The other day I happened to drive along the road in front of the governor’s mansion and was stunned to find that two plastic-like speed bumps had been more or less nailed into the street nearby to slow drivers down. Presumably, that’s to keep some nut from running down Gov. Rell.
Down the street only a little further is one of those speed readers that are normally on a trailer that the cops have put somewhere to let drivers know how fast they’re flying by — only this one is permanently attached to a road sign.
I’ve never seen anything like it. But, of course, Gov. Rell has a little more political pull than the rest of us.
Even so, the setup got me thinking. If this is good enough for the governor, how come it’s not good enough for my kids? or your kids? or, God forbid, even you? or me?
I’ve always heard that speed bumps are too costly, mostly because they supposedly interfere with snow plows. Yet somehow they’re coping with that problem to lend the governor a hand. So can’t they do it anywhere else?
I’m all for installing speed bumps on residential streets all over town. Slowing these crazy drivers down is best done by creating a risk that they’ll rip their cars and trucks to pieces if they fail to obey the speed limits. Speed bumps work.
Now I know that putting in thousands of speed bumps all over town would cost a ton of money so I’m not saying we should do this all at once. But let’s get cracking. Surely we can do a couple of dozen blocks a year at a minimum. Call it a test if that makes it easier. Let’s see how it goes. They can start with my street.
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