A FLORIDA DRIVER'S LICENSE...

...can only go so far.

Comments

[tmcguinn1]

Where am I?

[Siouxie]

Excellent, Dave!

[Siouxie]

I also hate those traffic circles. You really take your life into your hands and probably do better if you actually shut your eyes and just GO.

[Annie Where-but-here]

Yay, new Dave column!
In case you're confused about traffic circles, roundabouts, or sometimes know by their technical term -TCCoD(Transportation Crop Circles of Death), this should help clear things up for you.

It should, but alas, it does not.

[Jeff Meyerson]

Siouxie, we're used to them from driving for years in Britain, where they are everywhere, but in this country they're (not their) deadly.

[Annie Where-but-here]

Hey, I sent this in!!!
*pouts*

[Not My Usual Alias]

What do you call a transplanted New Yorker in a Miami traffic circle?

[eilbeback]

Indianapolis has a million of 'em... And people STILL stop dead at them, or else they try to go the wrong way... I miss FL driving (NOT!)...

[queensbee]

great coll dave..... we just started getting roundabouts here, in albany and surrounds, although there were a few here already. i can hear the car insurance rates going up. i think the drunks will have a good time.

[Braniff77]

I remember driving in the countryside of Britain years ago. There seemed to be a roundabout every 200 feet or so. It took much mental acuity to remember that I had to go clockwise and not counter-clockwise like here in the States.

[Annie Where-but-here]

NMUA - a speedbump?
queensbee - my dad loves roundabouts and is a highway design consultant in the Albany area. Please don't hate me. At least for that reason. There are many other better ones. :)

[Annie Where-but-here]

Braniff- I thought we went anti-clockwise, not counter-clockwise. But maybe that's only during Daylight Savings Time.

[pogo]

Annie - that's only north of the Equator.

[tmcguinn1]

Is the purpose of these roundabouts simply to give the highway designers a good giggle? That's the only reason I've come up with.

[Layzeeboy]

Gee, I sure hope Dave's new column (YAY!) gets published somewhere in Jersey, the state where making a left turn anywhere is a capital crime.

[Not My Usual Alias]

I'd say a menace, but speedbump works as well.

I keep thinking about "European Vacation" with "Look kids, the Eiffel Tower... look kids, the Eiffel Tower...."

I once notified the police about a woman who was driving dangerously at rush hour. Five near accidents in less than a mile. The supervisor who took my call ended up moving his cruiser behind the woman's parked car while the state hurried up to cancel her license.

She was at the point that she didn't realize that she had a car, let alone that she had been driving it. The officer thanked me, noting that she lived a block away from an elementary school.

[Siouxie]

They've also put up some little "islands" before and after the traffic circles at some intersections. I call them the Galapagos. I've seen cars go all the way around while driving on TOP of them.

[Braniff77]

Layzeeboy, I live in NJ and I actually plan trip routes ahead of time to avoid left turns. BTW, they've removed a bunch of traffic circles in NJ, but they're making a comeback. There's a new one under construction on the way to my train station.

[Meanie the Blur]

ZIPPPPP

[Eleanor]

My asshat ex and I spent some time in Paris. They have a lot of them there. Very fun, especially if you're in a taxi and the driver's going about 50mph. But we're stil here. And when we drove through the rest of France the small towns had them too. With lots of direction signs.

Good luck, Dave.

[Eleanor]

Please add around the arc du Triumph after 50mph.

Thank you.

Carry on. :)

[Layzeeboy]

Braniff, I spend a lot of time in the Sheraton in Woodbridge (corporate HQ is there). If you're going north on Rt. 1 it's on the left side. You turn right and actually have to go through a shopping mall parking lot to the cloverleaf and double back south.

I also got pulled over in Phillipsburg once for "spending too much time in the left lane." Did I tell you how much I hate to drive in Jersey?

[queensbee]

annie - not your fault what dad does for a living. i would say that the nys dept of trans was making all the highway designers do it. for years, there was one at latham, and the next nearest was on rte 84 outside of poughkeepsie. suddenly, there's 3 more, in the last 2 years. it's a communist plot, yeah, that's the ticket...

