Driven to distraction by rules of the road

0 Comments | Insight on the News, July 29, 2002 | by Stephen Goode

For the second year in a row, Miami ranks No. 1 among 10 major U.S. cities when it comes to the rudeness of its drivers. The Florida metropolis got an "F" in motoring manners in a survey released by the Steel Alliance, an industrial association.

Among the complaints: Miami drivers are more likely to tailgate, honk their horns and make inappropriate gestures than are their counterparts in Washington, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles and Seattle, the other cities surveyed.

Meanwhile, driving problems of a completely different order are reported from Hamlin (pop. 1,000), the county seat of Lincoln County, W. Va., whose one stoplight recently was downgraded to a flashing signal.

The county's only traffic light, a landmark to generations of Hamlin and Lincoln County residents, was located at an intersection shared by the county courthouse, a flower shop and a tanning salon. The new flashing signal promises to be permanent if the West Virginia Division of Highways receives no strong objections within two months, according to state officials.

Bobcat Diner owner Sharrell Lovejoy, 80, recalls when the stoplight was constructed in the 1940s. Speaking laconically, as mountain men will, he told the Associated Press: "I think we still need it."

Apparently tractor-trailers and loaded log trucks are among the vehicles that shudder and hesitate at the new flashing signal, their drivers uncertain of who has the right of way.

Inevitably, the new flashing signal has prompted some hillbilly humor. According to Loren Smith, a local physician, "When people say, `What do you do for fun?' we tell `em that sometimes after dinner on Sunday we'll take a carload of people down to the intersection and watch that thing go up and down."