Jacques Nicot helped encourage and popularize the cultivation of tobacco throughout France. Nicot was so proud of his accomplishment that he named the dangerous alkaloid compound after himself.

I wonder where the city and county agencies get the high school drop outs that design roadways, set light timing and create massive malls with little ingress and egress?

You may or may not know what I am talking about. These are the fatheads that create traffic, cause insane amounts of fuel to be used going nowhere fast and make an already irritated driver jump straight to road-rage.

I’m sitting at a stop light. Across from me in the left hand turn lane are 34 (I counted everyone of those vehicles) cars trying to do a U-turn. Not turn left, they are doing a U-turn. As I watch all of this, cars are coming out of an industrial complex and falling in behind the left turn queue. I was amazed. All of this because the bonehead who designed the roadway, failed to consider that people turning out of the complex (and eighteen commercial buildings is a large complex) will need to get to the freeway on ramps… WHICH WERE IN THE OTHER DIRECTION. Hence 34 cars are tying to do U-turns. This isn’t counting those additional vehicles all falling into this queue lane. Once the light changed, the number of vehicles sitting and waiting their turn was over twenty.

Here’s a pet peeve of mine.

I, like most of you, sit at a stop light… engine running… patiently waiting for the light to change. In the intersection is??? NOBODY! Not one car is moving thru the intersection because there are no cars waiting to make turns or make their way across the intersection. The whole group of us sit… and wait… engines running… WASTING FUEL. And time. Why? Because some bozo has the light timing set to “infuriate”.

When a vehicle approaches an intersection, the sensors in the ground trip a relay in the light change mechanism. A timer starts for the light change. These are called “dumb” intersections (as opposed to uncontrolled and/or totally moronic). In the meantime, we sit and wait… and wait… and wait. It’s estimated that the number of consumer dollars wasted by sitting at these “dumb” intersections is close to 3.4 million dollars… PER MONTH! I am sure that a monkey with a laptop could do a better job of figuring out that a “smart” light system in an intersection could save everyone a boatload of money. “Smart” intersections know the time of day, the day of the week, the number of approaching vehicles, the number of vehicles in a queue and they can be programmed at a moments notice from any computer to adapt to atypical traffic conditions.

And now??? The major contributor to road rage…

As you move in and around your community, I am sure you know of one mall (strip mall or “under-one-roof” mall) where getting into and out of the parking lot is a major PITA. There is one such mall on the way to my favorite sporting arena. There are three left hand turn lanes to get into the lot, not to mention the right hand turn lanes spaced at four very easy access entrances. If you are trying to get out of the parking lot, there are two lanes. One turns left (and it’s a “dumb” light system – see previous pet peeve), and one lane turns right.

Are they serious? I made the mistake of entering that mall lot once. It took thirty minutes to get out of the lot and back on my way again. Thirty minutes! I will never do that again. Why did it take so long to get out of the lot? There was another light a short distance from the intersection I was trying to get out of… AND THE LIGHTS WERE NOT IN SYNC OR TIMED! Traffic would back up in the intersection (which, BTW you are not supposed to block an intersection and if you do, be prepared for a horn honking and a single finger salute) because the other light was red.

I am sure there are many more little traffic oddities that one could come up with. I’d like to hear yours… If you have a pet peeve or have noticed a traffic generating problem, place a comment after this diatribe. I swear, there’s no wonder that we have anger issues (road rage) with drivers.

Some of the mental midgets that designed all of this crapola must be out inhaling some of that Frenchman’s chemical concoction. It’s either that or they been smoking some of that ganja weed (for those in Rio Linda, ganja is a popular term for marijuana). It’s either that or the roadway engineer is getting ready to retire… and he decided that all those drivers who swerved to miss him because they wouldn’t “slow for the cone zone” can just kiss his ass.

Until next week…