Letter: Enough With the Speed Bumps

By Gayle Johnson

I live in Alameda and work in downtown Oakland, and I'm eternally grateful for some of the really good things Alameda manages to do, like smart traffic signals, and when they restriped Broadway a few years back to put in the center turn lane. I was skeptical when they did it, but time has proven them correct.

However, there is something really disturbing happening, and I don't know where it's originating.

I'm referring to the increasing proliferation of absolute jaw-rattling speed bumps being put into the shopping centers, in particular South Shore and Nob Hill. I suspect someone in the city is making them do this, because no owner with half a brain would put these in.

When you turn in by the gas station at Nob Hill, everyone tries to bypass the first set, although they're in multiple places and directions. It's just so utterly stupid and senseless. You need to be in an SUV if you plan to go over them at more than 1 mph, or they'll knock your radiator clear out of the front of the car.

Are they really needed? And even if someone thinks they're a good idea, do they have to be built like that?

And at South Shore, they've got a few in at angles, so it's difficult to go over them with only two wheels. I have to believe there's one idiot at the city who's making this happen. Can you find out who's behind this?

And please don't get me started about the speed bump in the entrance to the Lincoln Park parking lot, by home plate of the baseball field. Whoever thought that should be put in at a stupid angle should have been fired, or put in front of a firing squad. Can't they just pave over that thing?

Anyway, please find out who's behind this, so I can send them my dental bills from the last time I went over one at 1.5 mph.