A typical fire truck weighs about 30,000 pounds. And that’s before it’s filled up with water. En route to a fire, a fully loaded up fire truck will top 45,000 pounds.
That extra 15,000 pounds of water is sloshing around the tanks the entire drive, giving a pounding to the axles and suspension system every time the truck hits even a minor bump on the road.
So y’know what the guy driving that hulking life-saving machine really hates? Speed bumps.
Each speed bump not only slows down the response time as the driver has to slam on the brakes to go over the bump, but it also sends that 15,000 pounds of water glugging around the inside of the tank, wobbling the entire truck in violent and unpredictable ways.
This is the kinda thing people never think about when they register as a delegate to speak at City Hall and then prattle on about how their street needs speed bumps. No one likes seeing teenage jerkwads ripping down residential streets in their rusty Honda Civics. It’s infuriating.
My two-year-old loves to unpredictably run off for no dang reason when we’re playing in our yard, and as a dad there are few things that get under my skin more than seeing someone speed down my street.
Despite that, you won’t ever catch me moaning about it to my local council and begging them to put in speed bumps.
Because speed bumps are bad. They are a pox on society and should not exist. Firefighters, snow plow operators, delivery truck drivers, cyclists, cops, school bus drivers; this is just a short list of people who all hate speed bumps.
Even you, the person who thinks they want speed bumps on their street, you don’t actually want speed bumps either.
Years ago, during my time as a City Hall reporter in Port Colborne, there was an issue where people were complaining about speeding down one of the roads leading to the lake. So the City put in speed bumps to appease the homeowners. Not long after that, the homeowners began complaining about the calamitous noise created every time a big truck would drive over the speed bumps. The cacophony of noise from rattling trucks going over the bump was so obnoxious that nearby homeowners asked for the speed bumps to be removed.
Put them in. Take them out. Excellent use of City staff resources and money.
But it does prove my wider point this week, which is: no one cares about your speed bump petition. I was reading a story this week about, get this, homeowners in Wainfleet on a road leading to the lake, complaining about speeders and asking for speed bumps to be installed.
The lady even had a petition. With 30 signatures. Speed bump issue aside for a moment, petitions are bad and pointless and a waste of time and no one should care about them, no matter how many signatures you have.
Back in my reporter days, I would abide by the “Pokemon Petition” rule. It was a rule of my own invention, which came from a time when a colleague was doing a story about a petition he said had a lot of signatures, which he claimed made it newsworthy. I replied that earlier that week I had seen a petition with more than 8,000 signatures that was demanding Nintendo add more Pokemon to the latest Pokemon game. An absolutely pointless petition, and yet, more than 8,000 people put their name to it. And you expect me to care that 30 people signed a petition asking for speed bumps?
The decision to install speed bumps should come from City Hall, after consulting with people who matter, like the Fire Chief and the Infrastructure Manager and the Roads Department, not from Betty and Larry on Nice View Road who are mad that the Amazon delivery guy was a bit heavy-footed when he delivered their scented candles.
If you don’t like it, then move outta Wainfleet and buy a house in Toronto where the traffic will be so congested that no one can get their car over 30 kph anyway.
James Culic is the Fort Erie Race Track’s comms guy, and a weekly columnist. He also wants more Pokemon. Find out how to yell at him at the bottom of the page.
