Speed bumps are supposed to punish the speeders and minimally offend those abiding by the legal limits. But, as all drivers know, crossing the things sucks at any speed and, regardless of how brightly painted they are, they're easy to miss until you're finding out the hard way just what kind of suspension travel your ride offers. A smarter bump from designers Jae-yun Kim and Jong-Su Lee could be the answer. Unlike the ones we've
covered in the past, this one stays up all the time, using a small damper inside to flatten out when a car drives over it at low speed. The higher force applied by a faster car would prevent the bump from lowering and, presumably, ruin that dastardly speeder's day. The things are also festooned with LEDs on the front, back, and sides, which might just mean you'd be able to see this one in time to save your dubs from destruction.
[Via
Techie Diva]
posted Dec 12th 2008 9:01AM
so does this mean it's safe to play in the street again?
YES! In fact, you should go out at night dressed in all black and lay on the ground right next to the speed bump!
Or better, dress in chequered yellow and black and lay *on* the bump.
HAHA Yeah! what if you... umm... hehe...yeah and like be all on the floor... and stuff... and get run... over... HAHA!! YEAH!!
It won't stop the peados, so no, your street may still be unsafe.
OR better yet, dress in striped yellow and black and BE your own speedbump!
Explain to me how you get an 'a' in the word peado, which I'm assuming is short for pedophile.
Whoops, the a and the e are the wrong way round, either way, try consulting a dictionary dipshit. American variants of a word aren't the only ones that exist.
Oh, the irony.
But he's right... In English (well british english) it's spelt paedophile. So there you go lowranked, that's the explanation.
work for the dole - human speedbumps!
Someone should put a bunch of these on the highway.
Because seeing some jackass flying out of control at 100mph after hitting one of these speed bumps just gosh darn makes my day...
I doubt these have the cost and cheap maintenance to actually be used in anything but the richest of neighborhoods , nice idea tho :)
Low income neighborhoods, on the other hand, will employ bags filled with water and cornstarch to achieve similar, though potentially messier effect.
Dashpot on a budget. I prefer custard though, tastes better.
Low income neighborhoods have been using a much cheaper alternative all these years, POTHOLES!
The cost of these will instantly put councils and governments off installing them. If private residences decide to install them, I'd be willing to bet they would spend at least the same cost again on maintenance within the first year.
If someone could think of a sensible solution to this well known problem... Well lets just say I would love to own the patent!
Some areas have the money to burn though, there's this small-residential city near where I live called Indian Wells and their city has so much extra money to burn that during an economic crisis they repave their roads annually because they have such a surplas of funds. I garuntee you'll see these there within a couple years, and places similar to it across the country.
I'm really sure these speed bumps would be vandalized if placed in a not so busy place. I'm sure you'll only come across these in some parking lots.
how many cars have you seen doing 80mph while entering a parking lot?
you havent met my mom yet, have you..
@marky-b
Who hasn't met your mom?
I LOVE IT!!!!
I'll take 10. I love the idea... probably expensive though.
I hate speed bumps. I have driven less than half the posted speed and hit a speed bump in my SUV that made my head hit the roof hard. Now I avoid those speed bumps by speeding through a different residential area.
Instead of speed bumps spend money to install a digital radar detector and issue speeding tickets and at least you will collect money via tickets and help slow traffic with out damaging my SUV.
And you would be the first to get that ticket
Gotta love speed bumps you need to navigate @2mph in 25mph zones. How does that make any sense. Bad for your car, bad for the environment, bad for noise pollution in the neighborhood (as people accelerate back up to speed).
Near where I work they put up a bunch of stop signs on the main 35mph arterial and police it heavily. Solution: lots of people cut thru the neighborhoods where there are no stop signs but there ARE houses.
Stupid rich residents who complain OMG WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN and make the main arterial a pain to travel, reap what they sow when people speed and cut thru their neighborhoods instead.
Speedbumps are only going to cause you to hit your head on the roof liner if you are going to fast. Which means it's doing its intended function; making sure you are annoyed and will slow down on the next speed bump.
I have a car lowered on a sport suspension and I never hit my head on the roof, so it's definately your speed.
Aren't SUVs kind of intended to go over... uh, rougher stuff? I wonder how well it will do when off-roading...
With my old Renault I couldn't care less about speed bumps, the suspension would take anything. My Citroen also has little problems with them, although it is a bit rough when speeding over one.
What exactly are the 'rich' residents sowing? How would this be their fault?
I hate speedbumps too. I drive a Beetle, which isn't really that low, and my dad drives a BMW 3 series, which is low, but not THAT low.
We both scrape over speedbumps all the time, even at a snail's pace.
It's not just speedbumps, though. It's also parking lot entrances. I wonder where city planners get the idea for the moats you have to cross to get into some parking lots. It's ridiculous.
Are you normally proud of driving a beatle?
Many people drive too slow over speed-bumps, there's an optimum speed where the shockabsorbers of the car react just right.
Good idea. They had the same idea at Linköpings University (Sweden) last year and tried them out at a cross on my way to the university. The first one broke the same day and the last one a week after installment. After that they came to the conclusion it would be to expensive to make them hold and those seemed way more basic. Let's hope these works better.
ingenious!!
And the version 2.0 will come with spikes.
