Rolling Over DC Speed Bumps

An article in last week’s Washington Post has stuck with me all week, most likely because my feelings toward the subject have fluctuated between feeling like I wanted to shake some serious sense into people and feeling like I wanted to honk my horn right along with them.

Honk my horn? Yes, honk my horn.

In an attempt to protest Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's instillation of hundreds of speed humps in the District to thwart speeding drivers and to better control traffic, some angry residents have been encouraged by their community associations to honk their horns while driving over the humps as a united sign of disapproval.

According to the article, one resident of Cleveland Park is quoted as saying that “’No one would want to move to ‘Humpville’” because of how “ugly” it is. 

Ugly? How about how loud it is over in “Humpville” with all the people beeping?  Is this guy really concerned about 'ugly'?

When I initially read about some residents’ reactions to the speed bumps, I was dumbfounded.  As a parent to three young children, I felt as though I would eagerly embrace any county-implemented tool for controlling traffic, especially in front of my own home. 

I remember, as a child, being completely and totally embarrassed when my father shouted at the drivers who sped past our house.  Twenty years later, I have become my father, shamelessly jumping around or wildly waving my arms in the air to try to slow careless drivers speeding past my house, past my precious children playing in the yard.  I know these people can’t even hear my shouts over their car's blasting music or their beeping cell phones, and it infuriates me.  It worries me.  It makes me feel ill.

So I would embrace the idea of speed bumps on my street, in the name of my children's safety and for the safety of all of our neighbors.  Right?  Who wouldn’t?

But today, after driving into one of these gorgeous, tree-lined, well-established neighborhoods near the District with my family, my husband ran into one of these speed humps in our beloved mini-van.  I’m not even sure this particular speed hump qualifies as such; it was much closer to a speed boulder--a speed mountain, even.  It sent us all sailing, heads nearly hitting the ceiling, water bottles flying, teeth knocking, neck-breaking, bumper scraping, and everyone yelling.  And my husband was even driving under the speed limit.  It was nuts.  We were braced for the next few humps, and for our sake and Vanny’s, my husband took it much, much slower.

But for me, the hot-tempered gal I can be, I wanted to yell and scream and do something to protest these stinking humps that made us all crazy and disrupted our ride.  I wanted to. . . honk.  Really, really loudly.  With the rest of ‘em, I wanted to honk, honk, honk.

So after my short walk in the shoes of these angry, frustrated residents, I better understood their “speed bump blues”.  Sure, pedestrians are safer walking--and children are safer playing--on a street with these speed deterrents, and for that everyone must be thankful. 

But to live on this street and deal with these bumps every single day? That just might be a totally different story. 

This is an original DC Metro Moms post.

When Amy M. isn't outside, flagging down crazy drivers on her street, you can find her at teachmama, where she shares her sneaky ways of throwing in a little bit of learning into her children's every day.