Egan: When rubber meets, then leaves the road — our love affair with speed bumps

By Kelly Egan, Ottawa Citizen, September 11, 2018

Kirkwood Avenue is undergoing more traffic “calming.” Out where rubber leaves the road, the nervous breakdown edges closer.

First the mid-west street was four lanes, then it was two-ish, with some parking and some bulb-outs. It once had no speed bumps, then it had some, then the “some” were adjusted, and now it has more. I know this because the first time I drove over this summer’s new speed bump — technically called a “hump” — the car nearly had a second sunroof.

We watched several dozen vehicles go over the new hump at the corner of Iona Street one afternoon. It was illuminating. A handful of cars actually came to a stop, like grandma was lying on the road, most slowed to about 20 km/h, and a few sailed right through at normal speed, probably for the first and last time. OC Transpo buses did an ungraceful dance, dump trucks shook to their steely bones. The top of the hump already looks slightly battered.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/egan-when-rubber-meets-then-leaves-the-road-our-love-affair-with-speed-bumps

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