RESIDENTS in a North Oxford street have set up a dummy speeding camera as their latest weapon in an ongoing battle with speeding motorists.

Ted Dewan, 45, of Beech Croft Road, Summertown, and his neighbour Ed Pentz, made the fake speed camera from an old tea-chest and yoghurt lids and used white tape to make lines on the road.

They put the camera up on Sunday, June 18, as part of a long-running campaign for 20mph speed restrictions in residential areas across the city.

People on the street have been finding their own ingenious ways of traffic calming for the past four years by putting up creative art works to attract passing motorists' attention and consequently slow them down.

They have christened the new kind of art 'roadwitches' and, according to Mr Dewan, a children's author, they have started a global phenomenon with cities around the world copying their technique.

Previously, they have created a full-size living room with carpets and furniture in the middle of the street, pictured below left. They have also staged fake crashes, involving smoke, flashing lights and police tape, To go along with the dummy camera, on Sunday residents strung up odd socks on a washing line across the road.

Mr Dewan said: "It's gentle, mischievous, family-style civil disobedience. It's part of reclaiming our streets for the people that live on them, rather than cars roaring up and down them.

"What could be more boring than a road safety campaign? Instead of cheesing motorists off, this charms them into slowing down. The cabbies love the fake speed camera, they slow down and give us the thumbs up.

"And it brings the community together. Everyone, especially the kids like getting involved in making roadwitches."

Beech Croft Road residents have been campaigning for traffic calming on the street for about ten years, ever since a child was injured in a car accident. Mr Dewan, who lives with his seven-year-old daughter Pandora and partner Helen Cooper, said: "We don't get lots and lots of traffic but because the road is quite straight the cars we do get rip down the street very fast. We have wanted traffic calming for a long time but we have been told there haven't been enough injuries or accidents, so we have to do our own traffic calming."

Lord Mayor of Oxford, Jim Campbell, attended a street party in Beech Croft Road organised by residents and the Oxford Pedestrians' Association. Scores of children went on a mass ride down the street for the 'life begins at 20' campaign to get a 20mph restriction on Beech Croft Road and the rest of the city.

On Sunday, people on the street also made mini-museums of their front gardens by putting their curios outside their houses.