We decided to choose a local neighborhood close to University of South Florida’s campus to place our sticker. We stuck our sticker on a designated speed hump within the neighborhood. While taking our picture we chose two locations, a sign stating “Speed Hump 15mph” and the physical speed hump, which are large and clearly warn drivers to exercise caution. This location appealed to our group because we believe that the element of traffic safety was indicative to public health, and it creates a safer environment f
or pedestrians and the residents. Furthermore, it promotes drivers to be aware of their surroundings and practice more cautious driving habits. It allows for the driver’s to experience increased safety since they are driving at lower speeds.This is important to public health in various ways. For instance, it promotes a safe environment for local children to be active and play which, from a public health standpoint, makes them less susceptible to the U.S’s growing childhood obesity problem. The speed hump is also largely enforcing and acts as a policing mechanism to slow traffic at places where it is necessary for traffic to be slow. The obvious benefits of a speed hump are that it slows traffic which in turn reduces noise, citizen complaints, and provides accident prevention. Finally the mere presence of a speed hump in a neighborhood provides benefits to the communities mental health, as it provides a general calming feeling to the residents that they can be sure that no speeder’s will be speeding through their community.
Jessica White, Kristen Jadick, Ashley Brogna, Bryan Stevens
I think speed bumps are an great example of public health. Public health is all about prevention and speed bumps prevent you from speeding in certain residential areas where pedestrians might frequent. Now more than ever car accidents are a big thing, so I definitely feel that having speed bumps prevents a lot of accidents from happening.
ReplyDeleteI think this is an excellent example of public health at work, it shows the necessity for slower speeds and safety in residential areas. This prevents people from speeding through quiet residential areas endangering children and adults alike. I remember in my old neighborhood was right off of a major road and people would speed through ignoring the stop signs and honking as if you were supposed to beware of them when crossing the street. More recently you can t go 100 ft without hitting a speed-bump. That’s public health at work, reducing indjury.
ReplyDeleteCool Pictures! I thing groups of friends/people should take pictures in front of signs similar to these (bike lanes, shared road, etc.) because when people see them out of the context of a street "in-traffic", they may view the topic differently...I did!
ReplyDeleteThe effectiveness of Speed humps depends heavily on some critical dimensions: height and length of the humps, spacing, how many there are. It is disappointing that the evaluation doesn't provide any measurements of these critical dimensions. Also,success is evaluated by speed, or how often cars travel faster than the intended speed; this should have been observed and reported more carefully.
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