Remember no one is asking for an end to traffic calming, just TC reform. You be the judge.

August 28, 1998 from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Legality, efficiency of speed bumps are debated

by
Joey Ledford

Griffin's city attorney is not alone in his belief that speed humps are illegal traffic obstructions.

A judge in Sarasota, Fla., has issued a ruling that the devices designed to slow traffic in residential areas are not legal traffic control devices because they are not specified as such in the federal Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices.

In Griffin, City Attorney Drew Whalen recommended to the City Commission last month that it remove speed humps from three streets in the Spalding County seat.

Not only are speed humps not cited in the federal manual, which is also Georgia's traffic bible, but they also pose liability problems should they cause accidents or damage vehicles, Whalen said.

The commission took his advice, ripping out the humps.

Not coincidentally, the state Department of Transportation earlier had told city officials its policy is to not allow state funds to be used to repave any street with speed humps. DOT officials have not, however, gone so far as to say humps are illegal, just inappropriate for streets paved with state money.

"We just don't view speed humps as a deterrent to speeding," said Harold Linnenkohl, executive assistant to DOT Commissioner Wayne Shackelford. "Certainly people will slow down when they get to the speed hump.

But what we've seen is that they speed up between them . . . (and) they are certainly a hindrance to emergency vehicles." But Sarasota County Circuit Judge Robert Bennett took that extra step in June in the Sunshine State, agreeing with two Sarasota residents who claimed in a lawsuit that the city's plan to install humps near a hospital was illegal.

"Our state statute adopts the federal manual and says that traffic control devices must be in accordance with the federal manual,"

Bennett said in an interview. "The federal manual has no provision for speed bumps. That's the bottom line for the ruling." Bennett's ruling applies only to the city of Sarasota but has resulted in Sarasota County's halting its speed hump program.

The city has appealed to Florida's 2nd District Court of Appeals, where a ruling that could spread the impact of the decision to other parts of the state could be months away. Bennett, a former criminal and juvenile court judge, said the decision has "stirred up more emotion" than any case he's ever had, including death penalty cases.

The basis of Bennett's ruling is erroneous, argues Martin Bretherton, Gwinnett County's traffic studies engineer, because speed humps are not a traffic control device.

"It's part of the actual road design," said Bretherton. "They are not signs, nor signals. They are not construction signs or markings," which are all traffic control devices.

Bennett disagrees. "By statutory definition, the speed bump is a traffic control device because they are intended to regulate speed and volume," said the judge.

George Pilkington, Atlanta-based principal engineer of Pilkington Engineering, believes that the DOT policy not to pave streets with speed humps has had the effect of declaring humps illegal in Georgia.

That has occurred, he said, because DOT is "the interpreter of the (federal manual) in Georgia."

And, he added, "That book is law."

But Linnenkohl said that is not DOT's intent.

"We're certainly not going to say that they are illegal or people can't put them in," he said. "We'd just rather not put our funding into them. We are in the business of trying to move traffic, not stop it like that."

So it would appear speed humps remain legal in Georgia until someone sues to ban them, and even then it would take a judge who agrees with Bennett before that could happen.