Have you ever sat behind a traffic jam when you’d get there quicker if you walked or ran? When you finally get out at the front of it, no doubt you’ll find a policeman causing chaos with his hand.
What kind of people are they, anyhoo? The worst traffic jams I have ever seen were being “directed” by idiot cops “directing” traffic. I have seen corners where the traffic lights were out where traffic moved more smoothly. Seriously, are cops trained in the creation of chaos? I have never seen one traffic snarl that was not made far worse because of some idiot bozo with a badge.
I have no idea where you are, but I’ve always found cop directed traffic to be much more efficient than light directed traffic. Even after you take into account the fact that people are much more hesitant and drive more slowly through intersections with people standing in the middle of them. It’s primarily because actual people have a better capacity to see which direction traffic is piling up in and move that one more than the others, while the lights just averages. Maybe traffic cops in Toronto are just better trained than the ones wherever you live?
Maybe. Boston is one huge traffic snarl to begin with, but leave it to a cop to make a bad situation far, far worse. It’s not that people slow down when they see a person in the intersection. They come to a complete fucking halt. It’s a guaranteed added ten minutes to your commute.
Sometimes the reason there’s a cop directing traffic is because something already happened there and it’s that something that caused the major jam in the first place.
That thought had not escaped my mind. But observation tells me that 99% of the time, there’s a cop there due to either construction or just plain old rush hour. And I’ve seen both construction and rush hour where things ran slowly, but they ran. The worst ever traffic jams were invariably “helped” by cops.
Hate to break it to you but if a cop is directing traffic at a construction site he is not there for you. He is there so that the workers can complete their task in a safety while still letting traffic flow in some manner. If traffic has to slow or stop for a while so the job can be done then that’s what happens. Learn a different route.
You’re right about Boston traffic cops, at least. They mostly just make trouble. The best one I ever saw was when I was doing the Dorchester to Wellesley commute, down Route 9. A cop was stationed there in the morning. The only thing he did was prevent people from entering the intersection on a green light when they had no place to go due to other congestion. It worked brilliantly, and is the standard to which I now hold traffic cops.
The thing that gets me about cops directing traffic at work sites, especially when it’s gas or electric people down manholes, is that they seem to spend 80% of their time staring down into the manhole and chatting with the workers while making random, blind waving motions at the passing cars. :mad:
Funny, I have a whole pile of contract specifications in front of me. The traffic control section says that the police are there to keep the flow of vehicles going. In my experience, it’s only about safety about one time out of ten.
Funny, I have been through quite a few D.O.T. classes and training sessions. They have been 100% about work zone safety. Maybe I missed the part about making sure you aren’t ten minutes late for work.
Actually both aren’t mutually exclusive. You have to hire a cop because otherwise traffic won’t flow around the worksite. He is there to make sure the traffic flows around the workers safely. Not quickly, safely. Because there is something about those orange cones that sucks the brains out of any driver who sees them. They all turn into idiots.
In MA you have to hire a cop. It doesn’t matter if your construction will impead traffic or not. If anything or anyone is even partialy in the road(including break down lanes or curbs) a cop must be paid to be there. The hourly rate for an officer standing around doing nothing but chatting with construction workers is ridiculous.
My understanding was that cops are hired not so much for traffic flow or construction safety, but for liability issues. That way, if you fall down a manhole and die, the construction company could say “Hey, didn’t you see the cop standing there? We’re not responsible.”
Just because the traffic isn’t impeded for 8 straight hours doesn’t mean that it won’t be at certain times such as when equipment is entering and leaving. But that is besides the point, the main reason he is there is to make sure the work zone is safe and set up along D.O.T. guidelines. If the work zone can be set up in such a way as to let traffic flow normally that is ideal.
I can recall many a time when the stoplights at an intersection were out, but no obstructions in the intersection whatsoever, and there was a cop managing traffic doing a FAR worse job than the light does by itself.
The basic problem has always seemed to me to be that the cop lets the traffic from one direction go through for far too long, certainly much longer than the light does.
I would however say that the cop there is better than an intersection with the lights out and no other controls. People seem to think that having the traffic lights out means it’s green all the way. le sigh
That may be true where you live and work, but it doesn’t seem to be the case in Rhode Island at least. I’ve done test pits on a roadside in RI that I had a traffic detail for. The officer was nice and entertaining, and it was a nice morning jawing with him, but he never inspected anything. I assure you, there were no special measures taken to ensure my safety or that of the operator - and if we were DOT compliant it was entirely at random. We had no signs or anything set up, so I don’t believe we were.
Out of curiousity, are you a state trooper? Maybe there is a difference between local and state police in the way they approach traffic details.
I thought for a moment that you must live in a bastion of polite driving, then I figgered out you meant Boston.
I can’t conceive of people dealing efficiently with a downed traffic light here in DC. I’m betting maybe only one of every 25 people here know what the law says about approaching a broken traffic light. There’s one signal that goes down at least twice a month near my house, and the intersection seriously looks like rush-hour Cairo with everyone trying to go at once.
