Would SPEEDBUMPS help slow people down on my street?

I had the miserable duty yesterday of burying another of my cats, run down by a car in the street right in front of my house.  

I know they should be indoors, but these are spay and release cats I found as strays, and they don't like being indoors all the time.  I bring them inside during the day and let them out at night so they can murder mice and snakes, but they're friendly and tame.  

Yesterday morning I get a knock, and there was my poor cat Ginger, feet from the curb, dead.  I live on Lexington Ave., off of Burnett a few blocks from the police station, and I can say that mornings I'm out walking my dog I rarely see a car going LESS than 45 MPH right in front of my house.  

Time and again I find myself glaring or 'gesticulating' at these idiots screeching to a stop at the corner of my block, after racing like Mad Max past my house.  The worst accident I ever saw in my life was right at the corner of Wellesley and Lexington Ave., a lunatic ran the stop sign and plowed into another car, only seat belts saved the lives of my friend and his daughter; I thought a plane had crashed when I heard it from my kitchen.

I'm tired of this, this is the second of my kitty's run down in broad daylight, not to mention the lives of pedestrians put in danger by these idiots.  At this point I'm thinking of just putting some orange cones on the street to get these idiots to slow down.  

I know there are speed bumps on some streets in town, what would it take to get one on mine??

I'm sorry for your loss.  I don't know what the protocol is for getting speed bumps installed but if you call townhall they can probably answer your question.  There are two cats in our neighborhood that I fear may  suffer the same fate.  An orange tabby near Woodland and Beach and a black tuxedo cat near Maplewood Avenue and Durand.  Bothe are beautiful cats and look like they are well cared for - but they are often in the road. 

I am very sorry. :-(

Is Burnett 35MPH? I thought I remember that although perhaps not rightly so.

From: http://www.state.nj.us/transportation/eng/documents/speedhumps/ the law for speed "humps" reads:

a. Pursuant to the provisions of section 3 of P.L.2004, c.107 (C.39:4-8.11), a municipality or county may, without the approval of the commissioner, construct a speed hump on two-lane residential streets and on one-way residential streets under municipal or county jurisdiction with a posted speed of 30 mph or less and which have fewer than 3,000 vehicles per day. The board of directors of any corporation, or the board of trustees of any corporation or other institution of a public or semipublic nature not for pecuniary profit, having control over private roads, may construct or provide for the construction of a speed hump on any private road subject to the provisions of Title 39 of the Revised Statutes, pursuant to P.L.1945, c.284 (C.39:5A-1 et seq.).

b. Pursuant to the provisions of section 3 of P.L.2004, c.107 (C.39:4-8.11), a municipality or county may, without the approval of the commissioner, construct traffic calming measures where appropriate, which may include, but are not limited to, speed humps on streets under municipal or county jurisdiction with a posted speed of 30 mph or less and which have fewer than 3,000 vehicles per day when any road construction project or repair of a street set forth in this subsection is undertaken and located within 500 feet of that street is a school or any property used for school purposes.

c. Prior to a municipality or county constructing a speed hump which places any impact on roadways in an adjoining municipality or county, the governing board or body of the municipality or county shall provide appropriate notice to the adjoining municipality or county.

d. Prior to a municipality or county constructing a speed hump which places any impact on a State roadway, the county or municipality shall obtain the approval of the commissioner.

marylago said:

I am very sorry.

Is Burnett 35MPH? I thought I remember that although perhaps not rightly so.



Thanks much for the info; I'm almost certain it's 25 MPH limited, but I would have to confirm.  It's such a quiet street for most of the day, you could lie out there and take a nap, but between 7 and 9 AM people race up my street to link up to Burnett Ave. and Springfield.  Highly doubt there are more than 3000 cars a day, or a week for that matter.  Guess I'll be heading to the town clerks office..again, thanks for the information,  Paul.

