Fed-up Brooklyn man installs his own speed bumps. The city isn't pleased

A Brooklyn man so fed up by speeding cars in his neighborhood took matters into his own hands and installed his own speed bumps onto the street.

Neighbors in Cypress Hills say cars speeding down Miller Avenue and hitting parked cars is all too common, including a landscaping trailer recently smashed up.

“People come hit your cars, dent your car up,” Luis Alvarez said. “It’s a lot.”

“This street is dangerous, it’s dangerous,” the speed bump installer, Boris, said Monday.

So Boris decided to act. For the second time, he installed his own DIY speed bumps using his own money and labor. He put them down last Friday.

They didn’t last long.

A Department of Transportation crew was spotted removing the unauthorized bolted down, hard plastic speed bumps from the road on Monday. The agency shared a statement that said they would look into whether the street needs speed bumps.

“All speed bumps must adhere to specific standards in order to keep New Yorkers safe,” the statement read. “The DOT installs hundreds of speed reducers each year based on safety data and community requests.”

Neighbors, however, claim they have requested the speed bumps but have been denied.

“We tried to do something else and it’s not good enough,” Alvarez said. “Somebody got to get hit first?”

Someone did, in fact, get hit by a car two years ago, according to one family.

“My eyes rolled in the back of my head, ’cause I was like struck and my body went into shock,” said Ahmanuel Singletary, who was just seven when his mom said he was struck by a car.

News 4 could not verify if the driver in that crash was cited for speeding or was faulted in the crash.

“The fact they say he actually passed out, the fact that he went flying across the street under another car, he was very lucky,” his mother, LaShaun Singletary, said.

Singletary believes the speed bumps are needed after her son was left with a spinal cord injury. It’s since healed and he plays football.

“Since we moved there in 2023, there’s definitely been seven accidents that I know of,” she said Monday from her son’s football practice.

Boris said he has not received a fine of any kind and has not heard from any city officials.