Traveling Season or Rumbling over the Hump

School of Ministry is out and now traveling season begins. Bev and I went to visit Isaac and Clea Wooten and Doug and Destiny Calhoon in Fort Portal last week. Doug is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Fort Portal and Isaac runs the CCFP School of Ministry. We had a great 3 1/2 days of fellowship and got to sit in the services on Thursday and Sunday. One of our former students was there, as well as the mother of Happy, one of our Sunday School leaders. Now that our short holiday is over it's time to visit all the village churches. Bev is going with me and we'll be leading a one day marriage seminar at each church.

We are going to Gulu this week. The road going there is for the most part good, virtually brand new. No pot holes. But watch out for the rumblestrips and speed humps. It is an interesting East African construction tactic that someday I hope to understand. You build a new road so people can swiftly and safely navigate from point A to point B. You eliminate all the potholes, blind spots and anything that would cause a problem to high speed travel and let people go(No! that's just what they'd expect us to do). Instead you cover the road with rumblestrips(five 2" high warning bumps each seperated by 4 inches) that give you advance warning of the 8" high speed bump that is followed by more rumblestrips. African highway traditions require five rumblestrip sets before and after every speed hump. There are approximately 136 (Isaac counted)speed humps on the 57 kilometer highway from Mityana to Kampala. (To be fair this is a constrution zone, where new speed humps are being constructed.) The idea is to slow traffic back down to pothole speed. It works!

The fun part (for the Uganda National Road Authority)is where to hide the speed humps and rumblestrips. Classic hidden locations are in tree shadows, dips and just there over the rise. The system is quite effective as the strips jar off any loose trimwork , body fasteners or suspension parts so that the humps don't get too cluttered with anything smaller then a fender or bumper and an occasional door panel.
But don't worry there are plenty of spare parts along the road.

Another fun game to play is where to put the warning sign. At the start of your adventure the warning signs are put 50 feet before the first rumblestrip. After about 3 signs you then shorten the distance to 10 feet. The next spacing should be 10 feet behind the first rumble strip, which catches any complacent or sleeping driver off guard and requires him to get replacement dental work. Then the fun really begins as the next set has no rumblestrips only a 12 inch speed hump which may or may not be marked. This gives the immediate effect of making any car or bus look like a lowrider with a whacked out hydraulic system.

The really diabolical maintenance crews don't put in strips or humps at all. They just discolor the tarmac to make it look like a strip or hump. The screaming and sheer terror this illusion creates is evidently more fun than the actual damage a real hump creates. And the maintenance costs are practically nil.

To all this fun add the race aspect of passing slower vehicles while crossing the humps and strips and you're ready to go to Gulu. Can't wait to be there.