Hat tip: STS
Consider this story out of Seattle, Wash. Here are the highlights:
- A residential neighborhood is plagued by drivers speeding through it as a way to avoid traffic lights on a main thoroughfare.
- The problem is so bad ? speeding cars, cars sideswiped, people afraid to back out of their own driveways, etc. ? that neighbors banded together and tried to address the problem through the city.
- They clocked drivers speeding, they kepts charts, they signed petitions for speed bumps and stop signs, all for naught.
- So they pooled their money, went to Costco, and bought their own speed bumps. Total price tag to the private residents: $900. The result: drivers slowed down. Problem solved?
- Of course not. The city finally paid the neighborhood some attention ? by removing the citizens’ last-resort speed bumps.
- Then the city decided to allocate taxpayer money for a topical address of the problem: more traffic signs. Total price tag to the Seattle tax-paying public: $15,000.
