In the area of traffic calming, chicanes are a useful tool. They take a straight speedway of a road, and make physical changes to give it more meandering curves, forcing drivers to reduce their speed. Chicanes are a bit strange at first, but they’re very effective.

A paint-only chicane, however, is very dumb. Just look at this nonsense in Montgomery Township, near Philadelphia:

[Photo credit: Montgomery Township Police Department]

While the police department indicated that the design isn’t yet complete, I’m pretty skeptical that this draft will be cleaned up into something that isn’t ridiculous.