Cities Turning to Bicycles

In article , Frank Krygowski wrote:
Brent P wrote:

So you believe this problem occured spontanously?

No, it didn't occur spontaneously. It occurred because there's
insufficient testing for drivers' licenses.

Well at least you've been convinced of one part of the root cause.

frank's compulsion regarding insulting comments snipped

Brent P wrote:

Thankfully Chicago has this season that comes after road construction
called winter. Winter brings snow, which has to plowed, which makes
things like speed humps and bumps a real pain the ass for the government
bodies that run the plows. Also thanks to winter, road crews have real
work to do instead of installing speed humps and bumps. So the speed hump
is generally restricted to alleys, which don't get plowed.

In other words, all this time you've been whining about a negligible
problem!

--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]

In article , Frank Krygowski wrote:
Brent P wrote:

Thankfully Chicago has this season that comes after road construction
called winter. Winter brings snow, which has to plowed, which makes
things like speed humps and bumps a real pain the ass for the government
bodies that run the plows. Also thanks to winter, road crews have real
work to do instead of installing speed humps and bumps. So the speed hump
is generally restricted to alleys, which don't get plowed.

In other words, all this time you've been whining about a negligible
problem!

I stated from begining they are few and far between here. And I'll do
what I can to keep it that way.

Frank Krygowski wrote:

Nate Nagel wrote:

Frank Krygowski wrote in message
...

Nate Nagel wrote:


Frank Krygowski wrote:


OK, in case you want to be serious: If your car is straddling a
speed bump and scraping, you need to fix your car. Either you have
a mechanical problem like a low-hanging exhaust system, or you have
chosen to drive a car with insufficient ground clearance for the
real world.


It's perfectly fine in *most* situations. The only problems I have
(well, had) are in busybody-infested neighborhoods or annoying
shopping centers.


If "perfectly fine in most situations" is good enough for you, great.
Drive only where those situations exist.



Sometimes that's not an option, like when they become so prevalent
that it's impossible to avoid them all.


Take this slowly, Nate - apparently it's a little complicated for you:

If your car is "perfectly fine in most situations" as you claim, then
you don't have much of a problem. Quit whining.

I'm not "whining," I'm stating that your beloved road features are
unacceptable as implemented.


If your car scrapes in situations that are so prevalent that you can't
avoid them, that's VERY UNUSUAL. Other people don't have this problem!
Your car is not practical enough.

You chose that car. Quit whining.

Did you even read my other post, where I listed some vehicles that would
have scraped over what another poster characterized as a "typical" speed
hump? Like a Dodge Dart? Is that an impractical car?

What I meant by "unavoidable" was that aroudn here there's often pockets
of residential areas where every freaking road has speed bumps and/or
humps on them. So it's possible to never see a speed bump in everyday
driving but one day go somewhere and inadvertantly end up in one of
these areas where you've no choice but to go over 20-30 of these
monstrosities before you find your way back to the main road.



You're complaining about shopping centers? Yes, I know of speed
bumps in a local shopping center - necessary to keep entering
speeders from mowing down pedestrians entering a popular bookstore.
Cars slow to about 5 mph to cross them. I've _never_ detected a car
scraping across those. Would your car? If so, it seems your car is
very unusual. The solution seems to be: don't drive an unusual car
and expect to handle what normal cars handle easily; or take your
business elsewhere.



Unusual? Here, have a look, if you insist. Does this look like a car
with exceptionally low ground clearance?

http://home.comcast.net/~njnagel/Scirocco.html


Lovely. Is it lower than the Honda Civic I had, which was low enough I
felt I had to shovel myself out of it? Is it lower than the Saturn for
which I had to cut down my repair ramps to make them usable? Those cars
didn't scrape on a speed bump, not once.

I don't know, why don't you tell me how low they were. While not a
definite indicator of whether or not a car will scrape on a speed bump
(underbody features can vary car to car, but the trend is to make the
underside of the car more or less flat for aerodynamic reasons,) ground
clearance numbers do give a rough indicator.


This really is sounding more and more like an operator problem.


Wow, another unsupported assertion from Frank. Lovely.


However, every time I drove down a certain stretch


of residential street, no matter how slowly I drove, I could hear my
center resonator scraping across the top of that #$%^*& bump.


