It's not easy being a speed hump. Especially not in Chevy Chase, where the installation of three such "bumps" has been sending some drivers and neighbors alike into paroxysms of honking and bitterness.
"It's petty and it's personal," Kip Joseph Crecca, 43, a Chevy Chase resident, told The Washington Post. "It's war."
"We just wanted a sign," added Crecca, who lives on McKinley Street, NW, a block away from Morrison "Speed Hump Way" Street, NW. Instead, Crecca told the Post, the neighborhood gets "these mondo humps."
The installation of the humps was approved by neighborhood residents in early June, but the advisory neighborhood commission is miffed about their size—too big!—and wants them removed unless there's a speed analysis study done.
And Chevy Chase isn't the only neighborhood up in arms about the traffic-slowing obstacles.
Residents in Cleveland Park are being urged to toot their horns to protest new speed humps on Newark Street, NW -- by a candidate for the citizens' association board no less, according to the Post.
But the number of bumps isn't going down anytime soon. Prior to D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) stepping into office, a traffic study had to be completed for every speed hump request.
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Now, it's as simple as getting a majority of your neighbors to sign a petition.
For all the kvetching over in Chevy Chase and Cleveland Park, there are obviously a lot of people signing up. The District now boasts a grand total of 868 speed bumps, from about 100 when Fenty first took office.
The need for humps evolved with the District's recent prosperity, city officials told the Post. "Like a lot of major cities, we have seen a real renaissance, we have people moving back, you have people having children in the city," said Gabe Klein, director of the D.C. transportation department. "Pedestrian safety has become a very big issue."
Not everyone agrees about the bumps' function, though.
"They're raised potholes, is what they are," AAA Mid-Atlantic spokesman John Townsend told The Washington Examiner. "They confound motorists, they confuse neighbors."
And make them angry too. At a recent community meeting in Chevy Chase, a woman was talking about how she almost died after being hit by a car a block from Morrison. A lawyer who lives on Morrison yelled out, "Get a life!"
Let the revolution begin.
