Road safety activists and some states are pushing to depart from a longstanding rule that sets speed limits in the United States based largely on how fast drivers actually travel.
Then there’s those spots where the speed limit is 25mph, but they throw a few “safety humps” in there, and you have to slow down below 10mph or you’ll throw out at axle. First time visitors always hit too hard, because they’re traveling at the speed limit, and the humps look gentle. Wonder what the city will do when someone loses control and hits a pedestrian while doing nothing wrong.
Properly designed speed tables should be able to be safety traversed at speed. Speed bumps force you to slow down to under the speed limit, sometimes far under, in order to traverse safely. That said, I’ve seen many many many more examples of things like: speed bumps with signs for speed tables, poorly designed humps that are neither speed bumps nor speed table, poorly designed speed bumps that are dangerous at practically any speed, or speed bumps without proper warning signs or paint to warn drivers, speed bumps in parking lots that just encourage people to drive wrecklessly around them. The absolute worst are those bolt-on DIY atrocities. Really, I’ve only ever seen properly designed speed tables in the richest of neighborhoods. All the other HOAs and towns seem to think they can get away with just hiring an asphalt guy or sending out a road maintenance crew to throw a speed bump and some paint down without any kind of survey, design, or traffic study.
Then there’s those spots where the speed limit is 25mph, but they throw a few “safety humps” in there, and you have to slow down below 10mph or you’ll throw out at axle. First time visitors always hit too hard, because they’re traveling at the speed limit, and the humps look gentle. Wonder what the city will do when someone loses control and hits a pedestrian while doing nothing wrong.
Properly designed speed tables should be able to be safety traversed at speed. Speed bumps force you to slow down to under the speed limit, sometimes far under, in order to traverse safely. That said, I’ve seen many many many more examples of things like: speed bumps with signs for speed tables, poorly designed humps that are neither speed bumps nor speed table, poorly designed speed bumps that are dangerous at practically any speed, or speed bumps without proper warning signs or paint to warn drivers, speed bumps in parking lots that just encourage people to drive wrecklessly around them. The absolute worst are those bolt-on DIY atrocities. Really, I’ve only ever seen properly designed speed tables in the richest of neighborhoods. All the other HOAs and towns seem to think they can get away with just hiring an asphalt guy or sending out a road maintenance crew to throw a speed bump and some paint down without any kind of survey, design, or traffic study.