[pogo]

Lazee - Although I am a firm believer in "Slower Traffic Keep Right", I would have been tempted to ask how long the statute allows you to spend in the left lane.

[Braniff77]

Layzee,
I know where that Sheraton is. I live probably 25 miles south of it.
re: left lane driving. My trip from the office is a 20-minute walk to Penn Station, a 1-hour train ride to NJ, and a 6-mile drive to home. The worst part of that whole trip is the 6-mile drive. Even though there are signs on the main road virtually every 1000 feet that say "Keep right except to pass", there is always one car that will not move out of the left lane and drives 10 miles under the limit, holding everybody up.

[Cheryl Howard]

Well I for one, absolutely love roundabouts. Bend is full of them.

I won't argue with Dave's description of how folks respond to them however.

[gcbcman]

Dave, as a (grateful) non-Miami resident, can I assume the "I know, I know" refers to the fact that you should have known better than to get on the Palmetto Expressway in the first place?

[Siouxie]

gcbcman - yes. He should have known better. I try to avoid that particular highway at all costs. Even taking a much longer and dangerous route through the streets of Miami.

[Schadeboy]

I think it goes without saying, and if someone already said this I apologize (too lazy to read through all of the comments), but Young Male Idiots would be a good name for a rock band (not to mention an excellent quote to put on a t-shirt).

[Jeff Meyerson]

They've also put up some little "islands" before and after the traffic circles at some intersections. I call them the Galapagos. I've seen cars go all the way around while driving on TOP of them.

Siouxie, when we were in Florida this winter we noticed quite a few (ahem) older drivers going to the left side of the islands and as pedestrians we learned to make sure there were no cars anywhere close before we crossed the road.

I really think they need big "DO NOT ENTER" signs.

[CJrun]

*snork*@Meanie!

I like circles, around people that know how they work. So I guess I don't like circles.

[Merri Lee]

They've also put up some little "islands" before and after the traffic circles at some intersections. I call them the Galapagos. I've seen cars go all the way around while driving on TOP of them.

Posted by: Siouxie | 03:26 PM on April 28, 2008

The geniuses of SDOT put islands in neighborhoods to keep people from speeding, which resulted in school buses being forced to drive OVER them and coming *this close* to tipping over. One day, some kids are going to get hurt.

[jug]

I was driving through the circle
on a warm Miami Day
When I saw that Valiant rolling
go-ing the wrong way

Will the circle
be run over
by and by Dave
by and by
There's a better
route to get there
through the sky folks
through the sky

[cowhand214]

I can almost hear the Carter Family or Hank Williams there jug.

[daisymae]

Siouxie help me out here. I lived in Pinecrest until 2005. I don't remember any traffic circles in Miami. Where are we talking about?

[jug]

Its a classic Cowhand, and just seemed to fit.

[cowhand214]

When I lived in Annapolis a couple years ago there are several circles around town (though probably only the one by the harbor and on West St. could truly be called "traffic" circles) and folks who lived there were quite used to them. Once the weather turned and all the tourists came in though, it was a different story. They'd get all flustered and stop, or speed through, or yield inappropriately, or just about anything but what one is supposed to do. Eventually, having absolutely no confidence that anyone around me knew what they were about, I just developed a fatalistic approach of offering up a prayer and "going for it."

Pedestrians were another matter. They had all these "State Law: Yield to Pedestrians in the Crosswalk" signs up. These always left me wondering if the law had recently changed and if, perhaps, "Tourist Season" had meant something quite different in the recent past, perhaps involving permits, a lottery, and eager anticipation while stalking "The Big One" in your Subaru Legacy and waiting for him to approach a crosswalk.

[RedRat]

Hey, wait a minute! 73 is NOT OLD!!!! For those of us that are approaching that age, we take umbrage or it is Benefiber.

[Layzeeboy]

RANT

If you're too stupid to drive, hang it up.

We have a story on the news tonight here in NE PA where a "lovely" 90 year old blue haired "gramma" type made an illegal u-turn on the interstate and ended up killing a guy on a motorcycle. He was the father of three, recently retired vice-principal and head of his church's youth group.

The local TV interviewed her tonight and she said, "I never meant to kill anybody."

Yeah, the only problem with that is that YOU DID.

