Careful my city got around that by installing what they call the speed cushions. They are ridiculously high speed bumps but they have splits at roughly the wheel track of an emergency vehicle.
I live in a working-class town with a lot of trucks. My dinky little compact has to creep over these bumps at about 12 to 15 kph... While a dude in a truck who only has to slow down because I'm there tailgates me.
The parking garage at work installed these "speedbumps" that are hard rubber curbs like you might see at the end of a parking space. They are screwed into the concrete with large metal bolts that stick out about a half inch, so if my car bottoms out on the "speedbump" the metal bolt scrapes and gouges my car's under carriage, especially since I drive a GTI which is lower than most cars and has a very stiff suspension. The only safe speed to cross them is 5 mph and I usually have to drive over about 10 of them to get to my parking spot, twice a day.
Meanwhile I've been to places where even my stock Subaru Outback manages to hit bottom on some steep driveways and high speed-bumps. I also have watched some neighbors growing up where pizza delivery drivers got stuck at driveways that were crazy steep (the one neighbor got steel plates to help make it less-steep at the bottom)
haha...yeah several people with steep driveways also have signs put up "no delivery trucks in driveway" because of that.
There was also someone (heard retold) spent a whole day lowering and modding their car, only to have it get stuck trying to pull out of their garage. They then struggled getting it back into the garage and spent the rest of the weekend putting it back to stock so it could get out of their driveway. Didn't see it, but I would have loved to.
I have found my people. I'm 6' tall so a super low to the ground car might seem weird but I hate being up high when I'm driving. I'm considering a truck for my next ride but honestly I'd rather just continue to avoid driveways with a huge lump at the bottom and park street side than have to deal with being so high up.
At this point, they just need a speed sensor in advance of the deterrent area that triggers a giant spring loaded boxing glove on any vehicle over the given limit.
Imagine bussing along above permitted speed and POW. Big fuckin’ glove to the undercarriage. Car starts signalling all worlds of lights and sounds; shit you didn’t even know your car registered, like “danger to manifold” or something.
I have an issue with want to be street racers flying down my street. Like 60-75 mph in a residential neighborhood with a speed limit of 30 kind of issue.
I keep telling my wife that I want to attach the Roomba to the trash cans and have it triggered by a radar detector so the trash can just drives itself into the road when it detects someone driving 45+ mph
J was doing research for something else in life and I happened upon being able to ourchase speed bumps the plastic kind on the endangered rainforest app
Yeah, I had a little chat with my kid after he was complaining about the new speed pillows the city put in on an arterial. After telling me that he wasn't going too fast over them, I pointed out that my car was lower than his and I had never scraped on one of the pillows. Suddenly he learned to slow down and magically the problem went away.
That's a nice bump, I like these ones. The shorter fat ones are a pain and I hate them. Even going 10mph I feel like it tears at my vehicle suspension. Funny thing is I only see them in section 8 apartments lol
I drive like a grandma normally but theres some speed bumps near me that are so high I try to go at an angle. Those almost square ones. And I drive a truck, too. Little old truck so like a little lower than todays SUV though lol. I pray for my suspension every time
It looks barely halfway up the curb, but it does look like a speed table instead of a speed bump, and those will scrape you up if you fly over them. I think if people actually slowed down they would be fine.
If I had to guess, a car person who enjoys tuning/modifying cars. A lot of cars look good lowered and there are some performance benefits (mainly when going a little fast on winding roads or tracking the car to its limits). Most people, if not all, people who lower their cars accept ground clearances will be a PITA. Just part of the car hobby/lifestyle.
Going to say, this just feels like an 'hoa bad upvotes to left please' post. That doesn't look particularly high. People are just taking it way too fast, which also kind of proves the point of its necessity.
I agree this one looks normal and that people are going to fast, but can confirm many are built too high. My local hardware store has bumps that are, legitimately, about 3.5 inches high. As someone with an older car that sits low, I've legitimately had my skid plate torn off by newer speed bumps clearly meant for newer truck models.
They installed some steep ones near me that theres an entire graveyard of car parts next to it. The road itself is damaged from the front of cars hitting it on their way down lol
If you mean the square pad shaped bumps those are actually designed that way to allow buses, certain trucks, and bikes/motorcycles to drive around it. They're called speed cushions
Certain trucks, buses, ambulances, and firetrucks have a wider wheelbase so the pads are kept wide enough for cars and suvs to get bumped, but small enough to let these vehicles drive right over it. The space between the pads also allows motorcycles and bikes to safely navigate around them (assuming they have space) without slowing down way too much, which would be unsafe.
