How to Teach People Cause with Effect

TEACAPAN, SINALOA, MEXICO -- Some things, like sun and good manners, we cannot import into Canada from Mexico. Other good things we can and of those, one of the best is the speed bump. It has saved the lives of thousands of Mexican kids, dogs and little old ladies, who also lay claim to use of the streets.

Like most great ideas, the speed bump is a simple one. Put a ripple in the road and make drivers slow down where they should.

The bumps are simple, they last a long time and they are far cheaper and much more effective than traffic cops. That very simplicity may be the reason Canadians and most Americans have never adopted them. We suspect any simple solution to any large problem. We prefer to form committees, which form sub committees, which issue reports asking for more time and staff to conduct further studies are necessary and , of course, we do absolutely nothing without inviting the expensive ministrations of legions of lawyers.

It’s different here.

In Mexico a village syndic will arise one morning, rub the sleep out of his eyes, count his fingers and toes to make sure his brain is working, and then say “Traffic’s moving too fast in this pueblo. Put up speed bumps, lads. Put them here, here and there and send somebody from the works department to sweep up the wreckage once a day.” Then he will go for breakfast.

Amazing, if you haven’t seen it, how well and how quuickly this works.

Your little community may have tried for years control people ripping through it in expensive sports cars, buses trying to make up time and the multitude of people, the majority, who never notice speed signs anywhere any time. They will all keep speeding down main street until there are speed bumps.

Put in speed bumps and there is an instant conversion to the principles of safe, courteous driving.

In fact, this Mexican plan is, like Mexico, very old. It is based on the principle that ordinary men and women understand cause and effect. In a politically correct society such as that of the northern gringos, cause and effect have been separated so widely that many people believe there is no association of one with the other. When you make it simple, like breaking your shocks and twisting your undercarriage, everything suddenly becomes remarkable clear and understandable. A child can understand. “Go too fast over that bump and all the exhaust system is going to be spread behind you on the street and you are going to pay lots and lots of pesos to get it fixed.”

Most little places, like this one, settle for bumps made of asphalt. They last a year or more. They throw the passengers in hard sprung vehicles, such as trucks, against the windshield and makes their noses bleed. Low, luxury cars, capable of really high speeds, can barely accomodate a bump, it is necessary to crawl across at an angle.

Larger centres may use metallic hemispheres. Every driver learns quickly to show respect for these. If the line of hemispheres is approached too rapidly both the castor and the camber of the front end may be altered suddenly and violently and you are left to hump along as best you may to the alignment shop.

Whether it’s a hump in the asphalt or a line of well polished metal hemispheres, there is a message and absolutely everybody Mexico or gringo, man or woman, rich or poor, rascal or religious, can understand that message without any special instruction.

Of course the speed humps are not unknown in the north. Trailer park people have used them for decades. The Americans often use them at the approaches to toll gates and they have developed a rolling bump which can bring you to dead stop to consider things if you go into it too fast.

For the most part, Canadians and Americans depend on signs at the roadside, which few people read, or traffic cops, of whom there can never be enough.

The speed hump, it seems, is and idea that’s too simple, too cheap. It lacks the cachet of half million dollar traffic surveys. It borders on political incorrectness.

We aren’t ready for it yet in the north, but we will be.

January/03