So I had the privelege of going to work in the field with my husband and business partner on Wednesday. I like doing that, although I don’t do it often, because my job is in the office. My poor out of shape body is paying the price for it now, as I’m really sore, but that’s not what this rant is about. It’s about the people driving on Harbor boulevard that day who couldn’t give a shit about obvious signs, cones, and mortal danger.
The speed limit on that street is 45. That in it self should be reason enough not to go speeding around willy-nilly at 70 MPH or so. But when there’s construction going on, and there are multiple signs in screaming construction orange telling you that the speed has been reduced to 25 because it’s a fucking construction zone WITH PEOPLE WORKING IN IT, that’s less of a reason to go around acting like a self absorbed asshole that common sense and rules don’t apply to.
We had our traffic control set up with a lane closure. There was a light board before the taper, telling people to get over, there was a long taper of stanchions that obviously closed down the lane. Why in the blue fuck would you not slow down and get over in a reasonable amount of time? Why is the accepted practice for you vapid cows to screech up to the last possible foot, slam on your brakes and jam it over into the lane, other traffic and meat shields be damned?! Where was a cop when you need 'im? I was out there all day and never saw a police car. Not one.
Or how 'bout this? I was at the end of the lane closure putting out more cones. It was a damn good thing I was looking where I was going instead of assuming that the CLOSED lane was clear, because as I picked up the next cone to move it out, there’s a stupid dick driving up on me IN THE CLOSED LANE as though he couldn’t care less that the lane was closed for a reason. He had to have crossed out of the open lane and into the closed one on purpose. There was no way into that lane by accident. I gave him my hardest, “What the FUCK are you doing?!” look and he just gaped at me as though I was a lunatic that had magically appeared in front of his grille. Swearing and hollering, I pointed to the open lane, and what does he do? Begins with a vacant stare, and then raises his hands as if to say, “Eh, you caught me” changes that expression to something that suggested that I’d done something wrong here, and then guns it out of the lane.
Now, it’s entirely possible that I’d just had my run in with the Emperor of the World, but I have a feeling that it was just one of his slack jawed minions practicing for their big day when he dies and the herd can scramble and claw their way to the top.
What is wrong with these people?
Hey fuckers, someday you’ll hurt or kill someone doing this shit, and you will have to live with the guilt and lawsuits that still probably won’t teach you that life can turn on a dime, and care needs to be taken when you have thousands of pounds of angry hot metal under your control. No, you’ll probably justify your actions in your tiny little minds and be backed up with an expensive slick ass lawyer who will mitigate the damages enough so you can sleep at night knowing it just wasn’t your fault. Twats. All of you.
If he was the Emperor I think you would have compelled to say “Moooo”. Must have been just an ordinary asshole.
Well, if that was ordinary, let’s hear it for the assholes of the world really getting together and raising the bar so that what was heretofore known as extraordinary assholery is now commonplace!
Woo!
Not.
Are you expecting some kind of organization? It’s every asshole for themselves. If I remember correctly it’s “Everyone has an asshole and they usually stink?” I could be mistaken. Maybe it was opinions being like assholes. Look, I don’t have time for all this higher learning/thinking bullshit. MOOOOOOOOO!
You think they’d hang out in work areas since traffic fines are doubled in construction zones.
But otherwise, you need to go buy the bright orange cones and get rid of the asphalt colored ones you’ve got now.
:eek: yeesh. That highway 138 is tough drivin’ as it is. As for death threats, I wouldn’t be surprised at those either, but the area we were in, it was more likely that the kind of person I would receive threats from would look like an aging socialite with a Mary Kay gun. We’ll be in rougher neighborhoods later for sure.
It seemed like common sense to me too that the police would want to hang out in a place where they can double the revenue, but I guess even the extra bonus of protecting my life and limb wasn’t enough.
You forget, speed limits and other traffic laws are only suggestions, to be ignored if the mob decides that they are unreasonable, or just a way for “the man” to raise revenue.
I’ve seen some construction zones where the police will station marked cars, with their emergency lights on, to try to keep the workers safe.
Speed limits are generally unreasonable. In construction zones, they are not, but generally, at least in my state, they do not follow the natural speed of the road, having been, if I recall correctly, set in the 1970s (before improved tires and brakes), by taking the 90th percentile speed, and arbitrarially lowering it ten percent. Except, of course, for the double nickel, which is lower than even that speed.
If the speed limits on roads were reasonable, they would be followed more closely, especially in construction zones. The violation of an unreasonable law creates the natural tendency to ignore laws of that nature when they are necessary.
One road construction company here in Alberta has had a really neat idea.
They took a rear view photo of a parked police car, turned it into a full sized “tent/a-frame sign” and place it about 3/4s of the way up the construction zone. The local police love the idea, and co-operate by actually parking a cruiser there about 1 day out of 14, at random.
Works a CHARM!
Regards
FML
Our construction zones deal with the issue by closing one or more lanes of traffic, causing massive backups and therefore slowing all cars down to 5 MPH or slower, of course.
Can I extend this pitting to the City of Calgary signage crews, too? We are having massive road construction here all the time, with speed limits changing all the time, and the road crews in charge of the signage are some of the most incompetent bunch of assholes I have ever encountered in my life. They’ll close a lane off when there’s nothing going on in it, open it up when it should be closed, close it off for months before the work actually starts, leave the signs up for months after the work is finished, put up the signs to start a lower zone and never put up a sign telling you when the lower zone is finished - it’s no wonder no drivers in Calgary actually do what the construction road signs tell you. It’s a two-way street - you want us to listen to the road signs, you have to make an effort to make the road signage trust-worthy.
Now THAT. Is some kind of awesome! 
Pardon me while my minds eye goes off to occupy itself for a while. Heh.
We usually have a real police cruiser parked at the beginning of the construction zone, lights flashing. Usually unoccupied. That works pretty well, too. I also get a bit of a chuckle out of the mental image of some poor CHP officer having to climb over the retaining wall and trudge through the brush to retrieve his car at the end of the shift, but I imagine in reality he gets a ride.
That’s one of the things about coming from a military family: sometimes things are a lot funnier…
“I fought the LAW and the LAW won…”
Also wacky puns on RPG.