* pet owners (even cats aside, some dogs often escape the house),

* younger kids who don't have the same safety awareness and often just run off,

* older kids who parents would normally trust to cycle to their friends house.

Barriers also create parking problems:

* how do barriers work when you have houses with driveways?

* and if don't have driveways then how do you park on the street now that you've made it harder to get on and off the pavement?

Barriers legitimise speeding down the road which puts cars parks on the street at greater risk of getting damaged (I've seen this happen far to often along rat runs).

Plus there is also the noise polution problem of living next to a rat run. In fact it's worse than along main roads because you end up with car engines revving as they maneuver around parked cars at speed rather than the constant steady drone of cars going past. You have no idea how annoying this is during the summer when you want windows open and the cars are louder than your own bloody TV!

People who move into a main road do so knowingly and are willing to live with the drawbacks it brings. Though often those kind of houses have longer front gardens so the house is set further back from the road and/or hedges or other noise cancelling greenery (sometimes - not always though). But if you move onto a quieter street you do so because you want a safer and quieter environment. Which is why residents protest against their streets being turned into through-roads