a bump

[diamondcutter]

We told Mrs. Roopy that, every day after school, me and Michael and Ryan ride our bikes together. I learned how to ride a two-wheeler in kindergarten. Now I can do a bunny hop off a bump, and I know the names of all the famous trick bike riders.

Source: Mrs. Roopy Is Loopy, a novel for children by Dan Gutman

Does the word “bump” in the above context mean this?

a slight accident in which a vehicle hits sth

 

[GoesStation]

No.

 

[tedmc]

No, it is a hump or protuberance on the road meant for vehicles to slow down.

 

[Tdol]

https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-5a882720ad309409f46bd9c6f2e13301

Sometimes called a sleeping policeman in British English.

 

[GoesStation]

They're more prosaically known here in the States as speed bumps in Eastern states or speed humps in Western ones.

 

[jutfrank]

We in the UK commonly call them speed bumps too. The term sleeping policemen sounds ridiculously old-fashioned to me. (No offence to anyone.)

I think they're more formally called road humps.

 

[emsr2d2]

I call them speed bumps. My local council tends to lump all sorts of similar things together under "traffic calming measures".

 

[Tarheel]

Diamondcutter, you need to pay better attention to context. When the person says "Now I can do a bunny hop off a bump" does that sound like an accident?

 

[diamondcutter]

Thank you all for your replies.

Diamondcutter, you need to pay better attention to context. When the person says "Now I can do a bunny hop off a bump" does that sound like an accident?

To be frank, I’m still not quite clear about what the sentence actually means.

To be off the bump, you have to be on it first. If the “bump” means the speed bump or hump, it’s very narrow and has a curve. I can’t imagine how a bike could stay on it. That’s why I didn’t read it as the speed bump or hump. Since I’m not familiar with English culture, I thought it might refer to a special condition.

 

[jutfrank]

As far as 9-year-old kids are concerned, bunny hops work exactly like this:

1) The biker rides directly towards the speed bump, straight on.
2) As the front wheel begins to mount the bump, the biker pulls up sharply on the handlebars. This has the effect of launching both bike and rider into the air.

The idea is simply that because the child is too incompetent to do a proper bunny hop, he/she must use the lift that riding over a speed bump gives you to get at least one of the two wheels into the air. The degree to which the biker gets the rear wheel up will depend on the child's ability to perform the second motion necessary to perform a bunny hop, which is more complicated and which I'm assuming no one needs me to outline here.

The preposition off is used here in exactly the same way as in 'jump off a cliff' or 'bounce off a wall'—it states the surface that is used as a base to launch the action.

 

[emsr2d2]

Here is a video of a man doing bunny hops on/over speed bumps.

 

[Tdol]

The term sleeping policemen sounds ridiculously old-fashioned to me. (No offence to anyone.)

It has a quaintness to me.

 

[GoesStation]

Please tell me hole in the wall is still in use!

 

[jutfrank]

Please tell me hole in the wall is still in use!

You mean for ATMs? Sadly, I think that one's (almost?) obsolete. At least, I haven't heard it for years.

To me, The Hole in the Wall sounds like somewhere I could get a nice pint of Guinness and have a game of darts.

 

[GoesStation]

:-(

 

[emsr2d2]

Please tell me hole in the wall is still in use!

I still hear it occasionally but the vast majority of people in the UK just say "cashpoint" or "cash machine". Mind you, these days, with lots of shops accepting payment by card or e-payment only, we have much less need to get cash out anyway.

 

[GoesStation]

"Cashpoint" is a pale reflection of "hole in the wall", but it's sufficiently different from our clinical "ATM" to satisfy my need for the mildly exotic (from my American perspective, of course).

 

[jutfrank]

:-(

"Cashpoint" is a pale reflection of "hole in the wall", but it's sufficiently different from our clinical "ATM" to satisfy my need for the mildly exotic (from my American perspective, of course).

I'm hoping this pic taken in mildly exotic Ilkeston might cheer you up a tad:

 

[probus]

In North America, speed bumps are built to be gentle on your vehicle. The idea is to force you to slow down without doing actual damage. In India, they have the opposite idea. They build steep, sharp bumps on the road and do not paint them or mark them with signs. The malevolent intent is to damage the speeder's car.

 

[GoesStation]

I'm hoping this pic taken in mildly exotic Ilkeston might cheer you up a tad:

:lying::lying: