Wednesday, July 16, 2003

Of left lanes, traffic lights and speed limits

By CAL BEVERLY
editor@thecitizennews.com

I must say I'm disappointed with the mostly favorable reaction to last week's column, "Stop road rage: Move to the right."

Why disappointed that so few disagreed with the proposition that far too many drivers are clogging up the left passing lanes? This while meandering along under the speed limit but abreast of right-lane vehicles in a kind of rolling roadblock?

Why? Well, because most left-lane laggards must not have seen my road rage confession last week, just as they never seem to see the line of backed-up traffic suffering behind them. Or they just ignored my ravings, just as they ignore all the horn-honking, light-blinking drivers trapped behind their leftie ways. Either way, all my entreaties to just please move over (if only momentarily!) to let faster drivers pass are lost on those who most need to hear and heed them.

I did hear from two staffers here at the paper. One gave me the Bronx cheer and bragged that she routinely blocks the road from the left lane. Ha, ha, so there, she said. The other, my wife, notified me that it would take more than a deputized bulldozer blade to move her out of the passing lane, and, by the way, where was I sleeping tonight? Maybe there are some camping accommodations along the right side of the road, she suggested helpfully.

But, at the risk of great personal peril, I persevere.

This week I solicit your input, your votes on two other vexing issues of suburban life: Stupidly-timed or poorly-placed traffic lights and dumb-or-dumber speed limits.

My vote for the worst traffic light situation in Fayette: That daunting gauntlet of four traffic-fouling lights within a half mile stretch of Ga. Highway 54 on the eastern side of Peachtree City, beginning at the Publix shopping center entrance and ending with the hilltop light at Robinson Road.

Two on-demand red lights for one little shopping center? Even the Pavilion has only two, and it can claim to be somewhat larger, by about a factor of 10.

(And by the way, whatever happened to the goal of synchronizing traffic lights in Peachtree City? If ever a set of lights needed better timing, it's those four.)

What's your personal favorite? Send your nominations to editor@TheCitizenNews.com. We'll publish some and contact whoever's in charge of these things to try to get some answers.

And stupid speed limits? Don't get me started. How about 35 mph on the Brooks connector? Even the abundant cows along the rural way must be astonished at such empty-headed bureaucratism. There's another 35 mph limit coming across the Flint River on the Hampton-Woolsey Road. And 35 on Hood Avenue, which is much less populated than the 45-mph Gingercake Road, which it intersects. But down in the bowels of speed limit bureaucracy, common sense doesn't penetrate very far.

Sometimes I think that bureaucracy, and maybe some prosecutors, really desire for the top speed limit in the whole county to be 25 mph. Things really would be safer that way, if they could find anybody to obey such stupid limits.

The serious thing is that unreasonable speed limits and unenforced "keep right unless passing" laws combine to make scofflaws of us all. And in a supposedly civilized society, that's not a good development.

Inside this section are some letters about this great drive-rightward crusade, most of them lining up for the hard right. I note that left-lane-laggardism seems to be an equal-opportunity offender, since I have seen black, and white, and brown, and male, and female, and other, and four-door sedans and four-wheel-drive muscle trucks and service vans and moving vans and the whole gamut all dedicated to keeping the left lanes thoroughly choked.

Many have cell phones attached to their ears while blocking a dozen-car line behind them, but a few just steer doggedly onward, both hands grimly gripping the wheel, intent on slowing the traffic behind them to their preferred speed, almost always well below the limit.

One left-laner put it this way in an e-mail: "I pay taxes to ride on either side of the road. If they don't like it, don't drive! People like in the article are always in a hurry and most of the time they will stop at a store just after they pass you."

Oh, my. Will it ever change? One reader e-mailed his frustration from his new home.

"I used to say that if you looked up the definition of the word 'Fayette' in the dictionary, you would find it means, "French: OK to drive in the left lane very, very slowly.' I have moved to Virginia. They have just passed a law here targeting aggressive drivers who follow too close. Lefty Louies everywhere. Tim."

Tim, buddy, I couldn't agree more. But I'm going to shut up now. I want to sleep on the left side of my bed tonight, not in a right lane.