#Perspective: Ballito Drive is the new 4×4 route
My personal interest in speed humps shot through the roof (quite literally) on Saturday morning when I was cruising up Ballito Drive at a casual 60km/h when suddenly there was a bone-crunching crash and I was airborne.
It has been a long standing joke in our family that to get around Ballito without encountering a speed hump is near impossible.
Every year brings a few new ones.
They pop up like mushrooms! In fact it’s one job that municipalities country-wide seem to get great joy at being very efficient at.
While pot holes gape at you for months on end, one whinge about speed and ta da!
Everyone in the family has their favourite route with “I swear” the least possible number of the wretched things.
Now I discover that we are not special at all.
In fact so common is the human behaviour of changing routes to avoid speed humps that the Council Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) national guidelines on the matter, titled ‘Design and Implementation of Speed Humps’ (March 1997) speak at length on the subject.
Turns out the science behind street hump placement is quite complicated and they should not be slapped down indiscriminately, without thought for the very real negative effects a poor placement or poor construction could cause, both on vehicle undercarriages and people living nearby with increased sound and traffic pollution.
My personal interest in speed humps shot through the roof (quite literally) on Saturday morning when I was cruising up Ballito Drive at a casual 60km/h when suddenly there was a bone-crunching crash and I was airborne.
I swore like a sailor.
Hyperventilating just a little I realised that I had just made an unfortunate acquaintance with the latest speed hump (no, speed mountain!).
It had been installed but not painted and lay hidden in the morning shadows, like a rhino ready to trample on its unsuspecting victims. A resident told me he had seen (and heard) at least 15 cars crunch into it the night before.
I called ward 6 councillor Tammy Colley to complain bitterly and to her credit the contractor was back on site painting it by the time I returned from grocery shopping.
As grateful as I am for the paint and while I am no expert on the subject of roads, I cannot see the point to this particular hump.
In South Africa there is apparently no national law, or even enforceable guidelines, governing speed hump design. It is left to individual municipalities to regulate their speed humps, to varying degrees of success.
The CSIR recommends that rounded speed bumps should be between 80mm and 120mm high, depending on how much they are supposed to restrict speed.
The higher the hump, the greater the speed restriction. At 80mm high over a width of 4 metres, the CSIR says, cars shouldn’t be able to traverse a hump at more than 50km/h. Increase the height to 120mm and the maximum speed drops to 30km/h.
While I am yet to measure the offending hump, in a Toyota Fortuner I am forced to slow down to at least 20km/h to climb over it.
They have since added a 10km/h warning sign to the offending hump. Why I ask, with tears in my eyes, is it necessary for traffic to slow to 10km/h on Ballito’s main road?
So wretchedly designed is this monster that I would not be surprised if the municipality soon receives numerous claims for damages and demands that it be scraped away, or at least levelled to a decent height.
I learned from Cllr Colley that one new hump was allocated to each ward as part of the resurfacing contract. I am interested to know how readers feel about the new hump in your neighbourhood!
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