A bumpy ride: Torque Talk

Speedbumps. Believe it or not, they do come in handy, providing the context is relatively sound. Ben Selby reports.

For example, if you have a quiet and long suburban street and there has been a history of excessive speed by some lead-footed motorists down it, no doubt a handful of evenly spaced speed humps will act as solid deterrent.

However, when the powers that be decide to build raised platforms in the middle of busy intersections and main thoroughfares, this opens a completely different can of worms. It is said these raised platforms have been designed to deter speeding motorists, and for people to tip toe carefully through said intersections, but what we have more than anything else is increased congestion on main roads during peak traffic times and cars suffering from unnecessary extra wear and tear on suspension and wheels.

Plus, all it would take is for someone to come to a stop on the edge of such a raised platform and accidentally roll back into the car behind. Imagine if it was a truck carrying long planks of
two-by-fours.

In my view, raised platforms take the speed hump concept to new levels of extreme, yet still they keep appearing.