Top Down Mentality On Acid

Zig zag lines painted on streets to slow traffic

"LOUDOUN -- Behind the wheel, you want the least amount of distraction possible. So why is a local transportation agency painting crooked lines on the road on purpose?
The Virginia Department of Transportation says it's part of a safety campaign to get drivers to slow down in a high pedestrian and bicycle area. The 500 feet of zig-zagging lines are painted on the ground on Belmont Ridge Road, where it intersects with the Washington and Old Dominion trail in Loudoun County.
"It is a low cost strategy to get motorists to slow down as they approach the bike trail and pedestrian path," says VDOT's Mike Salmon. "While at first motorists may be a little disoriented, the main point is to get them to pay attention and slow down through that area."

Really, really stupid idea, that one. The story even starts out with the obvious - don't see the little kid in front of you, motorist - pay attention to our idiotic lines in the road.

This is the sort of crap that we get from dumbass bureaucrats who think up junk to burden our lives because a. they believe they know better and b. they think they have to do something to justify their existence.

Well, just the opposite is true.

Roads Gone Wild

"Monderman and I are tooling around the rural two-lane roads of northern Holland, where he works as a road designer. He wants to show me a favorite intersection he designed. It's a busy junction that doesn't contain a single traffic signal, road sign, or directional marker, an approach that turns eight decades of traditional traffic thinking on its head."

The thinking is that ambiguity breeds caution, completely at odds with fascist tendencies in this country to dictate behavior at all times. Intersections used to be dangerous because roadsigns and markers gave drivers a flawed sense of ease and the feeling that they didn't have to look out for pedestrians and other drivers. Plus all the directions were distractions. Every time it was instituted accidents and deaths were down.