At 6 feet 6 inches tall, a super lifelike mannequin with a fake speed radar gun has been slowing down drivers on a road in southwest England.
Fifty-three-year-old retired army major John Winskill purchased a dummy that he calls “Wilson” from eBay for $64 and dressed it up in a high-visibility jacket, a realistic rubber face mask, glasses, a white motorcycle helmet, his wife’s old motorcycle leathers, and his old regimental mess boots before erecting it on the pavement.
The strategic defense consultant came up with this idea after he stopped walking two of his children to school due to safety concerns related to speeding drivers.
“We had to take our life in our hands every morning walking down that footpath—so now we don’t, we don’t walk anymore,” he said. “The whole point of walking to school is that it’s good for the health, and [it’s] good to get fresh air, but it’s just too ... dangerous.”
The father-of-four, who served in the army for 15 years and was deployed to Bosnia in 1994, bought the mannequin from a tailor’s shop in Hertfordshire.
The dummy was then hung on a telegraph pole on private land at the roadside in a bid to slow down impatient motorists and prevent a tragedy.
According to Mr. Winskill, it’s working. People passing through the 30mph zone have begun to slow down. In fact, its appearance is so realistic that people have even stopped to ask it questions.
A decade ago, Mr. Winskill, while working as a logistics expert for a British team in the Dakar Rally in Peru, was in a Land Rover support vehicle that collided with a taxi head-on.
He and the other passengers survived, however, the driver and a passenger in the taxi—who weren’t wearing seatbelts—died of catastrophic injuries.
“That impact has never, [and] I don’t think ever will leave me, frankly,” Mr. Winskill said.
Mr. Winskill, who suffered for three and a half years following the tragedy, believes the death or injury of children is one of the most traumatic things a parent can go through.
“I know people are busy, people have got to get places, but if you’re five minutes later than you were going to be, is it actually going to make a difference? No,” Mr. Winskill said.
His dummy is designed to get people to think, to look down at their dashboard, adjust their speed, and pause to think about their actions.
“We all do it as road users. I do it, as soon as I see somebody in high-vis yellow, it doesn’t matter what they’re doing, you slow down because you’re not quite sure,” he said. “So I thought, ‘Well, I’ll just extrapolate that into the village,' and it works.”
Mr. Winskill believes that one of the biggest dangers in a village are its delivery drivers.
“These guys have got so many deliveries to do in a day,” he said. “They’re under permanent time pressure—they’re always looking for an address.”
They do come really fast along the road, and they’ve big sticky-out wing mirrors, and they just scare the living daylights out of us.”
As for Wilson the dummy, Mr. Winskill said the local police inspector is aware and supports the idea, but has warned him that Wilson shouldn’t be placed close to any bends so that it doesn’t cause drivers to slam on their brakes.
Wiltshire Police said Wilson isn’t impersonating a police officer and doesn’t appear to be committing any offenses.
