| Friday, November 11, 2005 |
11:00 - Highly localized stupidity phenomena
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There's an intersection near where I live—Branham Lane at Camden—where one of the four branches becomes an on-ramp to the I-85 freeway northbound (west). This intersection always flows nicely and seems well designed. I've never seen it backed up or blocked by an accident.
Yet I have seen so many people running red lights there that I'm starting to wonder what protective hexes have been laid over the people in the left-turn-onto-the-freeway lane on Camden that they can do so with such impunity, and whether this can be applied to other, more dangerous intersections.
It's gotten to the point where if I'm sitting at a red light across that intersection, I have a better than 50/50 chance of seeing someone run the red so he can turn and get on the freeway. A few days ago, I was on Camden heading south, and I stopped at the light (first in line); I watched the lined-up cars opposite me take the left turn onto the on-ramp, and then my light went green. But I hung back at the line for at least three seconds, because there were two people still in the intersection, turning left... and when they were finally clear, I still didn't take off, because I knew someone else would go blasting out into the left turn right in front of me, a good three seconds after the light had changed. The cars to the left and right of me surged forward... and immediately they had to slam on their brakes and lean on their horns, because sure enough, someone in a BMW came sailing right through the red light, turning left in front of us, not even particularly hurriedly. He was driving as though his light was green. And yet he would have been creamed if the guys going in my direction hadn't been quick to stop. In fact, if I'd bolted right off the line when my light went green, I'd have been right in the perfect position to become his new hood ornament.
Just this morning I was turning left onto the freeway in that charmed lane, and the light turned yellow as I was clearing the intersection; a few seconds later, I heard horns honking behind me, and in my mirror I saw another BMW sitting confusedly in the middle of the intersection, at a stop, his blinker on, while the cars opposite him threaded their way around him. I couldn't see into the car, and I'm reluctant to anthropomorphize, but I couldn't help but think it looked like some Marie Antoinette figure holding up her petticoats, sneering in contempt as mice ran around her ankles. How dare they!
I'm tempted, one of these days, to take a day off work; I'll go down to that intersection, hide in the bushes next to the on-ramp, and every time I see someone come hurtling out into the intersection against the light, especially if he gets marooned in the middle, I'll hold up a big placard that says, DON'T RUN THIS RED LIGHT, YOU MORON!!!
Not that it would help anything but my sense of wounded justice.
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Brian Tiemann
