Bring back the potholes They accomplished what warnings and signs could not.

 Potholes offer several cruel but useful effects. David L. Ryan/Globe Staff

Elissa Ely is a psychiatrist.

My street is two blocks from an elementary school in one direction and two blocks from a high school in the other. It’s a short and humble road bisecting two larger ones; a quick drive past 11 houses with shallow driveways, like 11 open-faced sandwiches.

Many of us have lived here for decades. From the front porch, we recognize walkers, bicyclists, dogs, and this past school year, a cadre of school-bound scooter riders. We also see a parade of cars starting and ending each day.

Sedate driving on this short street is rare. Cars speed flagrantly. Maybe parents are late for elementary school pickup in the afternoon and don’t want to pay the aftercare program penalty. Maybe adolescents have commandeered their parents’ cars and are living out their vision of casual freedom. Maybe drivers in both directions mean no harm but are simply thinking of something else. The excuse for most bad behavior these days is that it’s only a reflection of our sped-up and thoughtless times.

Because the street is dead straight, acceleration must be tempting, even a little thrilling, like kids attempting wheelies. But cats have died from cars on this block, and I wait with dread for the day a dog breaks loose, and after that, the day a child does.

There are no deterrents. On the neighboring road, speed bump effectiveness has been tepid, and speed limit signs have almost no use. Hollering from the porch doesn’t work, and I’ve thought about standing in the middle of the street, wings out like a condor. I’ve also thought about snapping license plate photos and passing them onto the police, but of course the cars that most need to be identified drive by too quickly to catch.

In the end, as with almost all human behavior, change will boil down to self-interest: not the danger a driver exposes others to, but the risks his speeding runs to himself.

I have done a bit of research into the biomechanics of potholes. They offer several cruel but useful effects. Excessive speed over potholes punctures and flattens tires, of course — or at least, weakens the sidewalls, which causes dangerous bulging in need of immediate replacement. Metal rims can bend or crack on impact. Suspension shocks, struts, ball joints and control arms can snap. And if the car scrapes bottom, exhaust pipes might rupture, and oil pans can crack and leak.

The consequences are both immediate and completely avoidable. At high speeds, damage of some kind is likely (hopefully, damage of all kinds). But if a worried driver eases his way across the minefield with care, risk lessens greatly both to the cars and to any pedestrians with paws or feet. It’s a simple physics lesson about force and deceleration.

New England winters usually bring frost heaves, and there were some gloriously deep potholes along this street for a while. There were the crossing guards who waded fearlessly into traffic with fluorescent red signs, and cars (their drivers no doubt irritated) were forced to go slowly. This spring, after a municipal cleanup, most of the potholes were sealed over, and the crossing guards are gone until fall.

If I ran the town, I would break open the potholes. Nothing in life is worth a mad hurry when so much is at stake. For all the rushing parents running late, the adolescents seduced by a straightaway, the random motorists gunning down the block with exhilaration and wind in their ears, there should be high costs. In the best of worlds, all you who drive like this, they would be exorbitant.

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Elissa Ely is a psychiatrist and a contributing Globe Opinion writer.