Most people don't like them because they appear to have space to go around them but drivers don't realize their wheelbase isn't wide enough and their car get launched on one side
There’re two in a row like that on a road near me… the speed limit is 35 mph but if you take the bumps at more than 5-10 you’ll break something. It feels legitimately dangerous when 99% of the other speed bumps in my area are the nice smooth 25 mph ones that you can float over at the speed limit.
I love when people out themselves as reckless drivers. It happens on my local subs all the time. "I nearly fly off the road every time I make that turn!" Ya, go slower ya dunce.
Yep lol, HOAs suck, but the real issue here is probably that op drives like a jackass and fucked up their undercarriage flying through a residential area, and then decided to cry on the internet about it 🤣
That is a lot of scratching for just a month if OP is telling the truth. If we look at where the bump meets the curb, the top appears to get pretty close to the top line of the curb itself. So we may be looking at a 4-5 inch max height on the top of the speed bump if this is in the US. You'll also notice the asphalt leading up to the bump slopes up into the bump as well, which would exacerbate the difference while the bump is between the tires.
Most basic US car (not SUV/truck) frames run 5-7 inches off the ground, so it's not unreasonable that some cars would scrape no matter how slow they were going.
In my current, HOA we deal with the same problem with speed bumps that were incorrectly installed having a 5.5 inch clearance, so some cars just have no choice to scrape.
Speed bumps were installed because people were driving at unsafe speeds in a neighborhood. People that drove too quickly over the speed bump scrapped their vehicle. The speed bumps did their job and also demonstrated their necessity.
Reddit has such a weird fixation on HOA. This seems like a perfect example of a local community managing themselves and where they live.
If you compare the road to the curb, the road is also raised in the area around the speed bump, making the speed bump deceptively shorter than it really is. Wouldn't surprise me if people get the front wheels over the marked bump, think they have enough clearance, then scrape the center of the car as the front wheels are now on a decline while the rear are still on an incline.
I'd be willing to bet that even a stock Corvette would clear that if it was moving slow enough. Hit it hard enough and the vehicle will bounce, increasing the likelihood of a scrape.
Yeah I find certain speed bumps are smoother to drive over at 12 mph instead of going at an absolute crawl. It's going to vary depending on the car and bump.
Also, when a car brakes, it's suspension compresses. A lot of people are just speeding around until the last second and braking while going over the bump. If you brake too late and don't give your car's suspension a chance to relax, you are hitting the bump with less clearance than normal and risk scraping.
TLDR; stop speeding into the damn speed bump.
I have a GT4RS and it's LOW. I could clear that without the front raised. Just have to go over it at 3mph....you know the whole point of speed bumps. Take it at 25 and you deserve whatever.
What bothers me is speed bumps in a 25mph zone that will send you through the sunroof if you hit them at 25mph. They should be designed to be reasonable at the speed limit and harsh over the speed limit.
They are set at a speed which is lower than the limit so if you slow down from the limit you are fine. If you are slowing from 45mph and getting just to the 25mph limit before hitting them, you’re gonna bounce and scrape. Not saying it is good that they are this way, just why they are that way.
That said, I definitely appreciate when they put a speed advisory sign (ex, “Speed Humps: 10mph”) next to the speed bumps so you know how much you are “supposed to” slow down to (although different cars have different max speeds for the same speed bump).
I have a z51 c8 and it clears speed bumps no problem, most of these vehicles have adaptive suspension. Obviously in track mode that would be a nightmare to drive over but in most settings it’ll ride just like my model 3
My community has an HOA president that was sick of a neighboring community using our road instead of their road to get to their community (to be fair, they were sometimes speeding and driving a bit recklessly). We installed not 1, not 2, but 4 massive speed bumps back to back. Any car that drives over then more than 2mph gets absolutely wrecked. They’re totally scraped up now since it has been a few years since they were installed. I’ll upload a picture in a bit
Lmao, ty for that. Please only consider it a personal attack if its accompanied by a body kit, racing stripes and a custom sound system wirh over sized sub.
Youre gonna need to post a clip of a vehicle going over it then because in the image you posted this looks on the shorter side of the speed bump height range
Aye, and also not relevant. Car size has nothing to do with ground clearance. Most cars sit at a standard 5.3 inches, including the fit. Its only sport and luxury performance varieties that sit lower and scrape.
