Heart no longer in speed hump revolution

CONFESSION time. The Stoep hands back its revolutionary warrior badge with cardboard ninja cluster. We’re bad Bolsheviks.

Months ago we got on a high, and a high horse too, about that enemy of the people, the death-trap speed hump. We didn’t mean every speed hump. We meant the ones with cliff-face edges that bite your tyres, twang your springs, and splint your spine.

Which was part of the problem. You can’t whip up revolutionary fervour when the enemy must be identified one by one.

“Destroy bad speed humps! Bad speed humps are the enemy!”

“Excuse, Sergeant, is this one the enemy?” “Er, get a protractor and measure its gradient.”

But we’d made quite a noise about wrong speed bumps, especially the ones that tell you “40” when you’ll bounce your head through your roof if you take them at more than 10km/h. (And anyway the guy in front has slowed to 2.) So we took our revolution to the lair of Empire, which is to say the green-glass beehive tower at 66 Pixley Seme Street.

Which is a disarming place to be. The building has Joburg’s tallest atrium, and other jovial approaches to life. We don’t always associate municipal government with architectural flair and high ambition, so finding them together is fun, as is the round tour. Warm friendly greetings everywhere, from director Geoff Ngcobo through every layer and level.

We mere citizens tend to picture municipaldom as aloof bureaucrats tripping us with nasty surprises, like that we completed form XC17/1(d)14 instead of XC17/1(e)3.

Which brings us to the stars of the Speedhump Seminar, Engineer Schmidt and henchperson Scheepers.

I hear you wondering: “Huh? Is this story from 1988?” Actually, in 1988 these two would have been freak. Schmidts and Scheeperses aplenty were running things, yes, but not under first names like Esther and Bertha. In 2018, Esther and Bertha’s femaleness fits fine but another factor revives a lost memory: palefaces under Afrikaans names are supposed to be welcome, doing what they’re good at.

Both these unexpected executives are fierce advocates of the public sector. Both will give you a snotklap if you suggest it’s the softer option. Both carry a goodly chunk of serve-your-people sentiment. Both were taken on under an ANC council and bridle at the dreary Seffrican ubiquity of “the DA must’ve brought you in, hey?”

They explain speed humps’ history, philosophy and practicality in gripping terms, with weight on how the standard assurance “if you take the humps away we’ll drive responsibly” belongs up among the world’s great lies (can take the place of “my cheque is in the post”).

Bertha and Esther go into all sides, like how you can’t do humps on bus routes; you mess up fire engines and ambulances, any incline = making puddles = making danger.

I came away from the roads headquarters strong as a bull and ready to do a hump doctorate, gold star on the psychology of dealing with communities where half will sue to get the hump and half will sue to stop it. But, funny, now that I understood what went into making humps I couldn’t get that cross about humps. The fire left the belly of Hump Revolution.

This was months ago. I intended – ah, good intentions – to credit Esther and Bertha, but time lapsed and the Hump Revolution became a distant memory.

Today, is its swansong. We close the book on humps, partly thanking those two and partly alerting you – stand by, Robot Revolution is coming up!

On a slow road to nowhere, we discovered the error of our ways Contact Stoep: E-mail: dbeckett@global.co.za