Do Speed Humps Really Protect People From Accidents?
Speed Humps, according to this article in the American Journal Of Public Health, protect children from accidents.
Speed humps help protect children from accidents
Speed humps help make a child’s environment safer, according to a 5-year study of pediatric emergency department visits involving children struck by an automobile. In a study of children seen in the emergency department of Children’s Hospital Oakland from March 1, 1995-March 1, 2000, researchers found that those children living on or near streets with speed humps were less likely to be injured or killed by automobiles than children who lived on streets without such speed humps. Living within a block of a speed hump was associated with a roughly two-fold reduction in the odds of injury within a child’s neighborhood. Overall, living near a speed hump was associated with a 53-60 percent reduction in the odds of injury or death due to being struck by an automobile.
“These findings invite additional research on the protective effects of traffic calming interventions,” the study’s authors said. “Our study provides direct observational evidence that speed humps are associated with a reduction in the odds of childhood pedestrian injuries and supports installation of speed humps by traffic engineering departments.”
[From: "A Matched Case-Control Study Evaluating the Effectiveness of Speed Humps in Reducing Child Pedestrian Injuries." Contact: June M. Tester, MD, MPH, Children's Hospital Oakland, junetester@post.harvard.edu.]
This study appears to be based on surveying those injured in accidents. It would be interesting to see the results of any additional scientific research projects.
I’ll continue to look for them and report them here as I find them. But “a 53-60 percent reduction in the odds of injury or death…” attributable to speed humps, is pretty stunning isn’t it?