About five years ago, on the advice of an "international expert", many pedestrian road crossings in Mysore were converted into road humps. These humps, constructed at enormous expense are about 9" high and topped with interlocking tiles. From the beginning, it was clear that these humps created more problems than solved:
1. The cost of constructing a hump and topping it with interlocking tiles is much more than the cost of painting zebra stripes at pedestrian crossings.
2. The creation of innumerable road humps needlessly slowed down traffic, without providing additional safety to pedestrians.
3. Since zebra stripes are not painted on many of them, these pedestrian crossings are a danger to drivers, especially at night.
4. Many old and the infirm pedestrians have slipped on the sloping sides of the humps and hurt themselves.
5. These humps also do not meet the requirements of the Indian Roads Congress guidelines (IRC: 99-1988) on the construction of road humps. According to these guidelines, road humps are meant mainly for residential areas and minor roads. Their use on major roads is not considered good engineering practice and IRC explicitly discourages it. Even when roads humps are an absolute necessity, these road humps do not follow the recommendations of IRC.
6. Many of these crossings are not at all provided with drainage channels and the channels that are provided are inadequate. When the rainy season begins, pools of water collect behind these humps and cause total nuisance to drivers and pedestrians alike.
To solve problem No. 6, channels have been cut in the road hump to drain the collected water. These channels pose a serious danger to vehicles, especially two-wheelers. It is not clear which is worse, the problem or the solution.