Back to (Driving) School

I live near the Valley Creek Road construction area. 

Those of you who live in the same area of Woodbury are groaning with me. It's a royal pain in the "you know what." 

Every day, several times a day usually, I need to pull out my survival skills:

• Attentiveness
• Recalculation
• Patience
• Close observation
• Anger management

For years I have grumbled that we’re smarter in this town than the powers-that-be give us credit for.

We should be allowed to watch for oncoming cars and safely navigate a left-hand
turn when traffic allows it. We don’t need no stinkin’ left-turn control arrows!  We’re highly educated people; we (at least most of us) have learned how to navigate roundabouts, for Pete’s sake.

And now, I realize that the traffic gods know something I tend to forget: We may be smart, but we’re in a hurry, and that simple fact means we drive more like we're behind the wheel of bumper cars than Sunday afternoon cruisers. 

Here is the fact: We Woodburians can’t handle simple three- or four-way stops at a blinking red light.

I have seen several fender benders and many near misses along the construction stretch of Valley Creek over the last couple of weeks.  

I have incredulously watched as many as three cars traveling in the same direction drive through a stop sign one after another without even slowing for oncoming traffic. I witnessed a man, angry that someone else had taken his turn, lay on his horn and gun his car through the intersection, nearly hitting a pedestrian who had put her life in danger by expecting anyone would stop for her. 

I saw a woman become apoplectic when the oncoming car pulled out as she began to navigate a left turn. (How would that driver know you were turning left without your signal, m’am?) I overheard two women yell at each other in Walgreens parking lot about which one was in the right. 

And I have been on the receiving end of a very indelicately placed finger.  (I-swear-to-God-it-was-my-turn!)

I think it’s time to go back to school for a Kindergarten lesson. Remember these simple rules: Stop means stop. Play fair. Always let others have their turn.  Forgive each other. Keep your hands (and fingers) to yourself. And use your inside voices at all times.  

Those rules remembered, we’ll get through this construction project with less accidents. And we will like each other better at the end of the day.

But don’t be looking for the expansion of the yellow-turn option arrows anytime soon. I don’t think we’re ready yet. We need to spend a little more time in the sandbox together.