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unbumps

 concave traffic calming devices
  (+4, -1)
(+4, -1) 		  [vote for,
against]

instead of using various convex shapes in the road; use concave shallow troughs of the same size.

it must be cheaper for local councils to remove materials from the road rather than create a mound. a lot of the time all that would be necessary would be to smooth off a pothole anyway & save money repairing the roads.

undoing an unbump would be easier than reversing a standard hump.

—po, Dec 26 2003

Log of where unbumps are being trialled http://www.fixmystreet.com/report/45671
[Dub, Apr 16 2009]

BBC News: Pothole go-slow to 'calm traffic' http://news.bbc.co....d/essex/8001310.stm
[Dub, Apr 17 2009]

[link]






       can't see any reasons why not ... as long the unbump is not too deep or too long. [thanks for your email]. +
—jonthegeologist, Dec 26 2003
   

       What's this - a custard-filled speed bump without the custard...?   

       Anyway, "It must be cheaper for local councils to remove materials from the road rather than create a mound." - I suspect not. Especially as you're going to have to keep sending the road crew out to the site on a regular basis to remove the garbage and leaves and things that will fill the hole up.
—DrCurry, Dec 26 2003
   

       road sweeping might actually be easier as it will all get blown into my unbumps - road sweeping will be much quicker.
—po, Dec 26 2003
   

       Carpeted car lanes for even better sweeping (under).
—FarmerJohn, Dec 26 2003
   

       I love splashing through puddles (big kid that I am)   

       snow? snowballs silly!
—po, Dec 26 2003
   

       Many roads where I live already have potholes in them.
—hippo, Dec 26 2003
   

       I concur with [hippo]. This is a free of charge service where I live. Just gotta give it some time -- and wouldn't it create lots of road noise?
—Letsbuildafort, Dec 26 2003
   

       //smooth off a pothole // going down and up is no noisier that up and down :)   

       driving from wandsworth to lambeth in London - the difference is noticeable.
—po, Dec 26 2003
   

       whats worse for your suspenders - potholes or sleeping policemen?
—po, Dec 26 2003
   

       Got to figure into the budget lining the unbump with pennies or other copper source to curtail growth of mosquitoes.   

       When full of ice they'd make lovely skid pads in the winter.
—DadManWalking, Dec 26 2003
   

       gives DMW a sugarlump - poor lovey!   

       have you got your hat with the tassel, dear? keep you nice and warm <poor soul!>
—po, Dec 26 2003
   

       I didn't mean "lovely skid pads" ironically. I park off the street, the curbs around here are pretty high and I walk a lot so I'd get to see some cool pile-ups from the safety of the sidewalk.   

       Fresh from the oven pastry for you [po].
—DadManWalking, Dec 26 2003
   

       Easy to apply and budget. + Quite effective. + Possibly safer and less damage to a car. -
—sartep, Dec 26 2003
   

       I always thought "Dip Ahead" meant something else.
—thumbwax, Dec 26 2003
   

       If you drove fast enough, wouldn't you just fly over them? (That is unless you dug medieval-style moats that would ensnare any slow-moving traffic.)
—kropotkin, Dec 27 2003
   

       "Let's un-bump before we hump! Do the hump! Do the hump! Do the un-bumpity bump!"   

       *cough*
—Eugene, Dec 27 2003
   

       "sending the road crew out to the site on a regular basis to remove the garbage and leaves and things that will fill the hole up" not so DrCurry, pot holes in the road tend to get bigger rather then fill will garbage and leaves.
—KiwiJohn, Dec 28 2003
   

       Mmmm, Custard-Filled Speed Unbumps!
—FarmerJohn, Dec 29 2003
   

       I don't mean to burst ALL of your bubbles.....   

       but a speed trough trough would actually be easier on the car the faster you were going.   

       If you go slow, you're wheels go down into the trough and you bounce around a lot.   

       If you go really really fast, your car wouldn't be over the hole long enough to drop significantly and thus the bump would be far less.   

       I guess you could call this a "speed up trough", or what we call it in Wisconsin, a pothole, fishbone
—thejini, May 16 2004
   

       how many *bubbles* of mine have you burst?
—po, May 16 2004
   

       I don't like it. Federally sponsored enlongated potholes.
—schematics, May 16 2004
   

       //traffic calming devices//   

       "Traffic calming"? Orwell would be proud.   

       The real goal of so-called "traffic calming" is to make driving sufficiently miserable as to encourage motorists to give up altogether.
—supercat, May 16 2004
   

       these are actually very common in many condo areas where i live, i guess they are not as widely implemented as i thought as no one else seems to know of them
they work well as far as i know they were always a pain when trying to ride a bike quickly through random complexes, but i'm a little old for that now anyway
—tumnus, May 17 2004
   

       A rather ritzy section of road that's also a very busy shortcut in-town was riddled with potholes for decades (possibly centuries) which worked rather well to control speeds.   

       So in the 70's somebody who had the mayor's ear (or other protruding portion) complained and they filled in all the potholes and gave it a nice shiny new ashphalt coat.   

       So in the 80's they put speed bumps in.   

       Your City Council at Work >_<
—FlyingToaster, Feb 22 2009
   

       What about a really big hole, carefully shaped by the arc that a falling would make at just over the speed limit? A car driving within the speed limit would go down into the hole and climb out smoothly. A speeding car would lift off the ground and land in the hole and lose his lunch.
—Bad Jim, Feb 22 2009
   

       Speed bumps are much cheaper than digging holes, some of them are just bolted to the ground.   

       Also, dips would be hard to see and impossible if full of rain/leaves/snow.   

       The only advantage I can see is that snowploughs could go along the street without bumping into them.
—marklar, Feb 22 2009
   

       I disagree. You only need to put some object on the ground while making the road so a certain area doesn't get tarmac. The saving on tarmac should exceed the labour cost of putting the object down.   

       Of course not fixing potholes is another way. Though potholes are not designed for the job and it may be more comfortable to drive over them at speed than to slow down
—Bad Jim, Feb 22 2009
   

       I think Wandsworth, indeed many London boroughs {and Essex} are already trialing this technique, in pathches of different roads [linkies]
—Dub, Apr 16 2009
   
      
[annotate]
   


 

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