It's been a while since I took Driver's Ed (something like 20 years). It's been less time since I took traffic school (probably somewhere around 8 years). It's only been about 2 years since I took a 2-month course in commercial driving. And in all of those educative experiences we learned about signs and rules and what specific colors on the street lights meant. We learned how to treat a four-way stop, and as such learned that the meaning of "Right-of-Way" actually meant that in a tie, the person to the
right had the right to go first.
We learned, back then, how to treat a street light that was out or obviously malfunctioning. We learned that a red arrow meant "Don't turn." If it was pointing left, it meant don't turn left. If pointing right, it meant "Don't turn right - even if the guy behind you is honking (you'll get the ticket if you run it, not him, so let him honk)."
We learned that green means
go, red means
stop, and yellow means (ha ha)
go faster or - more responsibly -
use caution.
What I never learned, and surprisingly not I nor anybody I've asked, has been summoned to a Driver's Ed refresher course to teach us how to deal with the following changes - despite how useful such refreshers would be in the evolving urban nightmare that UDOT (I include city planners and whoever else it is that blows our tax dollars on experiments) has begun forcing on the Salt Lake Valley.
- Continuous Flow Intersections (CFIs) - so named to mislead the people with the money into forking out large enough sums to pay for the destruction of corner homes and businesses, while simultaneously providing months and years of construction work (ie. traffic congestion, narrowed lanes, construction zone speed limits, etc.) and ensuring years of confusion amongst out-of-towners, elderly drivers, and people who just plain missed the "on-ramp" light for their left turn a quarter-mile down the road. Another benefit provided by CFIs is the renovated "No Right Turn" light (a bright white outline of an arrow with an impressive red circle and line crossing through it) - a red right-turn arrow isn't enough, even UDOT agreed, to ensure people no longer try to turn right at an intersection. So now you can't turn right on a red, and you get to wait for your left turn from further away. There is probably some benefit somewhere, but methinks it's mostly a benefit to somebody writing off something somewhere, or padding their resume with "I conceived of the plan to rebuild the entire traffic-system in the Salt Lake Valley, and successfully convinced them to do it."
- Mostly the above.
- And third, Flashing Yellow Left-Turn Arrows.
That's right. We have flashing yellow left-turn arrows peppered around the valley. Why, you ask? Let me tell you why! So that we know to use caution when turning left at an intersection!
As I typed the above, I realized that there is more to it than that - obviously everybody knows that you have to use caution before turning left on a solid green light. In fact that is why I started this rant. I was kind of annoyed that they were changing perfectly good, working solid greens with flashing yellows that didn't change anything about how you turn left.
But now I get it. Let me share my epiphany.
You see, the planners are so dead-set on converting every intersection in Utah into an arterial joke, that they are concerned people will forget how to safely wait for an opening in on-coming traffic before turning left at the few intersections they can't convert. We're to become so familiar with the Crazy Flow Intersections, and their magical ability to let through-traffic flow at the same time that left-turners are making their turns, that we will eventually think a solid green light always means "go for it!!"
We really are a stupid breed, I guess. Good thing the smarty-pants in charge are ahead of the curve and compassionate enough to look out for the rest of us tards. Phew! I guess I should just relax, stare contentedly at the flashing yellow light, and hope for an opening before the drool spills down my shirt.
