DENVER —
There are bumps in the road and then there are BUMPS in the road.
Denver Public Works is in the process of repaving Eighth Avenue between Josephine and Franklin Streets, ending right next to Cheesman Park.
All three lanes have been milled, but have yet to get new asphalt.
Right at Franklin Street, there are two orange construction "BUMP" signs warning about the transition between milled road and paved road.
"Right now, it seems like the middle of New York City or something," said Zoe Erisman, who lives right at that corner. "This morning, the noise was so bad around six o'clock, I thought maybe we had a sink hole or something like that."
9News had a camera watching driver behavior at the bump late Thursday morning.
The moment we arrived, we saw a tow truck lose a small two-wheel axle from the side of the truck after hitting the bump.
The truck stopped, put it in reverse (not a good idea) and picked up the lost load.
About 20 minutes later, a pickup truck hit the bump and the spare tire underneath the truck fell out and landed in the far-right lane.
The truck driver never came back for the tire.
"They've paved this street many times, and this problem has never occurred," said Erisman. "What I hear in my house is absolutely frightening, sometimes it sounds like they're coming up on the lawn."
And it looks like that might have happened. Right outside Erisman's house there is a tire track on the right of way, just beyond the sidewalk next to her front door. Next to the tire track is a hubcap left behind.
"It's not the people that are doing something wrong, it's the pavement that's wrong," said Erisman.
For every driver that lost a tire, there were 10 times as many who hit their brakes.
"People have been driving very cautiously right across here because they know there's all kinds of bumps," said Erisman.
However, there was one near miss we saw after one driver hit their brake to go over the bump, the SUV behind that driver had to slam on their brakes.
"What's going on, this is ridiculous," said Erisman.
We checked with Denver Public Works to see if weather has delayed the paving, if any complaints have been made about the bump and why the bump seemed more like a curb.
A spokeswoman said that the paving has not been delayed and will take place next week, weather permitting. She said there had been one complaint and after checking it out, "We did not observe a condition that was out of the ordinary for milling operations."
After we received that email, sometime between noon and 2 p.m., the bump had been smoothed with asphalt.
Another Denver Public Works spokeswoman said it was smoothed out in response to the complaint, something the communications office was not aware was happening.
