On people (a rant)
Jan. 30th, 2005 07:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumCalPolySLO is driving hell.
First there are the pedestrians: College campuses (this is not limited to Poly) seem to be small bubbles where simple physics (F=MA) are intellectually suspended and a legal state of absolute right of way translates to a careless disregard of the aforementioned law. One sees people stepping into the street (nowhere near a crosswalk, which are abundant) without so much as flicking their eyes up from the cell phone being dialed (I've yet to see a Poly student reading and walking, which folly I still occasionally engage in). Once traffic is stopped, the offending student is followed by 2-50 like-minded persons; after all the car has stopped, might as well take advantage of it. This will be repeated.
There are times, e.g ten minutes past the hour; when classes start/end, when the real rate of travel will not be more than 3 mph.
To this we add the roads. Poly was originally an agricultural school. Not content to have the roads laid out by cows, they elected to find, palsied, beasts from Maine, well aware of the idea that one, "c'aint get theyuh, from he'yeh." There is a stretch of the campus which is a maze of twisty passages, which becomes (with great repetition) a series of forced turns leading to the same intersection. The only way to go north is, in fact, to go long, head south and sneak up on it from behind. I found this out after the fourth version of, "Damn it! I've been here before" was played out, in the span of three minutes.
The other drivers are just grace notes. The guy who signals a left, Stops thirty feet behind the intersection (and long before he can see opposing traffic, so he can ease up to the stop sign and wait for someone to cross him (this took about thirty seconds) and then make the left. This pattern (of stopping short then creeping up to the limit line was repeated. The best was his decision to move up one car length at a time to one, in three steps. As though there had been other cars taking their turns).
Need to drop someone off at the side of the road? Don't worry about pulling to the sidewalk. No, it's far preferred to stop at a crosswalk (which isn't likely to be used) and then chat for a minute or so about the things you have to make sure the driver doesn't forget.
Right turns into empty parking lots require a dead stop, perhaps to make certain no one is lurking in a distant bush to ambush you while you lock the doors. It's nice, I suppose, that they had a signal on. I knew that sooner or later they'd move, and be out of my way.
If I didn't love Maia, I'd never drive her to school, much less arrange to pick her up.
First there are the pedestrians: College campuses (this is not limited to Poly) seem to be small bubbles where simple physics (F=MA) are intellectually suspended and a legal state of absolute right of way translates to a careless disregard of the aforementioned law. One sees people stepping into the street (nowhere near a crosswalk, which are abundant) without so much as flicking their eyes up from the cell phone being dialed (I've yet to see a Poly student reading and walking, which folly I still occasionally engage in). Once traffic is stopped, the offending student is followed by 2-50 like-minded persons; after all the car has stopped, might as well take advantage of it. This will be repeated.
There are times, e.g ten minutes past the hour; when classes start/end, when the real rate of travel will not be more than 3 mph.
To this we add the roads. Poly was originally an agricultural school. Not content to have the roads laid out by cows, they elected to find, palsied, beasts from Maine, well aware of the idea that one, "c'aint get theyuh, from he'yeh." There is a stretch of the campus which is a maze of twisty passages, which becomes (with great repetition) a series of forced turns leading to the same intersection. The only way to go north is, in fact, to go long, head south and sneak up on it from behind. I found this out after the fourth version of, "Damn it! I've been here before" was played out, in the span of three minutes.
The other drivers are just grace notes. The guy who signals a left, Stops thirty feet behind the intersection (and long before he can see opposing traffic, so he can ease up to the stop sign and wait for someone to cross him (this took about thirty seconds) and then make the left. This pattern (of stopping short then creeping up to the limit line was repeated. The best was his decision to move up one car length at a time to one, in three steps. As though there had been other cars taking their turns).
Need to drop someone off at the side of the road? Don't worry about pulling to the sidewalk. No, it's far preferred to stop at a crosswalk (which isn't likely to be used) and then chat for a minute or so about the things you have to make sure the driver doesn't forget.
Right turns into empty parking lots require a dead stop, perhaps to make certain no one is lurking in a distant bush to ambush you while you lock the doors. It's nice, I suppose, that they had a signal on. I knew that sooner or later they'd move, and be out of my way.
If I didn't love Maia, I'd never drive her to school, much less arrange to pick her up.
