Driving back from Midas (had to get my starter checked; they said it’s okay for now), I was in a residential neighborhood on SE 72nd when I saw a large (about 2×3 feet) homemade sign right at the edge of someone’s yard where the curb meets the street. It said, in black & orange paint:

SPEED 25 MPH! Speeders have killed our pets — are our children next?

I have a few thoughts on this, which I’ll address to the sign’s creator & owner:

First of all, there wasn’t a permit attached to the sign as required by law, so you’re violating the city’s sign code, which states:

14.20.070 Advertising on Streets.
A. It is unlawful for any person to scatter notices or advertisements on any street right-of-way or to post a notice or advertisement anywhere on a street right-of-way or upon the exterior of a public building.

The penalty is $1000/sign.

Second, your sign is idiotic — nothing more than a whiny, drama-queen attempt to impose a guilt trip on anyone who reads it. You bitch about speeders having killed your pets? Well, let’s see — if the pet is a cat, you got what you deserved for allowing your cat outdoors. Sadly, the cat was the one who paid for it, but that’s one of the consequences for letting a cat roam (along with disease, injury from other animal attacks, and possibly unwanted kittens). And if your pet that was killed was a dog, you broke the city’s leash law, because dogs are not allowed to roam free in this city except inside fenced areas of private property, or in designated areas of parks.

Third, if your children are not old enough to know better than to run into the street, you should be supervising them well enough to prevent such behavior. If your kids are old enough to know better than to run into the street, and they get hit by a car because they ran into the street, that’s called natural consequences. Any way you look at it, if your kid gets hit by a car, it’s your fault — for either not supervising them properly, or not adequately enforcing requirements to obey basic safety rules. And I pity the poor schlep (who was probably doing the speed limit) who’ll be traumatized by hitting your kid with his car because you were a bad parent.

Fourth, your sign is ugly and almost certainly useless. Nobody who’s enough of an asshole to drive significantly over the speed limit in a residential area (on a one-way street, no less) is going to slow down because of your sign. Knowing human nature, they’re far more likely to be provoked into speeding up!

If you actually want to slow car traffic in your neighborhood, put your money where your mouth is! The city will happily install long speed bumps in any residential neighborhood if there are citizens willing to pay for the installation, as long as it doesn’t impede frequently-used emergency vehicle routes. There are over a dozen of these speed bumps on residential streets within a mile of my home, and they actually do work (mainly because if you try to take them faster than 25 mph, your car will bottom out…don’t ask how I know this *grin*).

Since I don’t have to look at that sign every day, I won’t bother with a formal complaint… but I hope one of your neighbors turns you in to the city and you get a big fat fine. If you aren’t entirely stupid, maybe that will prompt you to actually do something constructive about reckless speeders! But I won’t count on it.