Speed Hump sign

Installed by local traffic engineers on residential streets and near schools specifically to force cars to slow down, unlike a bump, which is usually an unplanned road defect.

How to recognise it

This sign is a diamond stood on its point in yellow, the warning colour. Yellow diamonds telling you what the road is about to do. They are advisory rather than mandatory, but ignoring them is how people end up in ditches and how examiners end up failing you.

What the test wants you to know

The word plaque under the bump symbol is the tell: a plain Bump sign warns of an unintentional defect, while a Hump sign marks something built on purpose to slow traffic, usually with its own low advisory speed. Missing that distinction is a common wrong answer on traffic calming questions.

The sign people confuse it with

Speed Hump gets mixed up with Bump more than any other pairing in this category. Put them side by side and the difference is obvious, which is exactly why it is worth doing once rather than meeting them cold in the exam.

Speed HumpA raised traffic calming hump, wider and gentler than a pothole patch, is ahead

BumpA raised section of pavement is ahead

Practise it

Reading about a sign is not the same as recognising it in half a second with an examiner watching. Every state road signs test on this site shows the sign and asks you to name it, then shows four faces and asks you to pick the right one.

Take a road signs test