Just a little something I’ve been thinking about…
ok… here goes…
If anything those anoying things should be called speedHUMPS, seemed as though a bump goes down and a hump goes up…
Just thought I should bring this to everyones attention 
bump? down? nah, that’s a divot or ditch.
Are you asking why they exist? To make my head hit the roof of course.
Oh, and welcome to the SDMB. Pull up a pie and bring chair. (or something) 
A few years ago I heard that a company (either German or Swiss. Or maybe Swedish) came up with collapsable speed bumps. IIRC, the hump is made out of a plastic skin covering springs. If you go over it slowly, the springs compress and it’s a pretty uneventful event. If you hit it fast, they don’t and it feels like hitting the normal asphalt kind. A damn good idea, at least in theory.
A few weeks ago, a sign appeared near the entrance to the driveway of the building where I work. “Coming soon to this neighborhood: Traffic Calming”. We were all wondering what the heck that meant.
Now there’s a “Speed Hump” there, with signs on both sides, clearly identifying what it is - in case maybe you thought it was a bunch of misplaced asphalt.
Where I live, they have “raised intersections.” All those are good for is during a high-speed police chase, the cars will become airborne, just like on TV. Other than that, they’re just useless.
That just made me remember speed bumps in Canada. They come and put a ridge of asphalt across the road so you’ll slow down before you hit it, and every winter, the snow plows remove them along with the snow. They’re not an integral part of the road, they’re just some extra asphalt sitting on top. What a waste…
Obviously, if there were no speed bumps, everybody would floor it from corner to corner. At least I think that’s what the rationale is. Or maybe the roads departments just like to be irksome.
Soothing music, fluffy carpeted roads.
they exist to
[ul]
[li]create that awful scraping sound as the bottom of my car gets caught on them[/li][li]to rip apart my exhaust system so many times I got tired of my mechanics “why I hate headers” speech and had the headers removed[/li][li] and the really high ones exist to rip of my front spoiler[/li][/ul]
don’t even get me started on steep driveways. 
I intentionally go over them as fast as I can, and go slow the rest of the time. It’s the act of someone trying to baby me that pisses me off.
I don’t like speed bumps but I don’t blame them I blame dickwad drivers that make them necesary.
Huh. You think the “speed humps” in the U.S. are bad, try driving in some of the Caribbean islands. Just got back from the BVI a few weeks ago. They have speed bumps in Tortola that will for sure make you slow down. I guarantee no one goes over them at a high speed more than once. Locals call them “sleeping policemen.” The bumps are high, and do not rise gradually. Take them too fast and you will at the very least slam your head on the ceiling. You could easily leave behind car parts you really wanted to stay attached to the vehicle.
They exist to force people to drive slowly where not to do so would endanger the local residents. Nobody complains.
There used to be a couple just down the street from me who ran a small day-care facility in their home. People leaving there would come tearing past my house having gotten up to over 40 mph in a half a block, and still accelerating. All so they could save a fraction of a nanosecond before they came to a screeching halt at the stop sign. Wish we’d had a speed bump there.
Reading MLS’ post about wishing there was a speed bump on a residential street made me remember a traffic detour through a neighborhood a couple of years ago. Idiot drivers went tearing though this neighborhood so they could hurry up and be the 65th car in the lineup at the corner. After awhile, at the midpoint of this street, somebody made a sign in HUGE letters so you couldn’t possibly miss it:
SLOW DOWN! YOU HIT MY KID, I PROMISE YOU’LL WISH YOU WERE DEAD.
They’ve added a load of “traffic calming” measures to a road that was perfectly safe making it a death trap, near my house. A local councillor lives along that road.
The cocks.
Ah, speed bumps. They punish the innocent right along with the guilty.
In my opinion, any road that has speedbumps shouldn’t have speed limits. They’ve already assumed your guilt, and punished you. You should be allowed to go ahead and break that law without threat of further punishment. (An engineer friend of my assures me that for a stiffly-sprung car, speeding up actually smoothes the ride over a given bump.)
Yet another case of Americans who hate the concepts behind America.
Or, to see it the other way, speedbumps ensure that no-one speeds down high-risk streets. If you weren’t speeding in the first place, this isn’t a problem. If you want to speed, you can’t. You have to go slow. In an area where it’s important that you go slow. You personally may be trusted to do no more that 29 in a 30 mph area, but many others can’t. Is your personal offence at this being enforced more important than measures that ensure others have to be as safety-conscious as you are?
In my area, speedbumps correspond with roads where children cross. I appreciate the fact that the layout of the road means that drivers have to slow down. If it weren’t laid out that way, many drivers wouldn’t. It would be more dangerous.
Slow down for speedhumps - they’re not put there just to piss you off.
The fire brigades really hate them
I hate to break this to you, but as I mentioned earlier this is far from a solely American thing. I don’t know how common they are in Europe and other places, but they are ubiquitous in the Caribbean islands.
Can you spell p-a-r-a-n-o-i-d?
On my street, there’s about a quarter mile between stop signs and cars used to speed down it, so people complained and they put in speedbumps. Now people speed, screech to a halt to over the bump, start speeding again… or they weave around so one tire can go through the gutter where there is no bump.
I think even the “SLOW DOWN! YOU HIT MY KID, I PROMISE YOU’LL WISH YOU WERE DEAD” sign would be more effective
In India, we call them ‘speed breakers’. Very apt name, that. All to those complaining about having 'em in your neighbourhood streets - come and drive on some of our highways!
Almost a decade after they started selling good (read: non-1950s vintage) cars in this country, we finally have roads on which we can actually drive these cars at decent speeds. Except for the asshats in the road works department.
Middle of a frickin’ high-speed HIGHWAY, a hump about 6 inches tall!! You literally have to brake from 120 km/h to 15km/h. And they haven’t even marked it! Worst of all, it serves no purpose!! And there are so many of them…
The road works department does have standards that regulate the size/shape of these speed breakers, but no one enforces 'em. So we have the weird situation where sometimes we slow down to 15km/h, only to glide smoothly over on. And then fly a few metres (after a jarring headbanging session with the roof of the car) because we figured the next one was also the same kind, even if it was unmarked!
Very irritating.
It might not be a problem for you, but certain speed humps are a problem at any speed, as far as I’m concerned. I’ll rephrase myself. The highway department has already assumed I (and everyone else that will drive on that road) is a speeder.
Not that it matters to the discussion, but I’m a more conscientious driver than anyone I’ve ever seen drive, and my speed control is excellent.
MLS, yes, I’m paranoid. Are you with us or with them? :dubious: