A retired army major has created a fake traffic cop to deter speeding in his Wiltshire village – but claims he’s not a “grumpy old git”.
John Winskill, 53, purchased a mannequin on eBay for £50, dressed it up in a high-vis jacket and hung it up in the street in Rushall, near Devizes.
The former soldier-turned-strategic defence consultant said that he has stopped walking two of his children to school over fears they’ll be struck by a speeding vehicle.
“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 good to get fresh air, but it’s just too damn dangerous.”
Mr Winskill hopes that his stand-out dummy, named Wilson, will slow motorists travelling through the 30mph zone.
Lifelike Wilson stands at over 6ft 6in tall and wears a rubber human face mask and glasses – so realistic that people have stopped to ask him directions.
The father-of-four said that he doesn’t want people to think he’s “some grumpy old git who’s just miserable”.
Adding: “It’s not that at all… I quite like some of the humour about him.”
Mr Winskill, who served in the army for 15 years and was deployed in Bosnia in 1994, sourced the mannequin from a tailor’s shop in Hertfordshire.
He dressed it up in a high-visibility jacket, a white motorcycle helmet, his wife Lisa’s old motorcycle leathers and his old regimental mess boots.
The dummy was then hung on a telegraph pole on private land at the roadside in a bid to deter speedy motorists and prevent a tragedy.
Back in 2013, Mr Winskill was driving a Land Rover support vehicle at the Dakar Rally in Peru when a taxi collided with him head-on.
He and his passengers survived, but the driver and a passenger from the taxi – who were not wearing seatbelts – died of catastrophic injuries.
He said: “On the fourth night of the race, we were involved in a multi-fatal road traffic collision where a local taxi took out one of our vehicles, the one that I was driving.
“That impact has never, I don’t think ever will leave me, frankly. It finished me off for the best part of three and a half years.
“The death of children or the injury of children is probably the most traumatic thing that anybody, certainly a parent, could imagine and it’s just so unnecessary.
“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.
“So that’s why I’ve done it; it’s very much a deterrent.
“It’s designed to get people to think, to look down at their dashboard, glimpse their speed, and just have that moment thinking is that real?
“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. 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 the village is delivery drivers.
“The majority of van drivers, and it’s not just vans, but it is largely because there’s so many on the road.
“These guys have got so many deliveries to do in a day. 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 outwing mirrors and they just scare the living daylights out of us.”
He said that the local police inspector is aware and supports the idea – but warned that Wilson should not be placed close to any bends to avoid shunts due to drivers slamming on their brakes.
Wiltshire Police said that Wilson isn’t impersonating a police officer and doesn’t appear to be committing any offences.
