PHOENIX, AZ — Multiple neighborhoods in Phoenix are fighting to get speed humps to slow down street racing in the area.
Recently a Jeep was hit and flipped on its side during a crash near 24th Street and McDowell Road. Fortunately, the driver walked away with minor injuries. The other car took off without stopping, according to neighbors.
For Robert Dunahee the crash was the final straw. "You will hear the engines roar, the engines rev," he said.
While the speed limit is posted at 30 miles per hour, Dunahee says many drivers treat the long stretch like a "drag strip."
"When people are revving it they’re probably easily going 60, 70 on up," said Dunahee. "I have to worry about my kids coming out here."
Alyssa Peralta is worried about speeding near her home at 28th Street and Moreland. "They could hit a child, they could hit someone’s dog," she said.
For Peralta and her family, reckless driving is not new. "For the past seven years, it has increasingly gotten worse. Everything from drag racing, side-by-side or just singular vehicles speeding," she said.
Peralta even recorded a man doing multiple donuts behind her one evening. She has been looking for a solution. "[We] tried to get speed humps," she said.
The city agreed to do a street study on a nearby street, but Peralta said the speeds were evidently not fast enough to warrant installing speed humps at a reduced cost.
"The findings came back with nothing, which is kind of frustrating because during a speed study we heard a lot of racing and caught a lot of speeding," she said.
According to the City of Phoenix, they receive on average 300 requests for speed bumps every year. In 2018, they installed 67.
A city spokesperson said the entire process from speed hump "request to installation is typically in the six to a 12-month time frame."
In a year, both Peralta and Dunahee hope to have speed humps instead of donuts, and caution instead of crashes.
"Somebody’s going to die one of these days it is just bound to happen," said Dunahee.
The city says so far this year they have received 59-speed hump requests.
They have construction scheduled for the first 19 humps over the next four weeks.
There is a cost to the neighborhood, ranging from $100 per hump to $1,200, depending on what the speed study shows.
You can find more information about speed humps on the city's website
