The Genius of La Vergne

We've been fighting the speeding problem on our street for several years now. Trying to get the city of La Vergne to attempt a solution has been a major part of our effort.

Our street is about a mile long, straight as an arrow, and the gateway for the larger section of our neighborhood. Naturally, people tend to go faster than the posted 25mph speed limit while trying to get deeper into the subdivision.

Protect the Cars
Being a residential area, we've proposed speed bumps, but the city doesn't like that. In addition to impeding emergency personnel vehicles, they're afraid drivers of "souped-up Honda Civics" will damage their cars while taking the bumps at speed. (Pg.2 Paragraph 5. This is the kind of stuff you can't make up.) In other words, speed bumps hurt cars that go over them at a high rate of speed. Let's protect the cars by eliminating the speed bumps.

What the city is trying to say is, when driven over improperly, speed bumps can cause cars to run out of control, threatening the lives of pedestrians. But protecting pedestrians by nixing speed bumps all together leaves greater risks for kids playing outside who have to dodge speeding cars, unimpeded by speed bumps at all.

It'd be like building houses without door locks because someone might accidentally lock themselves out.

Unneeded Stop Signs
This past week, the city announced it's finally making a move. We're about to have two new sets of stop signs on our section of the street. One set at each end, just a few feet from the existing stop signs. (Clicking the map above will help as a visual aid.)

And this is where I need help because the reasoning for these new stop signs is completely beyond me, as well as other residents we've spoken with. This plan leaves a good half mile of uninterrupted pavement, straight as can be, just begging to have some rubber put down by our less than considerate neighbors who live deeper in the neighborhood.

Does this make sense to anyone? Am I missing something obvious? How do these stop signs prevent people from speeding down a half mile stretch of road? Is this a waste of tax money, resources, and time? Or am I missing the genius of it all?