A lot of people I’ve seen try to avoid speed bumps whenever possible, but when its unavoidable, I see them try to go over it with one side of the car only. I’ve always thought that was weird, as the car gets shaken up either way. I always go over it with both sides. I figure that even if it was slightly more damaging to the car going over it with both wheels, that will be mitigated by the dispersing the shock evenly throughout the car and if one side of the car is damaged, that will prematurely affect the other side.
So which is it? Is it more damaging to the car to go over a speed bump with both sides or one side?
I think the main thing is to go over slowly, in which case it doesn’t really matter. If you go over fast, I guess you might have less repair work to do if you go over just one side, but I am not sure.
I find my car shakes less if I go over on just one side. Since only one side goes up, the car’s center of gravity goes up half as much, so there’s half as much energy to dissipate when it comes back down. I don’t think damage comes into it at all unless you’re bottoming out.
In order of increasing shakiness:
one side only
both sides at the same time
both sides, but at an angle so one side goes down when the other side goes up.
My unproven strategy is to chose 1 side and specifically the passenger side of the car.
My logic is that the biggest impact is on the suspension system and by choosing the passenger side to take the brunt of the shock I’m minimizing the effect on the suspension from the added weight of the driver.
Since almost all of my driving is either alone or with a passenger that is lighter than me I’m assuming that I’m stressing the part of the suspension that encounters the least resistance.
The only ones I know of in my town are around the public schools, and with three kids under age ten (plus a thirteen year old), I would rather they stay in place!
I always honk when I maneuver over speed humps because I know that the bitchy neighbor that lives on that road requested to have it installed and I hope to disrupt whatever they’re doing. It makes me feel nice.
I’ve found that I can sail right over the bumps at 35MPH, in my half-ton pickup. There is virtually no bump, just the sound of the suspension absorbing the entire shock.
Any less speed, or if driving my Buick, will cause you to nearly hit the ceiling.
Both wheels and usually maintain my speed unless it’s a super speedbump. I find that I have less rattle/movement by maintaining my speed than by slowing down.
Hell know. If they want the speed limit at 5 mph, but up a damn sign that says so. If people violate it, give them a ticket. Don’t impede traffic with a bump designed to cause disruption.
I’ve found that going 20-25 mph over a speedbump makes them virtually unnoticable. Speed bumps do NOTconstitute a legal speed limit by themselves, though they do have much the same effect as a stop sign (due to most drivers behavior towards them).
A speed bump is a short (1-2 feet long, at most) bump, similar to what you’d encounter on washboard dirt road. A speed hump is several feet long (approximately the wheelbase of the average car) and designed so that your front and back wheels are never moving in the same vertical direction while you’re crossing it.
Speed humps are jarring at any speed and get more jarring the faster you go. The only way to make these less jarring is to drive a vehicle with a longer wheelbase than the hump.
I’ve always felt that slowing down for speed bumps is a sign of weakness.
Berkeley has installed speed humps, which are longer and lower, and specifically designed to be navigable at the speed limit. Any faster, and it’s a bit more exciting.
There’s one appartment complex in this area (that I unfortunately have to go to every once in a while) that has speedbumps from hell. You have to slow to about 1 to 2 mph to go over them. And they don’t have gaps to let you go over with only one wheel, not that I would do that. I hate going to that place.
I figured it was easier on the suspension to go over speedbumps with both wheels. That way there’s only the front-back displacement that the suspension has to deal with rather than both front-back and left-right.