People who know me know that I allow very few things to raise my pressure and that the word stress is very difficult to find in my biological dictionary.
That said, I must admit that one aspect of life that does cause me worry is the stress of being a motorist on some of our highways and byways.
It has nothing to do with how other people drive, like ZRs stopping in the middle of the road so no competition can overtake while they pick up or put off passengers, or persons (I didn’t say women) whose indicator lights show they intend to turn right but the vehicle, obviously with a mind of its own, turns left, and vice versa; or pedestrians who believe their bodies are made of steel while those of cars, trucks and buses are of flesh and, therefore, the reason for the QEH’s acute shortage of beds.
My problem has to do with the planning that went into making driving in and about our new city at Warrens as difficult and accident inducing as possible.
Transforming the previous easily manoeuvred “Simpson Motors roundabout” into a true “traffic island” with the potential for a tsunami of accidents was not good enough. So, apparently not satisfied that the monster has caused enough accidents, the planners went back to the drawing board and added two more lanes of traffic woes. This time they ensured that all the traffic coming from the many businesses in and aback of Bizzy’s Towers also got the chance for possible head-on collisions with that on the two lanes from Highway 2A, the two coming around from off the hill and the two from the road, whose name I do not know, between the CGI building and the service station.
Were you aware that a solution is already in place that would allow the constant flow of traffic from around Bizzy’s Towers to return to ABC Highway without having to deal with the possible accident or death consequences of attempting to get into any lane around the “traffic island”?
There is and it’s in the form of a short two-lane road to the west of the Towers next to the hardware store. You didn’t know that?
Next time you are in the area and make it around the “traffic island” safely and are on the stretch of ABC going towards the next roundabout when you suddenly remember you need to buy a bucket, have your mobile phone checked, collect wine for dinner, place an ad online, rent a mobile light tower or get some lumber, just get into the left lane and turn onto any of the two lanes of that road without any hassle whatsoever.
But this is where the hassle-free travel ends because whereas you would expect that after completing your business you would get back on that road and almost as easily return to the usually very slow traffic on that little stretch of the ABC Highway between the two roundabouts.
Never, my friend. The people have made that road one-way on both lanes into the Towers, so no way out. Therefore, with the impossible to miss NO ENTRY signs in place, you have to drive to the edge of the “traffic island” and hope and pray that you do not end up in the Jaws of death as you dive into the sea of other traffic going round and round from all directions.
Al Gilkes heads a public relations firm. Email algilkes@gmail.com
