One hump or two?

As we in South Florida know, bad driving knows no gender. We’ve seen both men and women applying make-up while driving. Traffic laws are not easy to enforce.
It’s very difficult to catch drivers who don’t stop at the stop signs, about as difficult as keeping a ‘line jumper’ out of the exit ramp. Line jumpers have a special place in hell. They’ll be driving Ford Pintos with leaky gas tanks for all eternity while trying to butt into an impenetrable line of semis with Florida drivers at the wheel.
I believe I have found a way for we who live on through streets to address the issue of speeders. Speed humps with a twist. No, that’s not the latest drink at George’s Alibi in Wilton Manors.
It’s the adopt-a-hump program! Get one for your street! What we know as ‘speed bumps’ are legally called ‘humps’. Speed humps will slow a car down sure, but the trick is to catch the speeder by surprise, similar to the feeling you get with a special delivery letter from your friends at the IRS.
There’s a down side to this. There are neighborhoods in South Florida that have not been able to afford a hump. Yes, the people actually living on local, residential streets must pay for their speed hump!
As one county law says, ‘The applicant agrees to pay for the cost of design and the installation of the speed humps along with the associated signage and pavement markings’.
Well, hello, if we move the humps around why do we need signage and pavement markings? We can save some money right there. Get your neighbors together and bring up a topic everyone can agree on; then pass the hat. All we want to do is make our streets a little safer.
Instead of permanent speed humps; provide portable ones that will not only startle and surprise drivers; but increase visits to the wheel alignment shops. That alone will take 10% of the cars off the road. So how about it; do we have a movement here?
The element of surprise alone on a darkened street will slow these drivers down and who knows, people might stop driving with hot coffee in their hands.
By the way, don’t you hate the sound of squealing tires late at night? You’re trying to get some sleep and some yahoo gets an adrenaline rush thinking they’ll lay down some rubber just for the heck of it. Let’s exchange those squeals with screams when they realize they’ve messed up the alignment on their little faux racer. Come to think of it, you can hardly hear a scream over those huge speakers.
We may have finally found a use for those holiday fruit cakes that have been languishing on the back of your fridge shelf all year long.