THE little village of Newland, near Coleford whose narrow streets are lined with ancient buildings, has found growing 'rat-run' traffic unbearable.
And that was before last month's A466 landslip which is daily sending another torrent of speeding vehicles along the route to join commuters between the Forest and Monmouth.
Now the villagers are crying foul and are demanding urgent action in addition to the 30mph limit through the settlement "which everyone ignores".
They have formed an action group and would like to see road-narrowing traffic calming measures which would make the route less attractive to the commuters who are trying to avoid the congestion of Coleford town centre.
"The streets are too narrow for the cars and lorries that shoot through, getting up speed for the hill in one direction and not slowing because they can see right through to the no-limit sign in the other," said spokesman Sue Rahder.
Now they even have to cope with Monmouth-Chepstow re-routed buses which ironically cannot pick up village people because it is not an authorised stop.
"We've had road rage incidents, one of them between a lorry driver and a car driver who could not pass. It ended in a fist fight with bloody noses," said Mrs Rahder.
People were losing their tempers with local car owners opening their doors to load up and horse riders were also being threatened, while there were parts of the village with no path where people had to walk in the road.
She says the group has the backing of all but two village households. Police and the highways authority backed their fight and had praised their solutions and the community's determination to get things done.
Now, Mrs Rahder says, they will be maintaining pressure – it was simply not an alternative to wait for a serious accident to start things rolling.