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AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2007 > April > 26
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Entrance ramps: Not for the meek and weak
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta is a city where each day people commute from as far away as the Artic Tundra. Many spend three or more hours a day in their cars listening to music, talk radio, or blue-toothing, or like me, babbling incoherently to their selves.
This afternoon I needed to take GA 400, northbound, from Abernathy Road. To go north on 400 from my office, I take Barfield Road to Abernathy Road where I make a right turn heading east. I then pass 750 traffic lights covering a quarter-mile stretch and then pass under the 400 bridge, wave to the panhandlers, and then ease over into one of two left-turn lanes at the light. The ramp has a large feeding area that merges into one lane.
Cars traveling west on Abernathy must make a right turn onto two lanes entering 400 north. It is possible for four lanes to be merging onto the ramp going north, about the same time. Eastbound traffic moves only on a left-turn signal meaning the westbound traffic has to, or is supposed to, yield.
If you’re not from Atlanta, you may not know that common traffic terms mean different things here. For instance, the word “yield” means “sissy” and the word “merge” means “race”.
Here’s another heads up. If you are new to Atlanta traffic, don’t let the pretty soccer moms in the S.U.V.s fool you. They’re animals.
Once you hit the ramp and head into the left turn where two lanes soon become one, you either win the merge or lose it. The race is short and soon over. Some frustrated sore losers will attempt to cheat by using the emergency lane. They can only get a few hundred feet before they’re blocked by a broken-down minivan with fifteen ladders on top and five guys looking under the hood. Even on the entrance ramps, nobody likes a cheater.
As entertaining as it is, we need to remember that unlike NASCAR, we have to pay for the damages and we’re not wearing the HANS device meaning that people can get hurt real easy. Just slow down and incoherently babble, like me. Be careful.
