Traffic Rant

Every couple of months, I either have to vent or I will start carrying a .45 in the glove compartment. Not only is traffic getting heavier and heavier (both in numbers of private cars on the road and in actual physical size and weight of said private vehicles), but the people driving those cars seem to be losing any driving skills they may have once possessed.

Here in Central Joisey, we are blessed with a bit of traffic engineering known as "The Circle". Now, anyone with a modicum of intelligence and eye-hand coordination could figure out how to utilize such a traffic merging device with a few moments of reflection. Unfortunately, many of the drivers currently on the road apparently have neither. This past month, entering into one of these has been tantamount to joining a lottery. If you are lucky, you will not be whacked by some jerk who has no clue. However, the odds against getting through one of the busier traffic circles unscathed have been lengthening.

I go through the Somerville Circle something like 3-4 times a day, on average. In the past week I have been cut off, nearly broadsided (only avoided by some world class evasive driving on my part) and blocked by people who have no idea about how to use the three lanes available to them when they are trying to go west on either Rte. 202 or Rte. 28. During that same period of time, I have seen the aftermath of at least 6 accidents in the circle, and I figure the odds against me are lengthening.

Of course, I have a solution for all of this. To reduce the number of vehicles on the road and to reduce the danger we face every day due to people who are bad drivers, simply raise the bar on the driver's exams. First time drivers need to pass a competition type driving test. And the written test should be geared toward testing things like who yields when two roads intersect without visible signage and not how many feet it takes to stop a car. Stopping distances should be tested during the road test. Fail either test and you get to retake it...in 12 months. And to keep the driving public alert, this test should be mandatory every 20 years until age 60, and then its every 7 years. To pay for all of this, the annual cost of a driver's license would need to go up -- a couple hundred dollars a year sounds about right (that gets another shitload of drivers off the road.) Since this would mean that a lot of people who now have licenses would not, the state would need to provide 1)an inexpensive state ID card (which requires the same burden of proof of identity that the current driver's license requires) and 2)decent mass transit so people could still get to work and to shopping etc.. God knows that the day I can't pass that sort of test is the day I want somebody to take my license away.

Anyhow...think about it....