View from the cop: Crime & punishment
View from the Cop is moving to a new site on Wordpress. Blogger Steve Rose of the Sandy Springs Police Department gives his take on crime, offers safety tips and give his weekly picks from the police blotter. Follow Steve Rose to the new blog site.
AJC.com > Metro > View from the cop > Archives > 2007 > April > 26 > Entry
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.
Comments
Commenting is now closed for this entry.
By L L
April 27, 2007 6:21 AM | Link to this
Also just remember that traffic signs and signals are merely suggestions in the Metro area. It’s everyone for themselves on the roadways.
By laurie g
April 27, 2007 10:00 AM | Link to this
Steve, you forgot to mention that absolutely NONE of those 750 lights are even remotely timed, so odds are, you’ll be stopping at all of them.
Here’s a question - do you think that the light timing (or lack thereof) issues cause people to be worse drivers in the ATL?
I moved from the ghetto apartments in Sandy Springs to E. Cobb last year, and although we can make jokes about E. Cobb just because it’s fun to do so, I have to hand it to them, they do have the lights timed properly on Johnson Ferry. If I do 45-50, I cruise right on through on green, providing it’s not rush hour, of course, because then all bets are off.
By Bob in Sandy Springs
April 27, 2007 11:07 AM | Link to this
Speaking of panhandlers, can we start a new game called arrest the panhandlers? Especially at highly traveled intersections. Nothing gripes me more than for the idiot in front of me to stop, give $$ then race so they can make the light while I and others behind me inevitably get stuck for another cycle…
By atl20g
April 27, 2007 1:53 PM | Link to this
Bob, isn’t panhandling free enterprise? It helps to keep the gas prices high because when they gun the engine is uses more and when you sit longer wasting gas the demand goes up even more. The American way…
By Jennie
May 1, 2007 12:56 PM | Link to this
I work in the high rise at the intersection of Abernathy and Peachtree Dunwoody. This area is plagued by bad design, poor sight distance, and obnoxious drivers. I think there should be a regulation bumper height on all vehicles. It would keep smaller cars from being run over by the monster vehicles we Americans so foolishly love and, when someone did something particularly stupid, you could just ram into them like bumper cars without serious injury. Atlanta would become one big bumper car ride!! I wouldn’t miss my light because you can’t decide which lane you want to be in though. I would just push you out of the way.
I used to be such a peaceful woman…..
By Jennifer
May 1, 2007 3:05 PM | Link to this
Jennie, I, too, was a peaceful woman…before moving to Atlanta. I think people driving their houses on wheels is a big part of the problems we face daily on the roadways. They not only are equipped with televisions, but they’re so damn big that the people driving them can’t see, which I find somewhat humorous, since quite a few SUV drivers get the larger vehicles so they can see better. Instead, they pull in front of smaller vehicles because they can’t see them. Then, when you honk, they act like you are the one who is wrong and flip you off. It used to tick me off but now I just laugh.
Let me share an incredibly funny story: My husband was headed on the access road from 85. A guy in a minivan who knew the road was ending, was trying to come up using the emergency lane past the vehicles that were already there. He tried to squeeze my husband out, and when he realized that wasn’t going to work he was searching frantically in his car. He came up with a cup full of some sort of drink. He attempted to throw it at our car but he did not take into consideration the movement of his vehicle. As soon as he let it go, it blew back on his own windshield. I thought my husband was going to die laughing. I would like to thank Mr. Man for an incredible laugh. And who is he going to tell the story to? No one, because he is an idiot.
By mustang100
May 1, 2007 5:04 PM | Link to this
As far as the panhandlers go, Kinko’s copiers reproduce a pretty good facsimile of Ben Franklin’s image on the right paper. Give two of these to ANY panhandler w/a couple of real $1 dollar bills as if by ‘mistake’ and watch how quick, and how, they leave, usually in a 2000 or newer suv. I just wish I had the stones to follow them to the nearest foreigner owned/operated gas station and watch the fun.