Hypermiling vs speed bumps

[Piwoslaw]

Using your horn within city limits is not legal here, and wouldn't score you points with the neighbors even if it was. Nobody would invest in a speed radar on a residential street since the traffic is too low. The local gov't would put out $$$ to catch 3-5 speeders per day for the first week, and after the first week the radar would look like this:

[PaleMelanesian]

Originally Posted by Piwoslaw

Using your horn within city limits is not legal here

Really?!! Wow. Around here, you'd think the law was that you MUST use it!

I wish we had a law about the trains using their horns in the city, though. Working half a block from the track = LOUD!

[RobertSmalls]

There are laws against unnecessary horn use, but I couldn't imagine them being enforced unless you're a jackass about it.

[Arragonis]

Originally Posted by cdltpx

I would blow the horn on and off for about 5 seconds when I slowed for the bumps they might recommend that the bumps be removed after hearing all the protest. I understand people wanting to do something to prevent speeders from zipping down the street at unsafe speeds but to hold all drivers hostage because of of a few is unamerican.

Being unamerican is my existance, mainly because I am not one.

TBH though equating your right to go at any speed as 'freedom' vs safety seems a little, well, dumb. Also stop outside my house and 'toot' in protest and you may find some products of the LBC coming your way.

Lets get this straight though. I am not a speed nazi, I think going 90 on a clear motorway with little traffic is fine, 60 on an open country road is fine too. But 40+ down my street, and that is what the morons did before the humps, is dangerous - end of argument, not negotiable.

If you are that upset, take a different route.

Originally Posted by cdltpx

Rather than speed bumps they should set up a camera radar system and nail speeders all the way to the bank. Some roads the speed limit is not accurate others the speed is too high. For instance there is a road that has a speed of 35mph the road is straight 3 miles long light traffic people are going to drive down that road around 55 I do 35 but they act like I am a weenie for doing the speed limit. Other locations have 65 mph homes close proximity to the road heavy traffic and hardly any room to accelerate to the speed limit.

Welcome to my country.

We have speed cameras everywhere. Not just instant ones but average speed ones too - they read your plate and point a and then point b and calculate how fast you went between the two.

Does this all work ?

No.

For a start people learn where they are and slow down. Sat navs have them on their maps and beep when needed. Even radar detectors detect passive ones when they bounce off other cars.

And a lot of the cars they do catch are not registered correctly, so they can't nab the owner anyway.

And in fact this makes it worse. If (like me) you legally register and insure you car (a requirement here) then you get speeding fines. Don't bother to register or insure your car and get away with it.

So not exactly fair is it ?

So humps work for me.

[gone-ot]

...as I recall, Memphis, Tennessee, has "Anti-Noise" Ordinances on horn usage, or they did back in the 1960's!

[daring4]

I liked to kill the engine once on my street and coast to my house, bouncing into the driveway silently until I broke both front shock mounts from the unibody! A lil welding and its good as used...

[redyaris]

Originally Posted by Piwoslaw

How do I negotiate speed bumps efficiently?

I know - take a route without them.

But what if I don't have an alternative? My neighborhood street has about 6 bumps over 300 meters, some of them quite big. Until now I would pulse, coast, engine brake, roll over the bump, pulse, coast, etc. Sometimes (if there is noone behind me) I pulse to a lower speed and then don't engine brake before the bump. When I can, I go closer to the edge which is lower.

Am I doing it right? Any better ideas?

I have two obsevations that may help, I have found that there is an optimum speed for railway tracks or speed bumps, neather to fast or to slow for the suspension. You can expierament... to find the smoothest travers of the bumps. I found that 20km/hr was the best. The other observation is that if I go across the bumps at a slite angle so that each wheel goes over the bump alone, the ride is smoother. I hope this helps.

[PaleMelanesian]

^ yes.

That optimum speed depends very much on the car, though. On my two Hondas, a civic and an odyssey, the best speed is respectively 15 mph and 8 mph.

Lighter wheels help too - unsprung weight has a hard time going over bumps smoothly.

[Kiwi_Canadian]

Where I grew up they're everywhere and alot of them are way too big and solid to attempt going over without coming to a complete crawl. I made that mistake once... I hit one at 35kph and all my friends smashed their heads against the ceiling of the car... I wasn't too popular...

Where my Dad lives now... His suburb is known as humpville and he lives on a steep street covered in speed bumps so you can't gain or make use of any momentum at the bottom of the street to help you get part way up the hill. Constantly wasting gas and revs just to get home everytime. Most of the time they're in places where there are no/very few alternative routes!! Very frustrating. I wish I could give advice but it sounds like you're doing everything as best as possible.
I think in New Zealand speed bumps are a whole lot more serious than the smooth raised strips and bumps that I drive over here in Canada!!

[winkosmosis]

Originally Posted by C3H8

speed bumps? what speed bumps? i ignore them, and replace my shocks and get an alignment every 2-3 years.
i hate doing that to the car but i will not let a sleeping policeman tell me how fast to go.

The problem with the speedbumps is the wear on your unibody. It's not just an upward force. The tire hitting the bump causes the suspension to push rearward on the unibody. Even worse if you have a coil sprung solid axle up front like me. The control arm angles cause the tire to be pushed forward into bumps, increasing the unmitigated force getting to the frame.