Sideshows started popping up in the unexpected neighborhood of the normally not-at-all rowdy Outer Sunset in May, and now the district’s Supervisor Joel Engardio has had speed bumps installed there in hopes of bringing the donuts to a halt.

We are used to news of rambunctious sideshows in Oakland or certain parts of San Francisco. But we were not the only ones who were shocked when a sideshow rollicked the Outer Sunset at 12:45 am on a Sunday morning this past May, making that quiet residential neighborhood feel like Vallejo or something. And apparently there have been more, as three months after that incident, KPIX reports that residents at that exact same 42nd Avenue and Lawton Street corner have “witnessed multiple sideshows at the corner in recent months.”

But those days may be over, as that same KPIX report notes that the SF Municipal Transit Agency (SFMTA) has installed anti-sideshow speed bumps at that exact 42nd Avenue and Lawton Street intersection.

How do we feel about these donut speed bump things? Do they actually work?
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That district’s Supervisor Joel Engardio personally touts how he brought home the speed bumps for his Sunset constituents, in the above video posted to Reddit (by someone other than Engardio), which is getting largely positive response comments. Engardio himself posted the same video to Twitter, though in what might be a sign of his current political vulnerabilities, the Twitter comments are far more critical of Engardio than the Reddit comments.

“We’re installing [the speed bumps] here at the intersection of 42nd and Lawton because this has been a hotspot for sideshows, and these ‘donut speed bumps’ stop the cars from swirling and swishing around in these sideshows,” Engardio says in the video. “It’s very dangerous, we have a church nearby, houses. They were doing [the donuts] in the middle of the day, with people walking by.”

“If you want to try a sideshow, don’t do it, these will miss up your car,” he added. “If you want to try it at a  different intersection, we’ve got more of these to install.”

There are now four of the speed bumps placed at Lawton Street and 42nd Avenue. Engardio indicated more are coming to other intersections, and per KPIX, SFMTA says they're also adding “centerline hardening, flexible posts, and raised bumps to slow or obstruct illegal stunt driving” at other intersections.

It’s difficult to not see this, or any other Engardio endeavor of the next month and a half, as anything other than an attempt to fight off the recall effort against him. But this move may prove to be good government in action, and just might be the kind of thing that prevents Engardio's career from hitting a speed bump this coming September 16.

Related: Sideshows Have Made It All the Way Out to the Sunset, and Residents Are Pissed [SFist]

Image: @JoelEngardio via Twitter