She made a stupid decision and somebody ended up dead because of it. This blue-haired gramma is just as culpable as the guy who has one too many beers and kills somebody. Lock her mud-flap ass up and throw away the key. Just like anyone else whose stupidity makes someone die.

If we're going to make people responsible for their (stupid) decisions, then let's make everyone responsible.

/RANT

[Alfred]

In Argentina it is custom to keep the lights off at night, when you come to an intersection you flash them, so people know your passing through it.

A cirlce isn't too bad, try a hovering planets in a hurry then it gets scary. This is why so many people take the train in Europe.
This has been Alfred's useless info of the day.

[jug]

I have been through that circle Cowhand. It wasn't tourist season, but I was tempted.

[Doc Rick]

The first traffic circle I ever experienced was in Waco and riding with my college roommates. Since they lived there it made perfect sense for them to drive like the 20 year old jackarses they were which meant punching the accelerator and praying they didn't hit the other cars. A few years later I moved there and never went back to that particular stretch of road.

[Wes S.]

I spent some time in the Boston area during my Army days (Fort Devens at Ayer, MA) and they had some truly nasty roundabouts. Most of them appeared to be banked like a NASCAR oval, apparently so if Bostonian drivers missed hitting you the first time around, they could go around again, picking up speed, for a second attempt...

Between the roundabouts and the normal driving habits of Bostonians, a couple of friends of mine at Fort Devens absolutely refused to drive anywhere in Massachusetts.

Fortunately, we don't have a lot of those here in Kansas City, and most of the ones we do have are fortunately on low-speed roads in shopping center complexes. One exception is the junction of Mo. Rt. 7 and Mo. Rt. 78 east of Independence, at the entrance to the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant...which is a truly great place for a roundabout. Especially since everybody tries to drive a straight line directly through the intersection without regard to lane changes or even road curvature.

I live about five miles from the Lake City arsenal, and I keep waiting to hear a big, traffic-related kaboom...

[Siouxie]

daisy, they're popping up all over Miami, Coral Gables, South Miami..I'm sure Pinecrest has 'em too. I haven't been around that area lately. It's an epidemic!

[baligurl]

Evenin', Sioux!

[JEC666]

It all began with crop circles. It's the aliens I tell you.

[Siouxie]

The first time I noticed them creeping up was a few years ago when I still lived in Coral Gables, next to UM. The street (Campo Sano) which surrounds the campus was just next to my house and they built one right there on my corner, along with those little islands that stretch all over that road. Now they're all over neighborhoods.

[Siouxie]

hola, baligirlfriend! JEC, I'm with you. It's the alien influence.

*dons her foil hat whilst driving the crop traffic circles*

[Wyo Cowboy]

Drivers in Wyoming are even worse. really. and we they all drive at least 3/4 trucks or bigger.

Why is it better here? There are only four of us, and any one time, one of us is probably sober.

[Siouxie]

*adds 'around' up dere*

[Wyo Cowboy]

actually, I did mean 3/4 ton trucks. sheesh!

[crossgirl]

tbere are two reasons i don't go to clearwater beach despite it being the closest, coeds in bikinis and the !8*&%*$&&$ roundabout. last time i attempted it i was there for hours before finally fleeing from the same direction i'd entered. good news, i ended up finding a way better beach down the road which is populated exclusively by moms in all their less than perfect glory.

[baligurl]

SNORK@Wyo!

[Siouxie]

LOL Wyo. Don't forget, there's only one traffic light.

[Annie Where-but-here]

Wyoooooo! when you said '3/4' truck, I assumed you meant Fords.

[Wyo Cowboy]

*winks at Annie's Ford comment*

Sioux, there was a traffic light, but last Saturday night... well I'd had a few... anyway.

Thank God the JP is my uncle.

[jug]

Evening All. Wyo I thought it was the law in your fair state that it had to be a minimum of 3/4 ton duallie, with bull balls hanging off the back hitch

[Siouxie]

For Wes:

kaboom!

[CJrun]

Yes, butt if three of you are on horses and one is riding a cow, who has the right-of-way?

[Wyo Cowboy]

the one with the biggest balls.

[Siouxie]

Evenin' jug!

Wyo, we won't tell if you don't. I'm sure the other 3 drivers are grateful.

