Speedy

Drove over to St. John's yesterday morning to work on younger son's house. I took Germantown Road and about halfway down the far side of the hill, traffic came to a stop. Anytime anywhere near rush hour, there is always a bit of a jam getting onto St. John's bridge, but this exceptional. I was in despair as a traffic jam this long would take an hour to clear and I didn't want to spend an hour of my life creeping along in a traffic jam. Fortunately for all us commuters, it only lasted about five minutes. Seems a big truck carring a load of heavy equipment had gotten stuck. He was going around one of the nine zillion corners on this road and the inside wheels of the trailer had fallen in the roadside ditch. I would like to know who the idiot was who sent this truck down this road. You might think in this day of GPS and sophisticated route planning software, not to mention experienced people, this could have been avoided.

No matter, once I got past that jam it was clear sailing for another couple of minutes until I got to the actual jam at the entrance to the bridge.

That afternoon I was taking a nap in my car (it was hot and I'm old) and I hear tires squealing. I open my eyes and what do I see? A black man in a purple convertible Mustang doing donuts in the intersection 25 yards away. He doesn't go just one, he must have done about six before be sped off. That was so weird I might have written it off as a dream except for the sound. I can't remember hearing much of anything in any dreams.

I also heard a couple of cars come flying by, in excess of 40 MPH certainly, maybe 60, I don't know. This is a narrow residential street. If there are cars parked on both sides, there is only room for one car in the center. If two cars want to pass, they need a place where at least one side of the road is clear of parked cars. At least half the road is clear like that, and there isn't a great deal of traffic, so it's not a problem.

A few months ago Portland reduced the speed limit for residential areas from 25 MPH to 20. I thought this was a really dumb idea, mostly because my cruise control doesn't work below 25 MPH. But now I'm starting to see (hear) the impetus for this change. They don't want maniacs charging through quiet neighborhoods at freeway speeds. I don't think this new speed limit is going to have much effect. It's kind of like any kind of prohibition. People who have good self control and think this is a good idea will follow the rules, and people who don't care will ignore them just like they have been.

I remember when I was kid I thought 25 MPH speed limits were stupid. There's nobody on the road, I can see a clear path for a couple of blocks. People are supposed to look before they go out into the road, parents are supposed to keep control of their kids until they have mastered that rule. Problem is we are dealing with people who at best can be described as pretending to be obedient. Kids especially tend to forget the rules as soon as they are clear of any adults. Combine that with speeding cars and you have the makings of a tragedy.

On the other hand, it just might be that people just don't like that kind of noise, especially when they are trying to nap.

I'm not quite sure how you tackle this problem. Big brother will probably deploy an army of cameras and will eventually capture these miscreants and hit them with big fat fines. That might have the effect of reducing speeding, but I suspect constraining these yahoos in this way is just going to cause their anti-social feelings to pop out in some other area. Maybe we need some outlaw race courses, places where people can drive like maniacs but without any of the safety precautions you find at legal racetracks. Make them extra dangerous and don't allow any ambulances into the area. You want to be an outlaw? Go ahead, be an outlaw. If they survive, maybe the experience will knock off some of those rough edges.