Speed Humps Don’t Have to be Mountains

It is time the City of Windhoek stopped building mountain ranges across our streets.

From residential areas to major routes, the city is no longer installing traffic-calming measures; it is constructing vehicular obstacles that serve no purpose other than to damage small vehicles.

The logic should be simple: look at a standard road kerb. Its height is an absolute physical barrier that no driver – whether in a taxi or a 4×4 – wants to hit at speed.

If a standard kerb is sufficient to keep a car off a sidewalk, then a speed hump modelled after that same height is more than enough to slow down a speeding vehicle.

If the city believes one hump is not enough, the solution is not to build it higher; the solution is smarter spacing.

Two kerb-height humps, separated by roughly 5m, would be far more effective at sustaining a safe speed than a single concrete mountain that forces a complete stop and destroys vehicle suspensions.

Anything higher than a standard kerb profile is excessive.

These peaks act as suspension breakers, forcing residents to pay a hidden tax in ruined shocks and ball joints.

Furthermore, the city is wasting public resources and concrete on over-engineering that disrupts the flow of our city.

The plea to the City of Windhoek is straightforward: We should use the standard road kerb as the maximum height for all speed humps and implement smart spacing by using two low-profile humps in succession rather than one massive obstacle.

It is time to stop wasting concrete on ‘mountains’ when a kerb-height profile is perfectly sufficient.

Windhoek is already surrounded by the Auas Mountains; we do not need the city building new mountain ranges on our tarred roads.

We want safety, but we should not need a mountaineering permit to drive to work.
Concerned resident

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