At Odds Over Speed Bumps.

[MedicPrincess]

I need input from all you wise, insightful people.

My mother and I are at odds over speed bumps. She has started a campaign in her neighborhood to get multiple speed bumps installed by the county. It involves a petition, some education, studies of the traffic pattern ect. She is extremely upset that I have chosen not to support her in this latest tangent of hers.

My reasons for doing so are simple:

1. The road she lives on is a circle. Its not that long, thus the need for the requested 8 speed bumps is excessive. She wants one at each turn (its a circle, one entrance in and out of the neighborhood), and one in between each of those. So essentially the max distance between speed bumps is about 200 feet, with about 100 feet being the average.

2. There are other ways to control traffic in an already crowded area. Another stop sign, enforced no parking on one side of the street, extra patrols from the SO (which they have already started), an actual speed limit sign posted (again, something that is on its way) and education.

3. Speed bumps only serve to slow someone down in order to get over the hump, then they speed right back up only to stop quickly to get over the next hump and so forth.

4. The neighborhood is already crowded to the point that rescue vehicles have not been able to make it to the back of the neighborhood for med calls, add speed bumps to the response times and someone just might die waiting.

And the last one is the one that just makes her even more mad.

So tell me, how much do those humps slow y'all down in the ambulances? I know when I was vol as a FF, we would have to come practically to a crawl in order to get over them safely in some of the neighborhoods.

How do they affect you in the back with a patient? Do they cause much of a delay in getting to the patient and then transporting.

What are some other good options to slowing people down without putting the additional hardship on our EMS providers?

 

[Chimpie]

Wow.... 8 does sound excessive. The ones here in our apartment complex are huge and have already cost me one alignment, getting ready for another.

Ambulances and Engines come through here regularly, lights a'flashin. I haven't figured out why they come here so frequently but they do. Yes, they do crawl over them.

There is a neat thing I've seen here in Sarasota. It's hard to explain but it's like a little curve in the road that slows down traffic a little. I'll try to take a picture this weekend.

Chimp

 

[Stevo]

What are some other good options to slowing people down without putting the additional hardship on our EMS providers?

slowing the public flow usually doesn't take emergency responders into consideration Princess

~S~

 

[Jon]

One neighborhood had a 25mph speed limit. It is a nice straight trecher that goes around behind a large corp. center.... big detour.

The township installed 4 "speed humps" So, for the first month or 2, rather than being able to rip down the street at 40+ mph, we crawled along, laying on the airhorn .

Also, the day the township installed them, they, um, forgot to mention it to the FD, and our 2 carrer guys were going for a fire alarm in our attack engine (luckly noone was in the back). They hit the first bump, went airborne, broke a halligan out of it's bracket, and, if they hadn't been belted in, they would have gone through the roof. :angry:

speed bumps work, but if EMS/FD already has a hard time getting to the back of the neighborhood, then THAT is a problem.


My township is continuing to be stupid, they now want to put a Stop Sign at the end of my street. I live in a neighborhood that looks a little like a "figure 8." I love on the center street with 10 other famlies. We all go to the corner, slow down, and look for traffic. if there is traffic, we stop, otherwise we go through. If we get a stopsign, we will continue to do the same thing. My mother says "it devaluates a stop sign."

Jon

 

[CaptainPanic]

I'll tell ya whats happened in my 'hood.

We have a HUGE back straight stretch that was often used as a detour from the main highway, and mind you this is a neighborhood with LOTS and LOTS of children living in it and often playing near or in the street. They installed 2 speed bumps back in '96 roughly 200 yds apart, and mind you this is redneckville where everyone and their puppy dawg has got an off-road vehicle, the high schoolboys would go over these speed bumps at 40+ mph, go airborne, and do it again. Then the road needed repaving in 2002, ya know what they did? They paved over the speed bumps and now you can barely tell there is one. they made the road narrower, installed speed limit signs and the police cheif now lives in that same neighborhood, and there are now stop signs at the intersections of J and K street.

You could do what the rednecks do- install an all new suspension and the best shocks money can buy, get a lift and go at them bumps at 40+ mph. LOL (j/k)

But 8 speed bumps is excessive, I can guarantee you alot of people would be going in for realignments (which is good for the auto parts store, and the mechanic). Why not install stop signs and children at play signs (along with a posted speedlimit of 15 mph). And you are very correct people need to start getting educated about the whole situation. You need to slow down the yahoos speeding through there, not the EMS and FD who are trying to save a persons life.

-CP