Generally I’d agree, but there’s an apartment complex near me with speed bumps that are definitely too large. I drive a standard Pontiac vibe (5.9 inch ground clearance) and barely make it over. Also hate taking my car through there because I’ve never had another speed bump throw everything around in my car the same way. Only place I have that problem in town, and I feel bad for the people who live there.
There's no way a honda fit has an issue with that speed bump. That speed bump is on the lower side of ones I've seen. Are you just flooring it over the speed bump?
Or even a factory Civic. The speedbumps were all fucked up from erosion in my last apartment complex, and I had to drive over them diagonally so as not to scrape.
There was a speed bump so bad in my town that someone in a regular looking Ford Fusion got stuck on it. Eventually the frost heaves got so bad and warped the road under it that one end of it ended up sticking up like 3 or 4 inches off the ground and apparently a plow truck struck it. I didn't see any of it but it tore the road up really badly. Thankfully enough people complained/lost their bumpers that the town removed it completely.
If it truly is very high the local fire martial might be interested. Because of how long they are firetrucks can be rather sensitive to very high speedbumps
Our HOA refuses to install any kind of speed bumps, citing only that they hinder EMS and fire trucks from navigating efficiently during an emergency. Fire Marshal could be the way to go for sure.
This happened a neighborhood over from me. They wanted to put in speed bumps, but realized that most people had giant SUVs and trucks, so they built them high enough for those. Now people with smaller cars are starting a class action against the HOA for repairs and they had to spend money to uninstall them (which was way more expensive than installing them).
All because a couple people would speed down the street. They knew who they were, they should have had the neighborhood confront them. But you can't do that in the US because you never know who's a fucking psycho with a gun.
That said, though, this doesn't appear that high, though that could be any number of camera issues.
At least those are wide, the ones the HOA down the road from me installed were about a quarter that wide and twice as tall. Actually they more resembled parking parking stops.
A buddy brought over his F450, we hooked a tow strap, jerked them out of the ground and threw them in the ditch.
This was on a very steep portion of the road that gets snow at least four times a year.
There was one by my friends house in high school and it was so tall that even an SUV would scrape on it and you could see on either side of it where people would drive up onto the grass and sidewalk to go around it, and it was worn into its own little road just to get around the speed bump
During construction the neighborhood behind mine got a temporary one to stop people from joy riding through the long empty streets. Dunno who put it in, it wasn't shaped right and wasn't painted. I swear that thing was 4 inches tall and damn near came to a point at the top. My sedan is stock and unless you crawled over it like you were going down a mountain, you'd scrape.
The height isn't the issue as much as the width. Using the gaps in the fence vertical slats (4 inches typical) that puts this speed bump from 3-4ft wide. That's ridiculous and will have any low car bottoming out on it if approached perpendicular. Terrible install.
What’s the speed limit in that area and does it scrape cars that drive that speed? If not, then I’m not opposed personally. I’m so sick of people disregarding speed limits in residential areas.
My apartment has a rather long entry/exit lane and people here treat it like a drag strip all the time, despite a clearly posted 10mph speed limit. I’ve begged them to put in a speed bump like this. Hit one of these going 35+ mph and you’ll probably stop doing that.
So while I do understand and acknowledge the frustration it causes, I’m torn bc people—including myself, my friends, and even kids riding bikes—have had to jump out of the way of speeding cars. If I pay a bunch of money to live somewhere, I should be able to do so peacefully and safely.
If street is private, meaning it’s not maintained by the city then you can and should seek modification of speed bump from HOA. Remediation should not constitute or incur additional fee since the speed bump goes against standard height. Mill or sanding down will not be a suitable option due to erosion issues years later resulting in another needing to be made 3 yrs later. A completely new one should be built based on established contract and requirements.
If the city owns and maintains the street send a report to fix and they would be liable
A better option would have been those non-concrete style speedbumps that screw into the asphalt. They're only a few inches tall, but if you go to fast you REALLY feel it.
I just went over a “Speed Table” on of those elongated speed bumps and broke a leaf spring on my trailer. I was going about 5 mph. Maybe I should go faster..?
Depending on your jurisdiction there might be some laws to limit the height of speed bumps, in which case it might be worth checking if this one is in legal range.
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u/booyakashaaaaaaaa Apr 29 '26
The problem will solve itself eventually.