Today was a little odd in the sense there were at least two visuals which made me stop and hesitate for a moment to provide time to verify what I was really seeing. The first of these happened on my way to work. On the highway ramp next to where I work, there is a huge billboard sign with a picture of a cute little blonde girl on it. There is a bold caption at the top that states “When smoker’s are nearby, I smoke too” I actually do not understand the attraction to smoking myself and as long as an individual can read, there is little excuse for not accepting the outcomes that result from that addiction. However, the visual that caught me offguard as I rounded the ramp, was a small red truck at the bottom with two men and a small blonde girl sitting between them. As he was yielding for the oncoming traffic, the driver pulls out a pack of cigarettes and starts beating it on his palm to get his cig out. I find it hard to believe that he didn’t take notice of the billboard as he passed by and if he did, apparently the message didn’t sink in.
The other image occurred at the exact same intersection where I was almost hit a few posts ago. As I came upon the location I looked to my right and noticed there was 2 seconds left on that corresponding walk light. This brought a tad bit of satisfaction since that meant I would not have to wait to cross the street ahead. I then noticed a police car nearing the intersection from the right – glancing at the walk light, took note the time was up, shifted over to the left to look at the traffic lights and it was turning yellow… but the police car was not slowing down (I am a little more cautious on this per the last incident there). Sure enough the police car enters into the intersection and begins the turn left at the same time the light goes red. I stopped in my tracks and stared the the cop as he accelerated past me – no flashing lights, no urgent call… just plain blew the light. What really made it interesting to me is the fact there was an article in the paper two days ago about how the police department has been cracking down on people who run the red lights downtown. This enforcement initiative was requiring two officers that they felt could be re-deployed to more important areas if the city installed cameras ….. say cheese 8^)
I think you should rename this post “A Day that Will Live in Irony”.
But that’s just me.
As for stoplight cameras, don’t get me started. OK, I will. The ones I’ve seen that are being put up around here take still pictures (at least a flash goes off when a car is over the white line). There are some times that the car or truck behind me comes up so fast that I take my foot off the brake and coast a little forward–am I going to get a ticket for that? (Yes.) I was in downtown Chicago this weekend and was approaching an intersection in which the cars in front of me were mostly across the intersection, but slowing down because the two lanes were merging after the intersection for construction. There was a car waiting to turn left, so I slowed down just after I entered the intersection and let him go first, and then to my small-town surprise, I couldn’t get through the rest of the intersection because more cars continued turning left after him knowing I’d have to hit them to prevent them from doing it, and did so through the yellow light. So the light turned red and I could finally go through the last 3/4 of the intersection (I certainly couldn’t stay there). There were red light cameras on every intersection (Chicago made $40M last year from these cameras), so am I going to get a ticket for going through the red light? Stay tuned.
Ron
First off all, this has to be a new record – I don’t even think the post was 24 hrs old yet and I already have a comment – awesome. Stop light cameras are still new to Peoria so to be honest I didn’t even consider the situation you noted above. Something tells me that this will be a ticketable offense because a single still is not going to give context – I am hoping it provides an entire snapshop of the intersection and not just your vehicle otherwise there will be some court dates in the future to protest any of these images I get in the mail. As far as Chicago goes, you can probably attribute about 90% of that $40M to out of towners – we already know we are getting screwed due to the price break you get if you buy their little pass, but no one I know here is going to go that route if only visiting a few times a year – that leaves us in the situation of having change available at all times just in case we decide we need to get off of a toll-road. Since they are unmanned these days, if we do not have spare change laying around, we have no choice to run it and wait for the letter and picture in the mail. We would retaliate and set up speed traps for our governor when he comes to Springfield …. oh wait, we already know that isn’t going to happen.
thanks for the comment!