I'm very sorry for your loss, as I love cats and dogs. Reality is, however, that virtually every one of our streets has at least one, if not several, pets living there, and of course, children. If we put speed bumps on every such street - or flashing red lights, whatever - it would completely change the texture of our towns.

So I don't know what the answer is, but don't think that a speed bump is it.

apser said:

marylago said:

I am very sorry.

Is Burnett 35MPH? I thought I remember that although perhaps not rightly so.



Thanks much for the info; I'm almost certain it's 25 MPH limited, but I would have to confirm. It's such a quiet street for most of the day, you could lie out there and take a nap, but between 7 and 9 AM people race up my street to link up to Burnett Ave. and Springfield. Highly doubt there are more than 3000 cars a day, or a week for that matter. Guess I'll be heading to the town clerks office..again, thanks for the information, Paul.

I'm sorry. I misread your post. I thought you said you lived on Burnett near Lexington. You're right. Probably doesn't have 3,000 cars a day.

Speed bumps would help to some extent.

There are a lot of stray cats where I live on Walton, and we love them. And we hate to see them cross the street because the road is quite frankly a racetrack many times of day. 

I don't like the noise of speed bumps, and the way many drivers approach them is stupid anyway (speed up, then brake hard, then speed up again)*. There are other traffic-calming measures which seem to be more effective in getting people to drive at a consistently safe speed.

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* and don't get me started on people with big SUVs that think they need to slow down to 5 mph to handle them.

We have poorly constructed speed bumps on our street in West Orange. It does very little to slow traffic. However, our street gets paved very soon and I'll check with the town engineer on having the proper speed bumps installed.

Hard for the DPW to clear snow on streets with speed bumps.  Those are the streets that are the last to get paved, and usually the  area around the bump winds up with a lot of snow by them.

Plus emergency vehicles need to get thru - speed bumps will reduce response time.  

I think better enforcement is the best hope.

If I recall correctly, certain streets do not qualify for speed humps because they are relatively major arteries.  Prospect, Valley, Ridgewood, Parker, and Wyoming would be examples of this.  Burnett, which connects Springfield Avenue with 78 might also fit that category; but, I can't imagine that Lexington would.  I think the first step is to get a petition signed by a certain percent of persons living on your street (not sure what the percentage is) stating that they would be in favor of a speed hump there.  The Engineering Department would be a good place to start.

tom said:

* and don't get me started on people with big SUVs that think they need to slow down to 5 mph to handle them.

I will NEVER understand this.  Nothing cracks me up more than some clueless SUV driver thinking they're driving an old rusted-out Fiat.

We had speed bumps installed on my street and they do slow down cars some, but they are ugly and come with lots of hideous bright yellow signs (with humps or bumps -- your choice).  Might not matter to you if it saves some cats, but it does ruin the charm some.

down side of speed bumps is during the warmer months all the cars slowing down are blasting music.   

They also slow down the Fire Department on their was to an emergency.

Maplewood is basically residential.  It begins at the beginning.  People should be driving the limit.  To me that is the beginning and end of the story.  Hence more tickets given out to the speeders.  Maybe that will make them wake up and realize the dangers of speeding in residential areas and that limits are posted for a reason.  Today I was on Burnett Avenue driving by DeHart Park and doing the limit and this car comes speeding around me because he thought I was going slow.  Boy how I wish a cop was right there and saw that maneuver.  

The speed limit on Ridgewood is 25 m.p.h. and I'll bet 98% of drivers exceed this...

The speed limit on my street is 25 mph and people zoom up and down like it's the highway.   I would give the police permission to park in my driveway for one day and give out tickets.  The town would make a bundle.  I would sit on the front porch and watch !      

Enforcement is tough as manpower is not always available. I sat with the cop for an hour or so when he was on my street before we got the speed bumps. Speed limit is 25 but he let cars go by at over 30. I drive around the area a lot and my average speed is about 35.

In a 25 mph zone I think low 30s is generally reasonable, except for certain circumstances like bad weather or if there are kids around or a lot of parked cars that reduce visibility. 35 is probably too fast, and high 30s is definitely too fast.

