Ambulance Taking a Scenic Route?

Publisher’s note: Speed bumps drive me crazy. With a bad back, I dreaded them. So I thought I’d do a bit of research and turn it into a bit of fun. I asked ChatGPT to write a fictional story based upon my suggestions. 

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SACRAMENTO — Marvin Feldman, 76, found himself lying flat on a gurney in the back of an ambulance on Tuesday morning, clutching his lower back and wondering, not for the first time, whether his decision to help his granddaughter practice cartwheels in the backyard had been a wise one.

 "I just felt a pop," he told paramedics. "Like my spine was trying to play the accordion."

 But it wasn’t the pain that bothered Marvin most. It was the fact that the ambulance was, in his words, "taking the grand tour of Sacramento." Past the zoo. Through Old Town. At one point, they waved to a duck.

 "Is there a parade or something?" he asked the paramedic, who gave him a sympathetic look and simply said:

"Speed bumps."

 Yes, speed bumps.

 These humble, lumpy ridges of municipal tyranny have quietly re-shaped emergency response routes, rattled countless suspensions, and inspired no less than *four* local garage bands to name themselves "The Sleeping Policemen." (Only one still rehearses.)

 “They save lives,” said City Traffic Engineer Linda Flatt, “by slowing vehicles to neighborhood-safe speeds.”

 “Unless you're in an ambulance,” Marvin muttered from his gurney, “in which case they extend your life by making the ride last forever.”

 Speed bumps, also known by such aliases as “speed humps,” “traffic calming devices,” and in one regrettable instance, “asphalt hemorrhoids,” were designed to prevent suburban drag racing and deter shortcut-happy commuters.

 Unfortunately, they also deter fire trucks, pizza delivery drivers, and anyone whose lumbar disc is already herniated.

 "I've seen patients bounce so high off a bump we had to catch 'em with a butterfly net," said EMT Jamie Lopez, who insists she loves her job but not the vertebral jigsaw puzzle that unfolds every time they hit Elm Street.

 City records show that the average ambulance route in Midtown is now 1.7 miles longer due to bump avoidance. Fire crews have memorized alternative "smooth roads" like jazz musicians learning their scales.

 “Ironic, isn't it?” mused Marvin, “We build bumps to slow down cars and then build bypasses to speed up ambulances. It’s like playing chess against ourselves.”

 Not everyone is anti-bump.

 "We sleep better now," said neighbor Linda Periwinkle of Roseleaf Lane, which has five speed humps and one retired race car driver who has taken up hummingbird watching. "Before the bumps, our mailbox was hit *seven* times."

 But while the mailbox may be safe, Marvin’s spine is not. He eventually made it to the hospital, ten minutes later than expected, but with a renewed sense of civic irony.

 “The nurse asked what my pain level was,” Marvin recounted. “I said 'Depends how many speed bumps are between here and the X-ray room.'”.

Speed bumps: friend or foe? The answer may depend on whether you’re driving to the grocery store, or riding in the back of an ambulance with your coccyx in revolt. Either way, the bumps aren't going anywhere.

 Just ask Marvin. But maybe wait until he’s off the muscle relaxants.

~ Al Zagofsky