Australia has had long experience with "traffic calming" (which, is often far from "calming" in its effects). This experience has included many cases with varying degrees of the adverse responses. In one extreme case, motorists took to driving down the sidewalks to avoid the humps.
Adverse Responses have included:
Intervention in the traffic system, especially when it is directed at correcting inappropriate speed behaviour or route choice, will always excite adverse responses from some sectors. That's the nature of effective intervention.
Outrageous driver behaviour in response to treatments is often a sign that the implementation and information programs have not been well-handled. If the objective is to change the behaviour of motorists, explain why. If you are not sure you have the facts and fairness on your side, perhaps you shouldn't be doing it.
On the other hand, such extreme behaviour can be used to point out the attitudes of those who have been inappropriately using the street, to reinforce the case for the program.
Often, motorists feel they do not have any real alternative. Far better to nip such situations in the bud - don't let a local street become a "rat run" that they come to depend on, then expect to pull it back to local use later on. Particularly, be cautious about "permeable networks" in new development (e.g. "neotrad") - there is a real risk that they will be the rat-runs of the future, and we will have the problem of intervening down the track.