Did everybody's resonator scrape?


Apparently, this question will go unanswered.


Did _anyone_ else scrape?

And this question will go unanswered.


Did you read my other post?


Again, my

bet is you needed to crawl under you car and fix something - or stop
driving a cartoon.



Would you consider a bone stock Miata a "cartoon?"


To repeat the quote I gave earlier: "The Miata is the car that makes
the statement 'Look! I'm Peter Pan, and I'm driving Minnie Mouse's
slipper!' "

Sorry I can't give proper attribution for that. I was laughing too hard
to hear who originally said it.

So it's no more a cartoon than Minnie Mouse. ;-)


So you don't like sports cars, that's your prerogative. Still doesn't
make it right to install road features that prohibit driving fairly
common, unmodified vehicles over them.

If you're going to argue that it's impractical, explain to me then why
my mom drives one - and she lives on a dirt road in western PA. Hmm,
she doesn't have any problem with hers, but the one time I tried to take
one over a speed bump, bad things happened. I guess that just suggests
that what I've always thought is true - unmaintained rural PA roads are
LESS dangerous, at least to your car, than suburban streets with speed
bumps.



No matter what you pretend, there are not very many production
vehicles whose ground clearance is unusually low - again, for
practical reasons. GM knows that Corvette drivers go to the mall, so
they give enough ground clearance to clear speed bumps; mall managers
know they want Corvette drivers to shop there, so they limit the
height of speed bumps. These facts cause a natural equilibrium to
occur.



Aside from the fact that a Corvette probably has less ground clearance
than either my old car or a Miata, you should be correct. However, it
seems more and more like in an effort to REALLY slow down those
eeeeevil speeders...


It _is_ an effort to do that, obviously. And naturally, the dedicated
speeders are not happy. They can't understand why they get no sympathy!


Have I *ever* stated that I sped in a residential area?

The really obnoxious drivers never care how their behavior affects
others, do they?


Where have I stated that I drove in an obnoxious manner? The only thing
that I'm guilty of is not wanting to drive a SUV, and apparently I am to
be punished for that, in your world. I'm glad I don't live in your
neighborhood...

nate

--
replace "fly" with "com" to reply.
http://home.comcast.net/~njnagel

Nate Nagel wrote:

Frank Krygowski wrote:

If your car is "perfectly fine in most situations" as you claim, then
you don't have much of a problem. Quit whining.


I'm not "whining," I'm stating that your beloved road features are
unacceptable as implemented.

You're whining that speed humps are not acceptable to _you_. These
things are clearly popular, and increasingly requested, in many areas.

Visit http://www.publicworks.cityofhouston...ffic/humps.htm to see
evidence of their popularity. Houston has had to institute a formal
mechanism for dealing with and prioritizing the requests to install them.

Visit http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/roadworks/rwspdhmp.htm to see more
evidence of the desirability, and to get a refresher on the difference
between HUMPS and BUMPS (which I'm sure you need by now - it's been two
days!) http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/roadworks/tc.htm also has info.

Of course, not everyone loves them. I note that Houston has had some
requests to remove humps - probably from people like you! But I also
note that the repeatedly fail to be justified, probably by others in the
neighborhood. Houston very logically requires complainers like yourself
to get neighborhood petitions as evidence. This seems to filter out the
crackpot speeders. (I'd love to hear some of the resulting front-door
conversations!) ;-)

There are many, many more sites like these on the web. Perhaps you can
find an official city web site talking about the evils of speed humps
and explaining why citizens should never request them - but I doubt it!


Did you even read my other post, where I listed some vehicles that would
have scraped over what another poster characterized as a "typical" speed
hump? Like a Dodge Dart?

This may come as a shock to you, but I've found I can't believe
everything posted on Usenet! And when a poster's repeatedly shown
himself to be illogical, I'm even less likely to take his unsupported
word. At the very least, I prefer to use data from reputable sources.

Perhaps you can explain to me how a Dodge Dart scrapes its undercarriage
on a hump with the geometry described he
http://www.ite.org/traffic/table.htm

3.5" high, 14 feet long. A Dodge Dart will scrape? Explain this
geometrically. IOW, please - at least try to keep your arguments plausible!

