Talk:Speed cushion

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Ambulance[edit]

The article refers to the wider axle of ambulances. Most ambulances in my locale are built on a van or light truck chassis, and so have a track similar to passenger cars.18:01, 20 November 2007 (UTC) Ident failed to appear LorenzoB (talk) 18:01, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

this is exactly what I just intended to write here. Speed cushions are sold in widths of 1.8 meters, so any advantage is possible to vehicles with at least a track gauge of 1.9 meters (you cannot control a vehicle by +/- 1cm). The vehicle most used as an ambulance vehicle in Germany (and Netherlands and ...) is the Mercedes Sprinter, this model has 1710/1716 mm track gauge (front/rear). So in Europe there is no advantage for ambulances. Another question is: Why should buses (as well as every other large vehicle) be un-affected by the speed cushions? Are speeding large vehicles less dangerous than small ones?--Hundehalter (talk) 10:44, 11 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Another Disadvantage?[edit]

These 'cushions' look very like a popular local version of the road hump/table/cushion/bump oevre... On residential urban streets there can be two or three 'cushions' laid abreast (depending on the actual effective width of the road), rendered in either permanent (asphalt/concrete) or temporary/replacable (rubber) forms. In the two-cushion version they will each correspond with the very centre of the lane that services the respective direction of the road. They can be driven over (even with the 'narrow' wheelbase of the care) most easily by exactly stradling the cushion, thus having the wheels/suspension equally deformed by the transit, at maybe half the deformation experienced if a single wheel is sent over the centre. This more or less forces the driver (at whatever speed, although it actually 'feels' most comfortable at the local limit of 30mph, possibly at the expense of the suspension system) to attempt to straddle the bump, which unfortunately may not always be the best line to take the road, with residential parking intruding at least partially onto the roadway (perhaps half on the pavement).

It's even more pronounced with the slightly wider roads with three bumps abreast but also (full) curbside parking by the residents (in a possible chicken-and-egg relationship with the roadway width). There, because the nearside cushion is uncomfortably close to the curb the next best option is to straddle the central cushion, but if there's traffic approaching in the opposite direction then one is has to fall back on the alternate approach of straddling the gap, driving the wheels over the adjacent sloping edges of the central/nearside cushions, and trusting that the opposing driver will do likewise on the other side of the road. If there's a bus, in such a situation, one often gets forced to dislocating further, at the cost of imparting most of the 'impact' onto the nearside wheel.

But how to explain all that, succinctly, on the main page? Ah well, I'll leave this here

(OTOH, when cycling you get a large amount of choice as to track, depending on other traffic.) 178.106.190.241 (talk) 18:26, 3 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]