Speed Bumps Drive Wedge Between Canyon Residents

Mandeville Canyon is taking its lumps over controversial new speed bumps.

Residents living at the bottom of the 1,200-home neighborhood persuaded Los Angeles traffic engineers to install a pair of asphalt bumps a month ago to put the brakes on speeders.

But those living at the upper end of 5-mile-long Mandeville Canyon Road say that speeding was never a problem and that the bumps are safety hazards, which dangerously delay ambulances and firetrucks.

As a protest, they have begun honking their horns each time they slow down and drive over the bumps.

That is prompting altercations between motorists and lower-canyon residents.

One driver says he was chased down and his car rammed after he honked. Another contends that her car was kicked and pounded by two men after she honked. Others assert that they have been followed home and harassed by lower-canyon residents.

The hostilities have prompted police to step up patrols in the rustic Brentwood enclave north of Sunset Boulevard, which has only one way in and out.

“It’s like the Hatfields and McCoys up there,” said Robert Ringler, a leader of the West Los Angeles Community-Police Advisory Board, which is trying to steer clear of the dispute.

Added LAPD motorcycle Officer U.S. Taylor, who said he has been screamed at by Mandeville motorists: “Can’t we just have peace? This ought to be such a beautiful, tranquil place.”

The speed bump issue has been touchy for years in the canyon.

An alleged speeding problem caused residents to begin talking of bumps six years ago. Then in 1998 residents of the canyon’s lower end began circulating petitions asking Los Angeles traffic engineers to install them.

Signatures of about 80 lower-canyon residents prompted officials to approve five “speed table” bumps earlier this year. The planned installation became an issue in this spring’s 11th Council District election when incumbent Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski endorsed them as “a test.”

Homeowners from the upper canyon managed to get plans for three bumps dropped after they persuaded 22 lower-canyon residents to remove their names from the petition. But other lower-canyon residents wouldn’t budge on the other two bumps, which were installed in mid-May.

With their downhill neighbors refusing to give the bumps the boot, upper-canyon residents began to toot.

An anonymous flier circulated in late May urged residents to “please protest by beeping your horn while driving over the bumps” as a way to “encourage” their removal. Reaction was swift.

Desmond McDonald, whose family has lived in the canyon since the mid-1940s, told police that when he honked he was chased up the hill and rammed by the pursuer’s Cadillac SUV.

“He was screaming hysterically,” McDonald recalled Tuesday. “He was yelling, ‘You people are driving me insane with this honking! It’s got to stop!’ ”

McDonald said he told the man that he once had to give his grandmother cardiopulmonary resuscitation for more than 20 minutes before paramedics came. “And here he was telling me how the horns were annoying him,” he said.

An upper-canyon resident who asked that her name not be printed said her BMW was dented when two men rushed up and kicked and pounded it after she honked at the bumps. “I was only honking in the daytime, not at night,” she said.

Upper-canyon resident Wendy Rosen said the area has a low traffic accident rate, which means speeding is not a problem.

But it’s a problem with paramedics: Rosen said she clocked an ambulance creeping over the bumps at 8 mph instead of the canyon’s posted 30 mph.

But a Miscikowski aide said the bumps will stay at least five more months while the city tests their effectiveness. Council deputy Chris Bing said a firetruck was able to cross them at about 25 mph--not enough to seriously delay a response in an emergency.

Taylor said detectives are investigating the honking--which is illegal “unless there’s a deer or squirrel in the road”--and the road rage allegations.

For now, officials indicated, it will take more than beeps to bounce the bumps out of Mandeville Canyon.