What I meant by "unavoidable" was that aroudn here there's often pockets
of residential areas where every freaking road has speed bumps and/or
humps on them.

My gosh, why on earth would the city spend so much money to do that?
Could it be - just maybe - that there were many problems with yahoos
driving too fast? Is such a thing possible?


So it's possible to never see a speed bump in everyday
driving but one day go somewhere and inadvertantly end up in one of
these areas where you've no choice but to go over 20-30 of these
monstrosities before you find your way back to the main road.

You poor, poor boy! ;-)

Lovely. Is it lower than the Honda Civic I had, which was low enough
I felt I had to shovel myself out of it? Is it lower than the Saturn
for which I had to cut down my repair ramps to make them usable?
Those cars didn't scrape on a speed bump, not once.


I don't know, why don't you tell me how low they were.

I don't own those cars any more. Perhaps you can look up the ground
clearance. I _can_ tell you for sure that they were low enough that a
creeper was useless unless they were up on ramps or jackstands. And
the Saturn was definitely the first car for which I had to trim the
ramps to avoid bodywork. Seemed low to me! Yet, it never scraped even
a speed BUMP, let alone a speed HUMP.


This really is sounding more and more like an operator problem.


Wow, another unsupported assertion from Frank. Lovely.

I don't know what other possibility there could be!




However, every time I drove down a certain stretch
of residential street, no matter how slowly I drove, I could hear
my center resonator scraping across the top of that #$%^*& bump.

Did everybody's resonator scrape?



Apparently, this question will go unanswered.


Did _anyone_ else scrape?

And this question will go unanswered.


Did you read my other post?

Yes. Answer the questions. Did _everyone_ scrape their resonators?
Did _anyone_ else scrape their undercarriage? Or was it just one boy
whose combination of car choice and driving habits caused him trouble?
Sounds like the latter!


So you don't like sports cars, that's your prerogative. Still doesn't
make it right to install road features that prohibit driving fairly
common, unmodified vehicles over them.

I'm not aware of people that have your problem! But if this is a big
problem for you, you're wasting your time here. I suggest taking it to
the rest of the public.

From what I can tell, all evidence is against your complaints. Based
on that, you're very unlikely to change _my_ mind - and it wouldn't
matter anyway. I have some influence in my village, but I doubt you'll
drive through here very frequently.

So I suggest you start a public crusade to point out the alleged
tragedies associated with these increasingly popular devices. Explain
that your super-cute car has to slow way, way down, and how terrible
that is. Talk about the terrible damage to Brent's hidden heat shield,
and how much that will cost him in the next Concours d'Elegance.

I'm sure that neighborhood residents across the country will suddenly
see the light, and will learn to accept the roar of speeding vehicles
and the danger to their families, when you put it all in context! ;-)


--
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com.
Substitute cc dot ysu dot
edu]

Matthew Russotto wrote:


In article , Frank Krygowski wrote:


So jump the bike. It's not that hard.

Sheesh - newbies! :-)

When I used to ride a road bike, getting airborne was a great way to
bend the wheels. Looks like Frank doesn't restrict his equipment
damaging ways to cars.


All I can say is, I've known how to jump a bike since the 1970s. I've
never damaged a wheel doing that.

I've driven over speed bumps since the 1960s. I've never damaged a car
doing that.

If you are having trouble with these things, it sounds more and more
like an operator problem!

Maybe you can study and practice, and learn to be better. Would you
like lessons?

--
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com.
Substitute cc dot ysu dot
edu]

Matthew Russotto wrote:

When I used to ride a road bike, getting airborne was a great way to
bend the wheels.

Then your cycling skills left something to be desired. Bunny hopping
is a very useful skill for avoiding obstacles in the road: speed
bumps, tree branches, broken bottles, fallen cyclists. And no, it
doesn't bend wheels when done correctly.

--
terry morse Palo Alto, CA http://bike.terrymorse.com/

Thu, 30 Sep 2004 13:14:02 -0500,
,
(Matthew Russotto) wrote:


When I used to ride a road bike, getting airborne was a great way to
bend the wheels.

