Althouse: A man named Carr, distressed by cars, got a speed hump installed in front of his house.

September 14, 2010

A man named Carr, distressed by cars, got a speed hump installed in front of his house.

A man named Patton, hating the way the hump slowed his car, stopped Carr... with a bullet to the brain.

31 comments:

SarcastiCarrie said...: I've always called them speed bumps rather than humps.; 9/14/10, 3:08 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: I've always called them speed bumps rather than humps.

I would guess a regionalism, like the difference between pop and soda (and I obviously come from a part of the country that thinks that soda is that tasteless stuff that is mixed with gin - but also where they are called bumps, not humps).; 9/14/10, 3:15 PM
Big Mike said...: Mr. Patton better hope I'm not on his jury.; 9/14/10, 3:17 PM
Anonymous said...: Sounds as though Patton might have been half a bubble off plumb to begin with. Horrible.

And where I'm from, a speed hump is something else entirely.; 9/14/10, 3:19 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "I've always called them speed bumps rather than humps."

So did I, but then I was told that speed bumps and humps are different.; 9/14/10, 3:27 PM
former law student said...: A woman in Sunnyvale, CA, distressed by a neighbor who always parked one of his four cars in front of her house, painted her curb red (No Parking allowed).

She was further distressed when she received a ticket for parking in a red zone. Arguing with the city that it was "her" red curb did not work:

http://celebrifi.com/gossip/Roadshow-Dont-like-strange-cars-on-your-curb-Why-not-paint-it-red-1510105.html; 9/14/10, 3:32 PM
chickelit said...: A speed bump (in British English a speed hump, road hump, speed breaker, sleeping policeman, or slow child; in New Zealand English a judder bar, in Hiberno-English a ramp)

sleeping policeman?
slow child?; 9/14/10, 3:33 PM
Scott M said...: So did I, but then I was told that speed bumps and humps are different.

A speed hump is what you do when you're married with small children that are currently downstairs playing nicely. You'll get a quality five minutes out of that that can be every bit as fulfilling as a twenty-minute, multi-positional toe-curler.; 9/14/10, 3:35 PM
chickelit said...: Obviously for Patton the road bump was akin to road kill.; 9/14/10, 3:35 PM
former law student said...: Humps are gradual; bumps are abrupt. From maine.gov

Speed Humps:

Are a gradual raised area in the pavement surface extending across the entire travel width
Typically, 3 to 4 inches in height with a travel length of 12 to 15 ft
Have evolved from extensive research & testing
Create a gentle vehicle rocking motion which results in most vehicles slowing to 15 mph at each hump and 25 to 30 mph between properly spaced humps in a system
Need to be designed and installed with proper planning and engineering
Effective at controlling speeds without creating accidents or imposing unreasonable or unacceptable safety risks

Speed Bumps:

Are an abrupt raised area in the pavement surface
Effective at controlling speeds on low volume, low speed roads, especially private driveways and parking lots
Typically, 3 to 6 inches in height with a travel length of 6 in. to 3 ft
Cause significant driver discomfort at typical residential speeds\
Cause vehicles to slow to 5 mph or less at the bump
Maintenance headaches especially for plow trucks; 9/14/10, 3:35 PM
Scott M said...: FLS, I love ya, but you sure know how to turn fun into an insurance seminar.; 9/14/10, 3:37 PM
traditionalguy said...: Is this an example of the instinct to protect private property rights, but extended to the roadway this shooter uses. We all respect authority, but self appointed governing authorities need to be real careful about 2nd Amendment rights exercisers.The Tea Party is another example of the instinct to protect private property rights and is working on "Replacing the governing authority" that takes them away. Lexington and Concord shots were shootings in a street of the British invaders which went there to take away their arms and ammunition. America was born in rebellion against false authority and still does a lot of that.; 9/14/10, 3:37 PM
Skeptical said...: A speed hump is made so that you can drive over it at the speed limit and not experience anything but a gentle up and down.

A speed bump makes you come nearly to a stop.

