Making the left hand turn isn’t right; students should obey the law.
Kait Thomas
– Staff Designer –
College parking lots are crazy. Why? Because the biggest driver risk group according to insurance companies is young adults.
There’s the morning parking rush and then there are the frequent rushes to leave campus.
Students will do whatever they can to get away; some may even break the law.
The east parking lot has three exits. The seemingly most popular one leads to Big Bend Boulevard.
At this exit, drivers encounter a median separating the entrance from the exit and a “No Left Turn” sign. Most people obey the sign and turn right.
However, some turn left illegally and can possibly cause accidents.
Insisting on making a left turn in a “No Left Turn” zone is not only a driving faux pas and incredibly inconsiderate to the other drivers, but it’s also dangerous.
Making an illegal left turn causes several things to happen. While waiting to make this turn, the driver must ensure that both sides of the road are clear (That’s four lanes plus a turn lane).
This holds up everyone behind them. Inciting road rage is the least of their problems.
They have to be doubly aware of the traffic flow and extra careful not to cause screeching tires with a metal-to-metal love tap or two.
Now, frequenters of turning right onto Big Bend have probably noticed how easy it is.
The traffic on that side is often sparse – or downright nonexistent – due to the train tracks at the Geyer Road light. Anyone with a decent grasp of common sense and common courtesy would gladly make right turns all day, but no.
There’s that handful of people who lack this level of respect and end up complicating things for everyone else.
Spotting an illegal left-turner-to-be is fairly easy. They don’t go when the traffic is clear. More importantly, they stop the steady flow of cars that actually turn right.
When they pull up to the road, they usually angle their car to the left ever so slightly. And finally, they use their left turn signal, or worse, they don’t.
Anyone who is fed up with being stuck behind these people probably never does anything about it.
They could probably inform the campus police for stronger enforcement of the sign.
Or maybe step it up by installing a camera on the sign that will snap a photo of left turners and send them a ticket in the mail for each offense. But does it really have to go that far?
A similar measure was taken in March on stop signs in money-desperate cities in Los Angeles, Topanga and Pacific Palisades in California. According to http://photoenforced.com, “failure to come to a complete stop or roll through [a camera-equipped stop sign] will get you a ticket of $125 in the mail.” That’ll pay for a textbook or two.
No one likes getting fined, especially college students. So here’s a simple and free solution.
Head toward the exit west of lots T and S and make a right onto Geyer Road. Pull up to the stoplight and make a legal turn. Face it, that illegal left turn leads to the same stop light anyway, so no one gets anywhere any faster.
