By Manuel Perez-Rivas
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 8 1998; Page B01

The poster-size sign is simple, black and white, and it resonates with lots of drivers who take Fernwood Road in Bethesda: "Hate Humps? Sign Petition."

It comes into view just as drivers hit the brakes to go over a series of speed humps on this two-lane road, lined with tall trees and suburban homes. A steady stream of harried motorists, frustrated and angered by the humps, pull over to the side of the road where they are handed a clipboard with a petition that seeks to put the question of speed humps up for a referendum in November.

Organizers hope to ban future humps and to get rid of the ones already in place.

"It eats me up when I see these idiotic things in the road," says Gunter Thomas, seething in his Volkswagen after signing the petition. "What kind of a solution is that? It's something that only could be thought up by imbeciles."

Few issues in Montgomery County inflame passions as hotly as speed humps these days. The bane of many motorists, they are beloved by neighborhoods tired of aggressive, speeding drivers using their residential streets as convenient shortcuts.

Since July 1, 1994, when funding for speed humps first appeared in Montgomery County's budget, the "traffic calming" obstacles have popped up at a rate of nearly one a day. Today, there are about 1,150 speed humps on 300 county roads and streets.

By comparison, Howard County has installed about 80 speed humps. Prince George's County has them on seven roads.

The Virginia Department of Transportation only recently launched a two-year pilot program in seven counties, including Fairfax, Prince William and Loudoun, to make greater use of humps and other roadway obstacles.

The rapid proliferation of humps in Montgomery, and motorists' rising resentment, prompted the Montgomery County Council last year to stop taking applications for new humps until their effect on traffic could be assessed. Nevertheless, support for the humps remains strong among people who live along the affected streets.

On Fernwood Road, for instance, residents clamored for speed humps to deter motorists from using their street as an alternative route between certain sections of Old Georgetown Road and Democracy Boulevard.

"There was always a speeding problem. We would notice an accident every other week. Our neighbors complained that they couldn't get out of their driveways," said Julia Lajoie, a mother of three young children who lives on Fernwood Road and believes the humps have made the street safer. "Basically, we felt like we were under siege by the speeders."

Montgomery County officials say that speed humps only are approved after petitions asking for them are received from residents on an affected street and that they require support from the local civic association. Then, the street must pass a series of tests on traffic volume and speeds before humps are approved and installed.

"They're effectively destroying our public roadway system. There's no stopping them," said Alan B. Fischler, one of the leaders of Save Our Streets, the anti-hump group that is collecting petition signatures. Fischler believes the county has forged ahead blindly, even despite evidence that too many humps can significantly delay firetrucks and other rescue vehicles. "The extent to which they're putting them on our streets is irresponsible. And as a citizen and a taxpayer, I resent it."

The number of speed humps in Montgomery also raises eyebrows among transportation officials in other counties. "It sounds like they got carried away," said George Fragos, a traffic engineer in Howard County.

Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan (D) defended the humps. "I like the speed hump program. It works. It slows people down," Duncan said. "If people were to drive the speed limit, we wouldn't need them."

As humps have multiplied, the petition drive has provided an outlet for the frustrations of drivers who believe that the county has chosen a bad solution. So far, more than 5,000 people have signed petitions. The group needs twice that number to get the measure on the county ballot.

Last Monday, on Fernwood Road, volunteers had no problem collecting even more signatures. Every couple of minutes, an angry motorist would pull over to the shoulder and wait for them to walk over with the clipboard. Sometimes there was a line of three or four cars waiting to sign. Some didn't stop but honked encouragement as they passed over the humps or gave organizers a thumbs-up.

Yet there were also plenty of detractors. "I love speed humps!" shouted one man, who rolled down the window of his Jeep so he could be heard as he drove past. Others expressed their feelings with gestures, not words.

Those who did stop offered several reasons for hating humps: They cause wear and tear on cars, especially on cars with stick shifts; they cause significant delays for emergency rescue vehicles; they're dangerous if you don't see them; they're undemocratic because they allow people to essentially "privatize" public roads; they're a burden on the taxpayers; and they make good drivers pay for the sins of bad ones.

"The concept that you put an obstruction in the middle of the road is just ludicrous to me," said Wayne Goldstein, a landscape artist from Kensington Heights who was the other volunteer out that day and who alone has gathered more than 1,000 signatures. "It's a violation of basic democratic principles."

Graham Norton, the county's transportation director, said that aggravation is the price some communities agreed to pay to reclaim their quiet streets.

"A neighborhood has a right to a quality of life that it's comfortable with," he said.