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Wake up Normanites. Someone is ruining our city a little at a time.

The Public Works guys are putting giant obstacles in our streets making them a real pain to drive on. They like to call them Speed Tables, Speed Humps or Traffic Calming Devices. Actually, they are big humps in the street about 6-inches high, 9 feet across, and the width of the street. They just installed eight of these monsters in about a quarter mile of Meadow Ridge, coming off of Robinson into a quiet residential district.

If these bumps were inverted, they would do the same thing, and would be called big pot holes. They like to say they are designed not to bother you if your speed is in accordance to the posted limit. Let me tell you, it still makes your car jump up six inches and back down again. I suspect anyone traveling through these eight obstructions three or four times a day will need new shock absorbers every year.

None of the contacted owners of property touching Meadow Ridge voted no on the petition to install the obstructions. Call you believe that? I believe that's about two percent of the people that travel that street. The other 98 percent who don't live on Meadow Ridge but have to travel through these obstructions to get to Robinson three or four times a day didn't have an opportunity to vote on it. Needless to say, we non-Meadow Ridge drivers will be cussing these Meadow Ridge property owners every time we travel that street. I'm sure the fire trucks, EMSA vehicles and snow plows will love them also.

They will say that they had to do something to stop the speeders on that street. I believe that the cost of these eight obstructions is $40,000. To make matters scarier, they have budgeted $200,000 per year in the future for more of these street obstacles. This is just our money going out for a useless project. Another freedom gone; the freedom to drive on a smooth street in my neighborhood. Like the lost freedom to decide to plant a tree if I want to or not. Like the lost freedom to pay for recycling or not.

They could have solved the problem and made some money besides by putting a speed cop on this street once in a while. I have lived here for 10 years and have never seen a speed cop there. They could make enough money in one year to pay for a couple more cops with vehicles if they would write tickets for speeders. This would bring money in instead of paying it out. This also would punish the speeders instead of everyone driving that route.

Another approach to catch the speeders is to place automatic speed monitoring devices on the street. They automatically sense the speeding, take pictures of the speeding auto front and back and send out the ticket. This is another money making operation. But this, I was told, is illegal in Oklahoma because of a State Law which says all speeding tickets must be issued by a human. I also suspect that property values will go down about 10 percent because few people would want to buy a house in an area where you have to drive over eight big bumps three or four times a day just to get to a major street.

Normanites. Wake up. Your City is being ruined by obstructions in the road, both speed bumps and something called traffic circles where they put a round obstruction in the middle of an intersection. Can you believe that? If you think this is as crazy as I do, call your council members and let them know that you think this is absolutely ridiculous and to put a stop to it. If you don't, you'll be getting speed bumps or traffic circles in your neighborhood. Remember, $200,000 per year is 40 traffic bumps per year or 400 in the next 10 years.

Frank Kaderabek lives in Norman.