My cousin is a cop in a shore town, I asked him what speed in a 25 mph zone will result in being pulled over, I was surprised that he said it was closer to 40.  

45, as the OP observes is WAY too fast. I think the only real answer is more enforcement, and I don't necessarily buy the argument that manpower isn't available. MPD officers are well-paid and they don't have to deal with shootings, drugs and prostitution every day like in more urban areas -- so they should be ticketing more of the people who are driving 45 mph in a 25 zone.  

I know manpower is not always available and it could be a full time plus over-time job to monitor speeders.  What originally started this thread is why I drive the speed limit.  It would un-nerve me if I was the one that hit an animal.  Plus, I see kids on my street sometimes playing by the curb and all it takes is one second for that kid to run in the street with a car coming down and it's done.  It is a conscious effort thing to remember to do the limit.  The car goes so slow at 25 mph you could probably walker fast LOL or that is how it feels.  But I get it and there isn't a quick or easy solution.  I would love to sit with the cop when he was doing speed patrol.  I think it would be interesting.

I often see MPD patrol cars parked in locations from which they can monitor the speed at which traffic is flowing on main roads in town and I have frequently seen them pull over drivers of vehicles that are in violation of our traffic laws.  Problem is that they cannot be everywhere all the time.  They tend to focus on the more frequently traveled roadways and less on quieter streets like Lexington.

mikescott said:

Plus emergency vehicles need to get thru - speed bumps will reduce response time.  

Newark went off the wall in installing speed bumps.  Ask any paramedic who works in Newark what they think about them.  Installing an IV in a moving vehicle is hard enough with pot holes, but add in purposely installed speed bumps and a hard job just gets harder.  And yes, the impact on response times is real. 

joan_crystal said:

I often see MPD patrol cars parked in locations from which they can monitor the speed at which traffic is flowing on main roads in town and I have frequently seen them pull over drivers of vehicles that are in violation of our traffic laws.  Problem is that they cannot be everywhere all the time.  They tend to focus on the more frequently traveled roadways and less on quieter streets like Lexington.

It's true PD can't be everywhere. But from the OP statement -- "I live on Lexington Ave., off of Burnett a few blocks from the police station, and I can say that mornings I'm out walking my dog I rarely see a car going LESS than 45 MPH right in front of my house." -- something is wrong.

I've always wanted to rent a radar gun to see what "45" actually is.

Not 45...

On those rare occasions I do check my speed, I tend to find myself going about 30 mph.  It's the only way I can comfortably get out of first gear.  30 isn't the end of the world, though not a few folks seem to think it's a tad too low.

I was once driving down a side street and a man was yelling at me to slow down. I didn't think I was going that fast, so I quickly glanced down at the speedometer. I was doing slightly above 25. I'm not saying that this is the case with the OP, but it is hard to judge from the side of the road. My husband claims to see people regularly doing 60 on our street. If I had to guess I'd say they're doing between 34-40.   

I got yelled at on Park once, and again on Parker.  You would have thought by the volume and spittle flying that I was doing 80.  At MOST it could have been 30.  It just sounded like it.  I stopped and reversed both times, and politely mentioned somewhere in there that they shouldn't think about doing that again.  No patience for that sort of crap.

My car is loud. Its automatically going "100mph" when I'm doing 15 mph in first gear.

I'm so sorry this happened to you. My cat was run over and killed last year and it was just awful. The driver didn't let us know or even stop the car -- just left her in the street. It was heartbreaking.

I too live on a street that people use as a cut-through, though I am in South Orange. There are traffic lights at either end of our block, so we routinely have people racing down the street to make the light. Despite our block having large numbers of small children as well as college students (we are near SHU), and having a park at the end of it... some drivers think they own the road.

I wish we could get speedbumps installed but I am not optimistic that it will ever happen. And I shudder to think what kind of tragedy would need to occur in order to have the PD monitor speeding, or get bumps installed.