I will have many blogs concerning driving and traffic. It is the bane of my existence. I believe that I have gotten more tolerant and patient concerning driving; however, I still struggle with wanting to kill everyone on the road except me. My goal is to be like Jim Carey in the movie when he was God. All he did was spread his arms and everyone got out of his way. That's what I want. I want to be the only car on the road and get where I am going without at interruptions.
As I was driving today; through the snow and icy roads, my frustrations mounted when I was forced to sit at an intersection and not get to make a left turn. Who is God's name designed the traffic lights in the Edmonton and Sherwood Park? Are they complete idiots or what?
There is so many problems when making left turns I don't know where to begin. I guess I shall start with the facts that so few street lights have a left turning arrow or a turning lane. Some of them are designed with the spot available for the flashing light or arrow ... but they just don't use it. What the fuck is it there for if they don't use it? Some only use it a certain times of the day. Wonderful. Isn't that great? I can turn left at 3:30 in the afternoon but not at 10:30 in the morning. Oh, I am sure they will tell you that it is based on traffic flow. Bullshit. They decide and manipulate traffic flow for when they want you to turn. If they just had turning lights at all intersections, traffic would move much better.
The lights that have the turning arrows are not much less frustrating. Most Edmonton and Sherwood Park turning lights last 2-3 cars. Which means if you are the fourth car in line, you have to run the light or wait and hope you get through when the light isn't flashing. Now you have some moron at the front of the line doing whatever it is that morons do in the car when they are not paying attention and doesn't go in a timely fashion. This results in only 1-2 cars going. Frustrations mounts. People start to take risks and drive more stupidly than normal (which is hard to believe!).
If you have ever been to any American city, they all have equal turning lanes for all traffic lights. Everyone knows that they will get a turn and no one needs to run the light or take foolish risks to make a left turn. Everyone get the same amount of time, every time. Why the fuck can't Edmonton or Sherwood Park do that? Are they smarter than we are? Gawd I hope not. That would be almost impossible. But Americans know how to move traffic. Canadians are idiots when it comes to moving traffic. That is the only explanation that I can come up with.
Along with the traffic lights, there is a little problem I see with the pedestrian walk/don't walk signs in Edmonton. WTF is up with the countdown at the corner? The waking sign says don't walk, but they put a little count down on it. Now as a driver I can see this being helpful to me, as I can see when the light is really going to change. But as for the pedestrian, it's a do whatever you want until the countdown is over message. Cross walks seem like an easy thing. If you use either words or signs, you use walk or don't walk, or walk and a hand up to signal don't walk. What is difficult about that? If the hand is up, you don't walk. If is says walk ... you walk. That's not fucking hard at all. But when you put a countdown into the mix, you open it up for all the idiots, morons, criminals, illiterates and ingrates who don't want to follow the simple rules and laws of our society. If you don't follow the walk/don't walk it screws up traffic to no end. Cars turning right can't turn because people think that it is alright to enter the crosswalk when there is any number left on the countdown. Then they meander through the intersection stopping traffic.
Let me set the scenario: the crosswalk has a hand up telling the literate or intelligent not to walk. But... there is a countdown and here comes Kurt Cobain sauntering down the street. He sees the countdown still has number on it so he naturally enters the intersection. Why? Because he wants to! Now he goes into cool mode and starts to walk slowly. Could it be because the sideways baseball cap is too tight on his pea head, or maybe it is because his baggy-assed jeans are hanging so low that he is able to take only six inch strides with his 'skater' shoes? Might it be that he can only walk four step without checking his cell phone to get that important twitter message that his girl friend just boiled eggs all by her self? Who knows? Meanwhile the traffic; that had the right of way, is stopped waiting for Cobain to get through the intersection. The light changes and he still hasn't finished going through the crosswalk, making all traffic stopped. And I am sitting there wanted to hit someone with a baseball bat!
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