Gen 2, because it is a hardware upgrade. Software upgrades increase the version number.
I once again don't understand why engadget blindly publishes anything posted on yanko design. This is NOT a product. It isnt even viable as one. Anyone with any background in mechanical engineering would tell you that the reason this doesn't exist is because it would take about a week of traffic to destroy it, and the level of materials required to make it remotely durable would make it prohibitively expensive.
The LED idea is fine, but it already exists--- they have flashing speed bumps (they may not be LED, not sure).
Every time i see one of these "stories" on engadget i cry a little. Im amazed that the "designer" didnt think to make it generate electricity from the vibrations induced by passing cars as long as they were dreaming.
DEAR ENGADGET EDITORS: Just because someone has access to a 3d rendering suite does not make it a product.
Just because a product is still a concept doesn't make it any less interesting to read about.
But the distinction there is that when, say, chevy makes a concept car, it at least has some level of credibility and engineering viability behind it. These yanko design stories continually have absolutely zero grounding in reality. They are a concept only to the artist who drew them. The majority of them are not just "not products yet", but actively could NEVER be one.
If I took MS paint and drew a box that i said would generate infinite free energy, that would be an "interesting concept" by your metric. It still doesnt belong here.
I'm gonna differ on concept cars vs. this speed bump. This has a lot more viability than many concept cars. I'm aware e))) does put up some completely harebrained concepts, but this one is legit.
Will this still rip off the stupid splitters on the front of a chavs lowered car? If not then I don't want to see them used as I love seeing the chavs having to slow down to almost a stop to navigate the speed bumps......
However apart from this it is a good idea. Although the centre road speed bumps seem to offer a similar benefit of being able to run over them at close to normal speeds. (Plus they are even better for riping the entire floorpans from chavs cars. I have even seen on chav having to turn around as his stupid car could not get over the bump.)
While I am at it is there any device that automatically shoots out the front fog lights of these idiots?
Damn chavs should just die and get it over with :/.
Better question: Will it make perfectly from-the-factory unmodified cars get all scraped to shit? Because that's what many mentally challenged speed bump designers seem to have in mind.
Sometimes I see people in beater econoboxes or SUVs pound over speed bumps at full speed, but the only people who aren't massively inconvenienced by speed bumps are people who simply don't care about how long their car lasts.
They put up some speedbumps on two roads near my house, I have a 2001 Chevrolet Impala and I have to slow to a complete stop just so I don't scrap the bumperguard on the front... although, it doesn't always work.
Haha, yeah. But I'd rather prefer speedbumps that appear out of nowhere when they detect that a chav is coming. I hate it when I have to stop just because some ... had to make his car look "cool".
UnixSystemsEngineer: I really cannot understand you. You repeatedly complain about speed bumps causing damage to your car. Have you considered (a) You *could* slow down and (b) That you are driving a piece of shit. Why don't you take some responsibility for your actions rather than pointing the finger?
Actually, what really annoys me about your posts is your avatar.
lanoitarus, understanding that it's just a dream with "no grounding in reality", I'd love to hear about that infinite free energy box of yours. MS Paint will be acceptable.
Oh, and while you're at it, please go into a some detail about how one might make this impractical, impossible speed bump generate electricity from the vibrations induced by passing cars.
That's two delightful ideas you've shared within two comments. No, this reply does not contain any sarcasm -- not sure if I can convince you. I truly am a nutty dreamer with little regard for logic or reason. It gets me into lots of trouble, but occasionally, one of my ideas pops miraculously into being. After that happens, the logical folks explain why.
"Oh, and while you're at it, please go into a some detail about how one might make this impractical, impossible speed bump generate electricity from the vibrations induced by passing cars."
I'll handle this one with one word: Piezoelectricity.
Please hand lanoitarus your internets for the day.
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2008/12/12/power-generating-piezoelectric-road-will-be-tested-next-month-in/
I give it a week before it breaks.
I give it a week before it breaks.
The Engadget commenting system?
lol its funny, because the engadget comment system sucks lol
The one good thing about living in Michigan/Ohio vs Arizona is the great reduction in the number of speed bumps. Speed bumps and snow plows don't go together very well.
We have pot holes in MI that do quite a nice job of slowing people down and breaking cars. So we dont need as many speed bumps.
Great! So I can race accross it with my 200kg motorcycle at twice the speed limit!
When are these things coming!?
No thanks. This is another one of over complexing ideas.
This is all great. Until taxpayers have to pay 5000 dollars/bump, and then maintenance of 100$/month. And some inventor makes millions of "free" money for his awesome and original invention.
Remember, you're (the tax payer) the one that's going to pay for it. And you are going to buy it for the most outrageous price, because your government thinks that tax money grows on trees.
[rant mode off]
Or you could just drive around them like everyone else.
Could some kind of hydraulic system be used instead? The weight of slow moving vehicles could push the bump down (speeding vehicles, of course, would still get the full effect). It may not be simple to design, but it wouldn't require electricity.
OR, just accelerate, i can barely feel speed bumps at 50+ mph, i love driving a truck haha
So i was _plowing_ through a neighborhood the other day, and will you believe a kid _stained_ my bumper?
Well I give this one an A+ for safety!
Speed bumps were designed to slow traffic down to speeds between 0-15 mph.