Just when you think you have seen it all from the outgoing city commissioners and mayor, along comes a small unobtrusive spending motion that allocates more than $115,000 on 50 speed humps.The problem with this type of spending is that it wastes taxpayers money. Only one bidder had been chosen to bid on this project.  That fact is the city is wasting our money. They could have made temporary asphalt speed humps that would have cost only $500 per hump. That means for $25,000 the city could have had all the humping it wanted.

This is indicative of the wasteful spending that goes on in the city.  The $90,000 that they are spending could have gone to hiring additional police officers.  At the same meeting, the city commission also decided to spend $24,500 for a space study for the Coral Springs Center for the Arts. Another waste of taxpayers money. The city plans to spend a total of $1,200,000 on the humps.

WON'T SPEED BUMPS SLOW TRAFFIC ON OUR STREET?

As one municipality puts it. "The speed bump is an increased hazard to the unwary... a challenge to the daredevil... a disruption to the movement of emergency vehicles... and the cause of an undesirable increase in noise"

The city is responsible for designing, building and maintaining safe roadways. This means the provision of a smooth traveled way, void of obstacles to traffic. Allowing  speed humps on our streets could lead to accidents, damaged cars, neck injuries.  This is a liability to the city and can only result in lawsuits.

Courts have held public agencies liable for personal injuries resulting from faulty design. Speed humps do have the potential for personal liability suits and in a state that prides itself on 'slip and fall' attorneys, we should completely eliminate them from our streets. As a result of this, other cities in the United States have rejected the notion of using these devices. 

The real facts are that they do not work to slow the traffic down. According to one municipality, " Tests of various experimental designs have demonstrated the physical inability of a speed bump to successfully control all types of passenger vehicle speeds. An overly high bump can cause damage to the under carriage of a low riding vehicle. A smoother bump can cause an uncontrollable rocking on a smaller vehicle. The driver of a soft sprung vehicle may actually increase speed for a better ride over a bump while the same bump may cause other motorists to lose control. No single type of speed bump has been found to be successful in safely controlling the speed of all types of vehicles. They are therefore, not used." 

Speed humps ( or bumps) are a nuisance to the law bidding citizen. They get in the way of our emergency vehicles and cause havoc to those with neck problems. Basically these devices are to punish the innocent while do very little to keep the guilty in check.  The only real way to solve the speeding problem is to have enough police officers to enforce the speed regulations within our city limits.

Then there is the fact that spending $2300 per hump is exorbitant, compared to the ones we found while surfing the web.  At the Traffic Safety Store online we found comparable speed bumps at $589.28 ! In fact, we never were able to locate speed bumps for the price that the city is paying.  By going to only one bidder on this project the city has not done price comparison shopping and again has decided to waste taxpayers money.

Speed humps cannot replace police officers.  And when there is still alternatives to spending $2300 per hump, the city should have examined all alternate possibilities before easily spending $115,000.  

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