[Wyo Cowboy]

(Or, Uncle Willie the JP. He's blind of course.)

*smugly notes that Justice is always blind.*

[jug]

didn't Arlo Guthrie say that Wyo?

[Siouxie]

CJ, the one with the biggest balls testicules.
Which is how we do it here in Miami anywho. Right now it's the geezers and young stupid kids.

[Wyo Cowboy]

Note picture #504, particularly...

[baligurl]

That's a good dog to have, Wyo.

[Wyo Cowboy]

see, Sioux, you'd do well here. just bring a parka.

*now has "You can get anything that you want..." (excepting Alice) stuck in his head.*

Thanks, jug.

[Wyo Cowboy]

btw, the "W" in "Group W" was for Wyoming.

[jug]

walk right in, its around the back
just a half a mile from the railroad track

I love that pick Wyo

[Siouxie]

Wyo?? what's this parka thing you speak of??

*warm-blooded hair flip*

[Annie Where-but-here]

Siouxie - it's like Uggs for your body - fluffy jacket, like, totally fun!!!

[Annie Where-but-here]

Out here we wear them in the winter, over like a teeny, like, tank top, shorts, and Ugg boots. Soooo, like, fun!

[Siouxie]

OH MY GAWD!! Annie, I would like, SO wear that! fur sure!

[baligurl]

Wow, Sioux, I didn't even know, like, that Florida, like, has a Valley, or whatever. Kewl!

[Annie Where-but-here]

Bali - SoBe is like, waaaay too humid for decent parka weather. Unless you go inside the like, totally hip clubs and sit near the botox bimbos, who are like, soooo cold you can chill your margaritas on their skanky bony butts.

You need to come out here because if it's like, too hot here?, we just go up to the like, mountains?, where they keep it like totally cool like all the time? Like, Big Bear, Lake Tahoe - sweet totally cool like totally all the time. And I will supply like, totally hot cabana/cabin boys. 'Kay?

[Wyo Cowboy]

Wyomin's lookin' better all the time.

just sayin'

[baligurl]

Bitchin! So, like, puttin that in the, like, Blackberry and whatever!

[Annie Where-but-here]

Fer sure! We can go shopping and do like, stuff!!

[Alfred]

love the picture of the short horse.

[packsaddle]

hi.

[cowhand214]

Annie, just reading your 9:14 caused my blood pressure to skyrocket.

[Wyo Cowboy]

Hi, pack. welcome back to the states.

[Siouxie]

Annie, you are like, SO right! SoBe is the Valley of the Plastic Dolls!

[baligurl]

Well, time for this gurl to head to bed, been a long day. Y'all sleep well! G'night!

[Siouxie]

*smooch* bali!! sweet dreams!

*off to talk to my daughter about PROM...pray for me*

[jug]

They have Blackberries in OK Bali?

[Annie Where-but-here]

They have like, blueberries and like, raspberries in OK, ok? Like, this - pbllllllllffftttt!!!

[packsaddle]

i'm watching the weather channel right now but the glare off of the bald guy's head is distracting me.

check it out for yourselves.

[Doc Rick]

We have all of those plus bluebonnets here in Texas. We even occasionally find a signal on our wireless phones out on the prairie.

[Annie Where-but-here]

Good night, Sioux & Bali! I'll fluff the guest room pillows for you. Gotta run soon myself and pick up my offspring.

[jug]

Very nice Annie

[packsaddle]

as far as i can tell, here is your forecast.

[CJrun]

It's really not necessary to refer to the bald weathermen as "Blue Bonnets."

[jug]

They much prefer Headboard Damaged Prognosticators

[CJrun]

As do the better class of women.

[Meditrina]

*smiles and waves!*

Can we get the cell phone addicts off the road too? I have been rear ended (and not in the good way) twice while at a complete stop at a RED FRICKIN LITE in the last 3 years by some Johnny Knocksville wanna bees on their phones.

I miss the bluebonnets down South. sigh

[Annie Where-but-here]

Shiny.

[Eleanor]

Yankees won, 5-2.

[Annie Where-but-here]

Now, THAT's shiny!

[ScottMGS]

For all you, like, Valley Girls? You know?