Yesterday after noon I left my humble abode to do an errand for a shut in friend. I live in a quite little neighborhood close to our child school and reasonably far from the business core of the city we live in. IT must be said that with the additional businesses that have been built since we purchased out home the neighborhood is not what it once was as far as being a quiet little neighbor hood. In fact one would say that we are in a center of a hub that connects everyone. So it makes it a very frustrating thing to leave the confines of our home to take on the day to day traffic of individuals who must not have a life since they are driving around like little Sims. Unaware of their own surroundings yet intent upon doing what they planned despite what is happening right in front of them.
Case in point…IT is now rush hour traffic on a sunny afternoon. Everyone is excited aabout going home as is normal. What is also normal is there is traffic everywhere. Imagine a six lane intersection grid locked with cars in both directions of travel in two of the three outside lanes used for turning left on a intersection that does not have a controled stoplight or stop sign. Both directions have the right lane or right turn lane free of traffic. Allowing all of the people that want to go through continue while the turning lanes to the left wait for access to cross the street when traffic allows. Since both directions of traffic have created a bottleneck with the attempt at making a left turn at non controled traffic light during rush hour traffic where there is a constant flow of traffic it stops any forward motion or turning of any traffic until such time as the right lane is free of traffic thus allowing the left tun lanes of the six lane higway to access the businesses that each is looking at while they are waiting to gain a safe access. This is a traffic designer nitghtmare .
IT is further complicated by the patrons of the businesses that are trying to exit the parking area to street access on a single two lane road of two way traffic. Now a person should understand that if a six lane road is clogged because of the inability to make a left turn it might be incumbant upon the cell-phone talking driver (it happened to be a woman but men are no better) that they will not be able to make a left turn either.??? The six lane road cannot make a left run because there is one lane of traffic constantly traveling through at legal speeds thus detaining all of the people behind these left lane turners.
I do have empathy for all of the people in the cars that are gridlocked on the six lane road way. They are going home and living their life. This little gridlock thing is the way of it and they deal with it everyday. Well this little SUV that was parked on a two lane road by a stop sign waiting for a left turn never had a clue that she was hold ing up the lives and burning the energy of our vehicles for something that was not going to happen until the rush hour was over.
IN my case it took twenty minutes for me to get enough of waiting since I could have made a right turn at almost any point during that twenty minute period. I finally pulled off to the right and drove off the shoulder and over the curb. I could see that I was not the first to take advantage of this particular little stunt. The curb area was all chipped up and the ground was bare from tire activity. It was a tad bit bouncy but the truck can take it. I don’t think I would have made it over the curbs with a corvette? As I headed towards the next light continuing towards my home I could see car after car doing the same thing that I had attempted. Unfortunately the driver that had held me up for twenty minutes was still at the stop sign waiting to make a left turn the last time that I looked in my mirror. Most likely still on the phone.??? I think this is a case of someone that thinks that they are awfully important. Of course that is what we have in common… I feel the same way! Yet, I would never sit at a gridlocked intersecton with my phone in hand to wait twenty minutes to make a left turn. OF course that is just me…..?
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