Bad enough when one driver gets confused and tries to use a roundabout still under construction, even worse when the car behind him follows along for the ride.
According to Amherst Police (around 1:00 PM Saturday): "Two vehicles got onto the rotary that is under construction--most likely westbound off Bay Road--and as they exited they nearly caused an accident with the reporting party. One elderly gentleman in a Cadillac. No description of second vehicle."
Let's hope upon completion (sometime next year) the state installs a plethora of signage to mitigate confusion.
4 comments:
This is my pet peeve -- the simple inability of highway folk in Massachusetts (the only state that requires officer details) to put up barricades and signage that is comprehensible at night and in the rain.
So we have flashing blue lights to blind you at a night road job -- wonderful, we now have drivers who have lost their night vision --- and do you have any idea how hard it is to accurate place the location of a vehicle lit only by strobe lights when you are moving (the human brain simply can not do this).
And the thing that scares me the most is the officer, half asleep, talking on his cell phone (probably trying to make sure his kids got to school or came home and are not doing bad things), and who absolutely is not paying attention to what he is doing -- directing 2-way traffic over a one-lane piece of road.
If I wasn't a UM student, I would (as a Christian) go have a chat with the Amherst Chief because you are going to have a dead APD officer, it is only a matter of time. Come on guys, you know your own arrest stats and likely have a guess of how many you don't catch -- how many unsafe vehicles, drunk/stoned/high drivers, unlicensed non-citizen drivers, etc???
You stand with your back to multi-ton projectiles coming at you, not paying attention, what do we think is going to eventually happen? And then you go home and leave roads not properly marked and people make mistakes.
And of course a driver is following the one in front of him/her/it -- it is why you want to turn OFF your parking lights but instead turn on both your 4-way flashers *and* your interior dome light if you pull off the road -- you don't want someone to follow you right off the road and into you.
Or if you are clear of both the road and shoulder/breakdown lane, show no lights at all.
APD, you can hate me as much as you wish, but it is your wife who will be widowed and your children who won't have a father and you really need to pay attention when you are doing road jobs...
Guys, you are more likely to be killed if hit by a vehicle at 30 MPH than if a perp was to start shooting at you (at the distance the cars are approaching at) and you wouldn't turn your back on a perp whom you thought might shoot at you. Would you?
The early intrusion on the roundabout occurred in broad daylight (a little before 1:00 PM).
APD will be on their toes when the students return--both with traffic detail and party house squelching.
Hey Ed do your homework- no cops are doing work at that project, civilian flaggers have been out there.
Call it an open criticism of what I have seen in Amherst (and the state) this summer in general.
It is the Amherst/Pelham road where the officers haven't been paying attention on -- and they are in uniform.
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