America has a speed problem—and not the kind that comes in a little bag and lands you on “Cops.”
Despite ever-increasing penalties for speeding and the proliferation of speed cameras, speeding violations continue to rise every year. As these conventional solutions lose their impact, cities — and residents — are moving to more creative tactics.
Thinking Outside the Lane
Take Montgomery Township, Pa., where officials summoned their inner Picasso to deal with complaints of speeding on Grays Lane. In March, they repainted the markings on two blocks of the road into a squiggly pattern, forcing drivers to follow a winding path down the straight street, and therefore—hopefully—slow down.
Officials stated that the solution was a response to numerous complaints from the community about how Grays Lane had become a "speedway."
However, the community says it was not looking for a solution designed by a toddler with a crayon and a sugar high.
"I think it's an eyesore. I think it's ridiculous," local resident William King told CBS News. “I don't see how this is going to slow down traffic at all.”
"I mean right now, everyone is just driving through the middle of it," Lauren Chesterton told CBS News. "I've yet to hear one person happy about this.”
Two months later, the city removed the squiggly lines and pledged to replace it with something designed by an adult staff member.
Meanwhile, Washington has decided that instead of forcing drivers to slow down, they’ll just… ask nicely.
On Interstate‑5 and Interstate‑90 near Spokane and Skagit Counties, the Washington State Department of Transportation’s brand-new highway speed cameras are snapping your plate—not to punish, but to send a “courtesy notice” reminder through the mail. No fines. No points. Just a polite heads-up that you were speeding—and how much a real ticket might cost.
And then there’s the Magic Roundabout in England—designed not so much to direct traffic as to psychologically paralyze it.
The Magic Roundabout is actually a swirl of five mini roundabouts orbiting an inner roundabout, inside a mega roundabout. It sounds chaotic, but it’s not that complicated.
When you enter the roundabout, you turn left, unless you want to go right, in which case you go left through a mini-roundabout, and then turn right... wait, no, you’d turn left again... or maybe you go... anyway, it's really simple.
Citizens take the wheel
When official traffic calming turns experimental, whimsical, or just takes too long to materialize, frustrated citizens sometimes take matters into their own hands.
In Oakland, Calif’s’s Highland Terrace neighborhood, residents got tired of dangerous late-night stunt driving and empty city promises. So, they did what any determined community would do: pooled $3,000, got verbal signoff from the DOT director, and installed their own homemade rubber speed bumps.
It worked. For eight glorious months, peace returned. Then one night—poof—the DIY bumps disappeared. City crews removed them, ironically citing “safety concerns.” By the following day, the stunt drivers were back, and the residents were back to square one. Minus $3,000
“We paid for that peace with our labor and money,” resident Michael Andemeskel told NBC News, “and then the city overnight took it away without excuse and without notice.”
Across the country, residents of Eula Morgan Road in west Harris County, Texas, faced a similar issue when their neighborhood became a popular cut-through for drivers heading to Katy or the interstate.
For years, the county refused to even maintain the road. Resident Beverly Wolfe described years of roadblocks with the county to ABC 13. "They can't touch our property because it's private,” she recounted. “’This road is private; we can't dig out the ditches because it is private. You need to call such and such.'"
So, when the speeding got out of hand, the neighbors installed their own speed bumps.
The result? The county immediately took control of the road—and then quickly removed the speed bumps.
In an email to residents, officials acknowledged the road had a serious speeding problem. They even promised a traffic study that might result in the road qualifying for… another study.
Because if there’s one thing government moves faster than traffic for, it’s tearing down something that finally worked. RB
David Matthews has been chronicling the unexpectedly humorous side of transportation news since 2000. The stories are all true.
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