Speed bumps cause bump in idiocy

Oh my! I almost went through that thing that's merely intended to slow cars down! I need to come to a complete stop—for the safety of humanity! No, I'm not talking about stop signs, because those actually work, I'm talking about the lowly speed bump. Oh yeah, I'm also being sarcastic.

Speed bumps are supposed to instill a weird sense of fear in people. And people do take them to heart and make certain to stop at the “slow down” bump—counter to the bump's intentions. They take the “bump” aspect far too much to heart and do not realize how much they're annoying the people behind them—me.

The other day I was driving through the parking lot of a community college, I got behind a guy who SLAMMED on his brakes right before a speed bump. He then proceeded over it at a snail's pace. This registered as a tad annoying, but then it got strange. The parking lot had a stop sign about 100 feet away from said speed bump. I expected Mr.-by-the-book to again nail his brakes when he got to that intersection. But nope, he blasted right on through it. I, being the dutiful person I am, stopped at the stop sign and avoided getting slammed into by a bus roughly 18 times the size of my car. It was one of those rare times where following the rules saved my life, or at the very least a $500 deductible.

The math is quite simple.

People really need to learn how to use speed bumps. If they were called stop bumps, I could understand, but they take it to a ridiculous level, bordering on crazy. When someone comes to a complete stop at a speed bump, sure, it does live up to the mission of the bump, it does makes people slow down. But by similar logic, dying is a fantastic way to drop a couple pounds (although that last 23.1 pounds is an absolute killer).

Some might claim speeding over a speed bump could wreck up the alignment of the tires or the tilt of the earth upon its axis, or do absolutely nothing. I'll admit, those are all scary fates (particularly the last one), but I think we should just rely on the only driving advice my brother gave me “the faster you go, the less you'll feel.” While this also holds true for sex, it's fits even better for speed bumps. I'm not sure about its relation to “speed humps” though.

Speed bumps do create the rather large problem of people rear ending idiots, and in that case, the idiots are legally viewed as in the right, despite their extreme idiot-dom for stopping at something that doesn't need stopping. Geez, what idiots.

Just imagine this times several tens of thousands.

There's really only one solution—make the bumps bigger. I don't want a mere speed bump, with its three to four inches of clearane, I want a “Speed Everest.” If you make something as tall as the highest peak in the world, people aren't going to come to a stop before mounting that 29,000 vertical feet. They will do what you should do at a speed bump and floor it. The only problem with this solution is it might kill off a staggering amount of people trying to climb the dreaded “Mile Marker 57 Bump.” But not everyone can be Sir Edmund Hillary, and they're just collateral damage in this speed bump concept renovation.

Once this idea gets off the ground (ha!) everyone can feel free to get out there and drive safe, no longer will the fear of rear-ending an idiot weigh heavily on drive time thoughts. Although there might be an increase in thinking along the lines of “I hope this atmospheric pressure doesn't crush my Smart Car.”