Jim Davis is a retired airline pilot. He knows a thing or two about radar.

That doesn’t mean he enjoys pointing a device at drivers speeding around a 90-degree curve near his home on Southwest Hensley Road in Portland, OR. But according to city-adopted guidelines, documenting actual speeders is one of the requirements toward getting speed bumps installed on this accident-prone elbow at Sunrise Park.

“I’m not in favor of doing this myself. It’s just a necessary step,” he said. “I don’t think I’d like some guy in baggy shorts and sandals pointing a gun at me either. I wish the city would run with the whole ball.”

Davis, his wife, Karen, and some neighbors including Michael McRae, are ready for some changes at the problematic Hensley curve. These longtime residents have lost count of how many speeding drivers fail to finesse the sharp east-to-north turn.

Cars have careened into Michael McRae’s block wall so many times, he wonders whether the latest damage — inflicted by a teenage driver on May 11 — is worth repairing anytime soon. He reels off wreck and near-miss details like a historian recalls war skirmishes: the ominous sound of cars barreling down the street, flying gravel, the GMC truck bumper left hanging on his fence.

“The first thing they see is the mountain,” McRae said, gesturing toward Larch Mountain and Mount Hood towering behind Sunrise Park. “Then they lose control.”

In short, these residents have had enough.

McRae and his neighbors have taken their cause to the city. Speed-induced accidents persist, but officials are responding. In recent months, the street department installed rumble strips on both approaches to the curve as well as a diagonal crosswalk from the park to the sidewalk across Hensley. Most recently, City Council voted to reduce the speed limit on the stretch from 30 to 25 mph. New signs are posted that reflect the change.

At that late June meeting, an animated McRae stated his case in no uncertain terms.

“I just want to know what can be done so I can finish my wall and pull out of my driveway without getting creamed,” he said. “This is not about traffic calming. It’s public safety.”

Hensley residents like the new speed limit, but don’t think it’s enough to keep them, their property and the numerous pedestrians around Sunrise Park safe from wayward drivers.

At the June meeting, McRae, the Davises and Lorne Mitchell discussed measures including additional corner lighting, use of a radar-display trailer, more police enforcement, guardrails and stop signs with council members.

Councilors were receptive to the suggestions, but the latter idea doesn’t sit well with some officials. Olaf Sweetman, a city engineering associate, said stop signs on a curve don’t fit within Oregon standard practice guidelines the city generally follows.

“The gist of what they say is that stop signs should not be used as traffic calming devices,” he said.

Acknowledging the corner is a trouble spot, Public Works Director Jim Galloway backs up Sweetman’s contention. Drivers, he points out, tend to disregard stop signs that don’t directly influence traffic flow.

“Anytime you have multiple accidents in one location, it’s a problem we’d like to resolve,” he said.

“We generally try to adhere to the Manual on Uniform Traffic Devices,” he added, “which specifically says you shouldn’t use a stop sign for speed control. That would be our position.”

While residents work for speed humps and lighting, the city is exploring options to improve safety on the corner as well as at the increasingly popular Sunrise Park. To that end, Public Works plans to hire an independent traffic consultant to evaluate the Hensley curve and the need for vehicular parking at Sunrise.

“We want to see if they can come up with more ideas, and at least evaluate some of (those) we’ve had, like a stop sign,” Sweetman said.

It’s common practice, he added, for a small city staff to call in consultants.

“We would need more of an opinion from an expert.”

Police Sgt. Steve Bevens said the department is aware of speeding on Hensley. He is working to have the city’s radar trailer, which alerts drivers to their speed as they approach it, calibrated and repaired for possible use on Hensley. Ironically, the device was damaged when a vehicle hit it last year, albeit in another location.

More directly, Hensley is one of the areas Troutdale officers are instructed to focus on when not responding to other calls. In recent months, Police have issued numerous citations near the corner, Bevens said.

While noting that speed humps are expensive and also force emergency vehicles to slow down, Bevens called them effective in slowing down drivers. He admits a private citizen such as Jim Davis having to clock speeders with a police radar gun is a less-than-ideal arrangement.

“It does put someone in a situation where someone might confront them,” he said. “It’s something we need to look at.”