This guy Carr lives on a neighborhood street which can serve as a cut-through between two major roads in Fairfax County. He saw assholes blazing through his neighborhood and got the county to do something about it -- something really reasonable, which is to calm the traffic by keeping people from speeding. That poor bastard. Makes me sick.; 9/14/10, 3:37 PM
former law student said...: scott, wanting to clear up the hump/bump issue, I was still cutting and pasting while you posted your little gem. Sorry to be a downer.; 9/14/10, 4:08 PM
Sydney said...: I have always wanted to put one of those in front of my house. Guess I sould buy a gun first, though.; 9/14/10, 4:09 PM
Scott M said...: Well, okay. As long as I'm getting credit for a gem.; 9/14/10, 4:10 PM
SteveR said...: I'm no fan of the overuse of these things and put them in the same category as redlight (ahem speed cameras), bike lanes created by four lanes being reduced to two, dog parks and all the numerous squeaky wheel things local governments do, but this guy (Patton) obviously has some serious issues.

I suspect Carr might have been a bit of a jerk about it but killing him? Horrible; 9/14/10, 4:30 PM
Cedarford said...: 1. Squeaky wheel gets the grease.

OR

2. Squeaky wheel got greased!; 9/14/10, 5:21 PM
dbp said...: This story, sad as it is, just reinforces what I have thought all along: If you make a habit of pissing-off large numbers of people, one of them will be a nut and he will kill you.; 9/14/10, 5:30 PM
dbp said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/14/10, 5:30 PM
Anonymous said...: If I ever decide to disrupt traffic in front of my house I'm putting in a tollbooth, not a speed bump.; 9/14/10, 5:30 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: I think CARR was KITT's evil twin.; 9/14/10, 6:07 PM
DaLawGiver said...: dbq gets it right. There are lots of nutjobs out there. I won't put any kind of a bumper sticker on my car, it just makes you a target for somebody.

Crazy bastards. If they break into my house though they better kill me quick or I will command my psycho fearless dogs to gnaw their ankles off.

I hope that murdering asshole ends up big bubba's bitch in prison.; 9/14/10, 6:20 PM
Fred4Pres said...: Government worker goes nuts?

Seriously, this sounds like a death penalty case.; 9/14/10, 6:58 PM
Sprezzatura said...: And don't forget the tables.

We've got tables.

And, we've got some parking lots where they have yellow painted speed bumps, and they also have fake bumps which are strips of yellow paint on the flat surface. It took me a few trips through those lots before I finally remembered I didn't need to approach the fakes as if they were actual bumps.; 9/14/10, 7:27 PM
Peter Hoh said...: Fred: Government worker goes nuts?

Not unless you know something from another source. The article mentions that Carr worked for the FAA, but did not include any information about Patton, the guy who "went nuts."; 9/14/10, 7:55 PM
Palladian said...: "Where ya goin', Patton?"

"Fairfax. I'm going to personally shoot that speed-hump layin' sonofabitch."; 9/14/10, 8:50 PM
LilyBart said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 9/14/10, 9:53 PM
Emil Blatz said...: Speed humps/bumps, not the answer. Traffic calming - by narrowing of the road at various points, which causes people to slow naturally without working the suspension so hard or bottoming out the Lambo, works just fine. And nobody gets killed.; 9/14/10, 9:57 PM
Shanna said...: People hate speed bumps. They put speed bumps on the road down the street from me and one of the houses on the street has a "don't blame me, I didn't vote for the speed bumps" sign. I don't know why they put them there, the ducks and geese slow you down half the time anyway.

dog parks

What on earth is wrong with a dog park? Dogs love a chance to play off leash and with other dogs.; 9/15/10, 7:21 AM
Unknown said...: Despite what our charming host states on another post, I believe that Supreme Court Justice is endorsing exactly this sort of behavior. If you feel strongly enough about some issue, you have to kill people to be taken seriously. While I personally thing that this is a overreaction to a speed hump, Mr.Patton obviously felt otherwise and apparently acted on that belief.

Compare this case to the recent decision of Judge Walker overturning Prop 8 in California. Regardless of the merits of gay marriage, a majority of the people of California voted to make same sex marriage in California illegal just as a majority of people have voted against gay marriage every time it has been put to a popular vote. Only a tiny minority of Americans care one way or another whether anybody burns a Koran but Justice Breyer seems to believe that their wishes deserve more respect than the majority of Californians because they are willing to kill.

Obviously the lesson to be taken from this is that ballots do not have the same legal weight as bullets. While most people are not willing to face the death penalty or life in prison for their opposition to gay marriage or speed humps, people who have just received a diagnosis of terminal cancer might use a different calculus.; 9/15/10, 11:07 AM