Monday, March 20, 2006

Lombadas

Lombadas (not to be confused with "lambada", which is a sensual dance) are not uncommon to any of us. We've all encountered speed bumps in parking lots before. However, in Brazil they are used extensively throughout Sao Paulo, at least, to keep people from speeding on the roads. You find these huge bumps in the road about every 200-300 metres on major roads, and as often as every 20m on residential streets. If you're not paying attention and you hit one of these beauties at 50 km/h, the jolt is enough to send a life lesson to you (assuming the car survives.) The lombada shown here is a gentle one (you come to appreciate these ones) There is no standardized method of making them here, so they're all different heights, therefore different levels of damage. Brazilians take speeding very seriously. Speed bumps are only part of the plan to keep speeders under control. In fact, they are so effective at keeping speeders at bay that you never see police stopping people for speeding--ever! They don't need to! Buses get a free pass on lombadas on bus lanes, but anyone thinking they'll save their shocks by swerving into the bus lane get a shock that's even worse. About 50m before a lombada they have 2 to 3 inch high reflectors set up between the regular lanes and the bus lane so that anyone swerving out of the regular lane runs the risk of popping a tire or wrecking their shocks. Fortunately, they don't have lombadas on the higways outside the city, but since we rarely drive outside the city, lombadas have become a fact of life for us.