Then you probably build wheels even weaker than your "arguments".
--
zk

Frank Krygowski wrote:

Nate Nagel wrote:

Frank Krygowski wrote:

If your car is "perfectly fine in most situations" as you claim, then
you don't have much of a problem. Quit whining.



I'm not "whining," I'm stating that your beloved road features are
unacceptable as implemented.


You're whining that speed humps are not acceptable to _you_. These
things are clearly popular, and increasingly requested, in many areas.

That's because the people requesting them haven't thought things through
completely.


Visit http://www.publicworks.cityofhouston...ffic/humps.htm to see
evidence of their popularity. Houston has had to institute a formal
mechanism for dealing with and prioritizing the requests to install them.

Visit http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/roadworks/rwspdhmp.htm to see more
evidence of the desirability, and to get a refresher on the difference
between HUMPS and BUMPS (which I'm sure you need by now - it's been two
days!) http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/roadworks/tc.htm also has info.

Of course, not everyone loves them. I note that Houston has had some
requests to remove humps - probably from people like you! But I also
note that the repeatedly fail to be justified, probably by others in the
neighborhood. Houston very logically requires complainers like yourself
to get neighborhood petitions as evidence. This seems to filter out the
crackpot speeders. (I'd love to hear some of the resulting front-door
conversations!) ;-)

There are many, many more sites like these on the web. Perhaps you can
find an official city web site talking about the evils of speed humps
and explaining why citizens should never request them - but I doubt it!


The link that you yourself posted earlier in this thread mentioned
increased response time and slower speed of emergency vehicles as a
drawback. If that isn't a deal killer, I don't know what is! I'm sure
Joe Ambulance Driver just loves driving his heavily sprung,
commercial-framed beast over those things as well. Those drive almost
as rough as a race car! Imagine what happens to the poor *patient*
inside, as well - especially one with a nasty bone fracture, or one
who's receiving an emergency intubation...


Did you even read my other post, where I listed some vehicles that
would have scraped over what another poster characterized as a
"typical" speed hump? Like a Dodge Dart?


This may come as a shock to you, but I've found I can't believe
everything posted on Usenet! And when a poster's repeatedly shown
himself to be illogical, I'm even less likely to take his unsupported
word. At the very least, I prefer to use data from reputable sources.

What the hell are you talking about? I stated that a Dodge Dart's
ground clearance was within a few fractions of an inch of that of some
other cars which you referred to as unacceptably low and "cartoonish."
If you don't believe me, prove me wrong. I just picked that as an
example because that happened to me a somewhat "mainstream" car that I
used to own. If you don't believe that it's typical, again, prove me wrong.


Perhaps you can explain to me how a Dodge Dart scrapes its undercarriage
on a hump with the geometry described he
http://www.ite.org/traffic/table.htm

3.5" high, 14 feet long. A Dodge Dart will scrape? Explain this
geometrically. IOW, please - at least try to keep your arguments
plausible!

I've never seen anything like that. The features that I've seen have
been both shorter (road distance, that is) and taller (often 6" or
higher,) both of which make scraping much more likely. You know, if all
traffic calming devices were compliant with the recommendations on that
web site, we might not be having this discussion! However, I've yet to
see a single one. I also notice that speed *bumps* are not on that site
at all, and yet they are almost ubiquitous in some areas.

Perhaps you should get the word out to your fellow busybodies that they
need to specifically request ITE-compliant speed humps rather than the
garden variety ones - or worse yet, tall bumps - that being thrown up
everywhere.


What I meant by "unavoidable" was that aroudn here there's often
pockets of residential areas where every freaking road has speed bumps
and/or humps on them.


My gosh, why on earth would the city spend so much money to do that?
Could it be - just maybe - that there were many problems with yahoos
driving too fast? Is such a thing possible?

So you make life miserable for everyone. Of course.


So it's possible to never see a speed bump in everyday

driving but one day go somewhere and inadvertantly end up in one of
these areas where you've no choice but to go over 20-30 of these
monstrosities before you find your way back to the main road.


You poor, poor boy! ;-)

Lovely. Is it lower than the Honda Civic I had, which was low enough
I felt I had to shovel myself out of it? Is it lower than the Saturn
for which I had to cut down my repair ramps to make them usable?
Those cars didn't scrape on a speed bump, not once.



