long | Very heavy, anchored | Low, noisy, hazardous |
| Asphalt (cast hump) | Heavy works | Long | Civil engineering | Not removable |
The read is simple. In high traffic, useful life is comparable between rubber, premium PVC and recycled PVC: in every case it’s the fixings and retroreflection that trigger replacement, not the intrinsic strength of the block. Paying a premium for rubber or virgin PVC therefore means overpaying for a longevity your usage won’t let you exploit.
Recycled PVC ticks every box: contained purchase price, equivalent performance over the real usage cycle, light and quick installation, and an environmental benefit neither virgin PVC nor metal can claim.
Why recycled PVC is the smart choice
An unbeatable cost per year of use
Since the product gets replaced anyway, what matters is whole-life cost. At equal useful life, an affordable recycled PVC speed bump costs you far less per year than a premium model — with no compromise on safety.
A second life for a solid material
Recycled PVC comes from production offcuts and end-of-life products, ground and remelted. It’s a robust plastic, UV-stable and impervious to water and hydrocarbons — exactly what you want from a road-traffic product. For an item meant to be replaced regularly, using recycled rather than virgin material has a major environmental impact: every tonne of recycled PVC saves a tonne of far more energy-intensive virgin material.
We detail this circular-economy logic in our article Recycled PVC: our eco-responsible approach, which explains how the same material also feeds our signalling cones.
Light to install, modular at will
A 50 mm straight element weighs 7.5 kg, an end half-round 2.5 kg: one person lays the strip without machinery. The modular system lets you adjust the length to the centimetre by clipping modules together, with half-round end caps at each end for a clean transition to the ground.
Our range of recycled PVC speed bumps
Our speed bumps come in three heights, alternating yellow and black, all fitted with reflective cat’s eyes and a locking system that fixes them firmly to each other and to the ground.
| Height | Straight element | End half-round | Recommended use |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 mm | 500 × 500 × 30 mm — 6.8 kg | 500 × 250 × 30 mm — 2.2 kg | Light calming, ~20 km/h |
| 50 mm | 400 × 500 × 50 mm — 7.5 kg | 400 × 200 × 50 mm — 2.5 kg | Car parks, loading bays, ~10 km/h |
| 70 mm | 500 × 500 × 72 mm — 12.7 kg | 500 × 250 × 72 mm — 4 kg | Strong calming, ~5 km/h |
The black elements are raw recycled PVC; the yellow elements are painted for maximum contrast. Find all dimensions, packing and the full data sheet on our data sheets page, or download the speed bumps data sheet (PDF) directly.
Which height to choose?
Height sets the comfortable crossing speed:
- 30 mm — to mark a transition and prompt caution without hindrance (driveways, shared pedestrian zones).
- 50 mm — the standard for car parks and private roads: slows effectively to around 10 km/h, comfortable for all vehicles, including vans.
- 70 mm — to impose a firm slowdown (~5 km/h) at a pedestrian exit, a school or a loading dock.
A European, sustainable build
Our speed bumps are produced by a specialised European manufacturer of road-safety equipment made from recycled rubber and PVC, built around sustainable development. That’s exactly the partner profile we look for: industrial experience that guarantees consistent recycled material and quality fixings — the critical point of any speed bump.
Car-park speed bumps: what the regulations say
A key point, often a source of confusion. Our modular PVC speed bumps are designed for private roads, car parks, industrial and logistics sites — that is, spaces not open to public traffic.
Two frameworks must be distinguished (under French law):
- Public roads (or private roads open to public traffic): hump- and table-type speed bumps are governed by Decree No. 94-447 of 27 May 1994 and the NF P 98-300 standard, which impose a maximum height of 10 cm and strict siting conditions. These are generally built in asphalt (civil engineering).
- Car parks and closed private roads: no text imposes NF P 98-300. You are free to install a modular PVC or rubber speed bump. It is still advisable to stay within the spirit of the standard (signage, visibility): in the event of an accident, the operator’s liability can be engaged if the device is deemed dangerous or poorly signed.
In short: on your car park, our recycled PVC speed bumps are the suitable, legal and proportionate solution. On a public road, an asphalt installation is required.
Installation and maintenance: making the product last
Since the fixings fail first, installation determines service life:
- Clean, sound ground: concrete or asphalt in good condition; avoid friable surfaces.
- Anchoring suited to the substrate, bolts re-tightened after a few weeks of service.
- Annual check of fixings and cleaning of cat’s eyes to preserve retroreflection.
- Modularity: after an impact, you replace a single module rather than the whole strip — another economic advantage of the clip system.
In short
A speed bump is a wear part: in a high-traffic area it gets replaced every 4-5 years, whatever the material. In that reality, paying a premium for rubber or virgin PVC makes no economic sense. Recycled PVC delivers the same useful life, an affordable price, light installation and a real environmental benefit — the best cost per year of use on the market.
Need speed bumps for your site?
EHS will advise you on the height and length suited to your car park or private road. Request a quote: a reply within 48 hours with a tailored proposal. You can also write to us at contact@ehsgroup.fr.
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