Time for change

Ladies and gentlemen of the Rose-Hulman community, allow me, if you will, to present a modest proposal. Slow down when driving through campus. “Well Ryan,” you say, “I happen to have a copy of The Rose Thorn from two years ago and, in it, you write about slowing down. Why the repeat? Repeats are for lamewads.” Well, then, I am a lamewad.

You see ladies and gentlemen, it came to my attention that some of us on this campus believe that the cars we drive are The Excrement (we can’t print the real version). If you’re really that proud of your Ford Pinto, then more power to ya brother, but you need professional help.

But I digress.

Last Friday, I was nearly flattened by something black — I couldn’t tell the make it was going so fast. Monday morning I was nearly impaled by a garbage truck. Monday afternoon a Mazda came, Wankel-whining-tires-screeching around the bend, apparently determined to take me out at the knees. Monday evening I was nearly pancaked by a Jeep. In other words, Monday was a bad day.

Now, you might say to me, “Ryan, do you find yourself in this position because you don’t look before you cross the street?” To which my response would be but a hearty chuckle and small disapproving nod, for I always look before I cross the street (I even look before I cross through a parking lot… I’m cautious).

But was Monday really that bad of a day? Looking back over the past month or so, I can recall a number of instances of irresponsibly fast driving that nearly ended very badly — sometimes it was between classes, and sometimes it wasn’t.

I remember telling my parents when I was searching for a school four years ago that I didn’t want to go to one where I had to cross a street to get to class. When I first saw the street behind Deming, I didn’t think anything of it. I thought, “people at Rose are smart enough to recognize the residential nature of this road and slow down.” Silly me. Apparently I was too naïve (or maybe just wrong?) because some of you drive pants-on-head retardedly fast.

So, I propose this solution. Facilities and Public Safety, I’m going to need some help here. I don’t think that we’ll be able to close the street to the SRC (although the Rumor Mill says that’s a possibility, so keep working on that)… so we’ll have to go for a more fun route. I propose the installation of not one, not two, but three speed humps. For those of you not in the know, a speed hump is a trapezoidal piece of pavement about a car length long that rises to about bumper height — literally, a decent sized hump in the road that if you don’t slow down to like, oh, 10 mph, it will cream the crap out of your undercarriage.

I would put these humps in the following locations. 1) The crosswalk near the Chi-O apartment. 2) The crosswalk near that weird red‐fruit‐dropping‐tree. 3) The crosswalk at the bottom of that awesome new concrete staircase behind Deming. And, of course, I would paint the top of the humps like crosswalks to make it stupidly obvious what their dual purposes are. Oh, and warning signs are a must.

I know, you know, we all know that these inexpensive additions would curb (pun intended, haha) the speeding problem on campus. Why they aren’t in place yet, I don’t know; I figure that’s between the Administration and their God. A quick Google search turned up a recycled rubber model that would set the school back a massive…wait for it…$200. I mean, we’re talking bank-breaking here.

You know what? Maybe I’ll just go ahead and buy them. Seems the Money is just about the only thing that gets anything done around here. Yep, Administration don’t you worry about it. I’ll go ahead and buy three speed humps. Me and some buddies’ll install them for free. Only stipend, each warning sign contains the phrase “Speed Humps Brought to You By That‐Kid‐You‐Would‐Have‐Killed‐Had‐These‐Not‐Been‐Here‐Because‐You‐Don’t‐Know‐What‐A‐Responsible‐Speed‐Is.”