I don't know, why don't you tell me how low they were.

I don't know, I've never owned one. Do your own homework.



I don't own those cars any more. Perhaps you can look up the ground
clearance. I _can_ tell you for sure that they were low enough that a
creeper was useless unless they were up on ramps or jackstands. And
the Saturn was definitely the first car for which I had to trim the
ramps to avoid bodywork. Seemed low to me! Yet, it never scraped even
a speed BUMP, let alone a speed HUMP.

Maybe you've just got a better grade of speed bump where you live. Most
of the ones around here are rather tall, I'd estimate at least 6".



This really is sounding more and more like an operator problem.


Wow, another unsupported assertion from Frank. Lovely.


I don't know what other possibility there could be!

Um, that I actually have a valid point, that in my experience most
"traffic calming" road features are badly and improperly implemented?
(disregarding the fact that IMHO they should never have been installed
to begin with.)





However, every time I drove down a certain stretch
of residential street, no matter how slowly I drove, I could hear
my center resonator scraping across the top of that #$%^*& bump.


Did everybody's resonator scrape?




Apparently, this question will go unanswered.


Did _anyone_ else scrape?

And this question will go unanswered.


Did you read my other post?


Yes. Answer the questions. Did _everyone_ scrape their resonators? Did
_anyone_ else scrape their undercarriage? Or was it just one boy whose
combination of car choice and driving habits caused him trouble? Sounds
like the latter!

Quite a few vehicles would scrape. I didn't sit outside at night
listening for the sound of scraping metal, but my roommates all
complained about them and I've already proven that there are at least
several models of popular vehicle with less ground clearance than my car.



So you don't like sports cars, that's your prerogative. Still doesn't
make it right to install road features that prohibit driving fairly
common, unmodified vehicles over them.


I'm not aware of people that have your problem! But if this is a big
problem for you, you're wasting your time here. I suggest taking it to
the rest of the public.

You're not aware of a problem? You really *are* sticking your fingers
in your ears and singing "la la la" to yourself!


From what I can tell, all evidence is against your complaints. Based
on that, you're very unlikely to change _my_ mind - and it wouldn't
matter anyway. I have some influence in my village, but I doubt you'll
drive through here very frequently.

ALL evidence?


So I suggest you start a public crusade to point out the alleged
tragedies associated with these increasingly popular devices. Explain
that your super-cute car has to slow way, way down, and how terrible
that is. Talk about the terrible damage to Brent's hidden heat shield,
and how much that will cost him in the next Concours d'Elegance.


I don't know about you, but I take property damage very seriously. I
respect others' property and I expect you to respect mine. The fact
that you don't is apparent. It's also apparent that you don't like my
car for some reason and have deemed it unacceptable, despite my showing
that its ground clearance is actually fairly typical for a small
passenger car.

However, if *my* property is unimportant to you, what about the property
of the fire department? The local ambulance service? Surely *those* at
least are of some concern to you?

I'm sure that neighborhood residents across the country will suddenly
see the light, and will learn to accept the roar of speeding vehicles
and the danger to their families, when you put it all in context! ;-)


How does it follow that the *lack* of big, nasty lumps in the road will
immediately be followed by speeding vehicles? Furthermore, were you
aware that in the vast majority of cases, people who lobby for increased
speed limit enforcement in residential neighborhoods are shocked to
discover that the people driving fastest, and ticketed most often are -
wait for it - the residents themselves? It actually makes sense if you
think about it, those are the people who are most familiar with, and
therefore the most comfortable with the road - and thus will tend to be
comfortable driving at higher speeds than someone "just cutting
through." However, they often don't like to realize that the "evil
speeders" they complain about are their neighbors, and that they drive
just as fast themselves.

nate

--
replace "fly" with "com" to reply.
http://home.comcast.net/~njnagel

Brent P wrote:

The speed humps will seem to work for awhile, then traffic will adapt and
you'll have other problems.

And what "other problems" have you seen?

Again - in the other city I've visited many times, they seem to have no
"other problems" after years of use. And in many cities, the only
significant problem is figuring out how to get speed humps installed as
fast as the residents want them.

Your alleged problems are boogey men. Speed humps cause problems only
for drivers too dense to slow down.


--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]