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A speedup of opposition to speed bumps

Thursday, June 6, 2002

By JESSICA WEHRMAN, Scripps Howard News Service

John Gidusko says speed bumps are unwanted guests in his neighborhood.

Roughly 10 years ago, he said, they cropped up suddenly, much like a case of adolescent acne, after community officials determined there was a traffic problem in his Seminole County, Fla., neighborhood. Since then, he said, they have been a "nuisance."

"In a democracy you punish the guilty," he grouses. "Speed bumps punish everyone."

While they seem innocuous enough, the risen asphalt strips in the middle of the street either evoke love or hate.

Since the 1990s, when communities concerned with traffic began increasingly to opt for "speed humps," or "speed tables" to slow traffic, opponents have voiced their opinions as loudly as car horns. A Web search turns up a hodgepodge of organizations — usually made of a handful of people — who hate the things: Americans Against Traffic Calming, Association Against Speedbumps, Citizens Against Speed Bumps.

While some launch protest Web sites and others distribute fliers or circulate petitions, some express their disdain in a less organized fashion: honking their horns every time they go over a speed bump.

Rick Hall, an Austin, Texas, man with a spinal disability, said the so-called "traffic calming" devices are more than a nuisance: they can cause physical agony.

Every speed hump or bump he goes over is jarring, causing his vehicle to rock and spurring back pain, he said. He launched a Web site to protest them: http://www.io.com/(tilde)bumper/ada.htm.

Despite his protests, he hears a continuing theme from proponents: they make the streets safer for children.

"They put them in for political reasons — to quell people's fears," he said. "But what happens is they move traffic over to someone else's street where another child lives."

A 1998 study at the University of California-Berkeley found that the protests have existed from the beginning. In Oakland, Calif., a woman laid down in the street to prevent a speed hump from being installed, and in Sacramento, a woman got a doctor's note saying increased carbon monoxide emissions from slowed speeds on her street would increase her dementia.

The study also found dramatic support as well: A New Jersey man created a homemade barrier by dumping a truckload of dirt across an intersection. Berkeley residents created a human barrier across a street until the City Council agreed to their demands.

Those in favor of speed bumps say they keep pedestrians and children safe in neighborhoods where cars zip through at more than 20 mph above the speed limits.

"Nothing works better, period," said John Kaehny, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, a New York City traffic-safety watchdog group.

Kaehny said speed bumps can slow traffic to 10 mph, 25 mph or even 45 mph. Many of the disagreements over the devices, he said, are really disagreements about how much they should slow things down.

"They're a tool," he said. "And like any tool they can be used appropriately or misused."

Eric Skrum, a spokesman for the National Motorists Association, a 7,000-member motorists lobbying organization in Wisconsin, said speed bumps and humps cut down on emergency response time.

"When time really does count, you're now slowing down the people trying to help," he said.

Concerned about slowing emergency vehicles, the city of Alexandria, Va., is putting up speed tables with wheel ruts carved into them. The ruts are spaced for emergency vehicles, and make it easier for those vehicles to easily and quickly travel through, said Bob Garbacz, division chief for the Transportation Division of the city of Alexandria.

The city uses speed tables. On one city street, traffic was slowed from an average of 40 mph to 20 mph.

"Some people can't stand them and some really love them," Garbacz said.

In Boulder, Colo., the issue became heated enough that citizens were asked to vote on whether to ban speed humps, raised crosswalks and traffic circles in November 2000. Voters opted to keep them.

"(Speed humps) are extremely popular with community groups and with elected officials and traffic safety promoters," Kaehny said. "They're far less popular with motorists in a hurry."

Gidusko, a retired Navy man, said he's in no hurry.

"I won't say I never exceeded the speed limit, but at 6 a.m., when no one is in sight ...I might do 5 miles over the speed limit," he said.

Three kinds of 'traffic calming' devices

Glossary of "traffic calming" devices:

n Speed bumps: Used in parking lots and roads, these severe, sudden mounds spur drivers to come to a near stop before proceeding on.

n Speed humps: More subtle than speed bumps, these rounded rises on the street limit speed, but allow motorists to drive at the speed limit on city streets.

n Speed tables: Like speed humps, but with a flat top.

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