License To Kill!

When is the last time you engaged yourself in reading the Alaska Road Rules handbook? Test time! OK, if you come across a school bus coming to a stop in the oncoming lane, and red lights are flashing, when is it a requirement to stop, or to progress forward to pass? If you don’t know, then why are you driving and talking on your cell phone? Lookout! OK, so I drive the new Elmore extension, not because I like it, but it is the worse case design for a road congestion compromise, so I drive it in efforts to hope that one day the designer is made to drive it every day, just to see what kind of crap design this pathetic road has become. Yes, discipline is required, as do we really pay people to perform like this? To make the responsible party drive this road every day during rush hour, hey it would be like that school detention thing of past, where you have to stay after-class and commence to write your memoirs a hundred times, on that chalkboard. I understand George Bush is doing that right now, for failing this country. The board has line after line of “This page intentionally left blank”. Anyway, I get pulled over by a cop, at the intersection of Elmore & Tudor where the cops exit to go on duty. OK, so I crossed the double line in efforts to get into the turn lane. See, this is a design problem, as the two exit lanes have very little entry ramp ownership, so I was just crossing the double line to make stalled traffic move. See, if I waited in the main lane until I could legally turn into the turn lane, it meant some 24 red light to green light exchanges, and in Anchorage that equates to 4-hours delayed, as the red light guys don’t have an iota of an idea what traffic coordination is all about. So the other day, stuck in the same lane and waiting until the double lane turns into a cut-throat as allowed in that Alaska Road Rules bible, I watch as a cop further back in line cuts lanes and crosses the double line lane? Of course, everybody else behind follows suit! And now law-abiding me-me is stuck in a lane that takes me in a wrong direction. Now so what that it was snowing out and the lane paint was covered with pounded down under winter fallout, as snowplows have been auctioned off, courtesy of Dan Sullivan trying to raise money to keep Jerry Prevo happy. Who else is behind that attack on Begich? Regardless, does that make it right that a cop can cross lanes? No, as the cop knows all too well that it is a double lane, as he comes this way everyday and usually abides. It is like that saying, “If a tree falls…” Or is it, “When a bear passes wind…” So the big question of the day is this. Did ElCopman break the law? I was contemplating doing a citizens arrest, but I am sure there exists some obscure rule that allows legislators to get away with breaking the laws, which has a trickle down theory. So maybe that is why this state buys the cheapest paint available and disappearing road lane demarcations make it a free-for-all when trying to maintain some semblance of decency upon the roads here in the bowl. But we may be loosing money by this proposition. But that doesn’t count as most likely cheap paint equates to continuance of jobs. It is how Alaska, in a nutshell keeps trucking along. Create jobs that waste money as long as the job is there year after year after year. Oil bucks have done some good, but this state has failed at attracting a bonafide sustainable jobs market. So cheap paint rules. Why not do things right for a change? Lets get off of this welfare crap routine. And when we finally start doing things right, like road lane painting that lasts at least a few years like is the normalcy elsewhere, then we can focus on doing other things right and maybe one day realize that we could have done it right all along. Imagine, roads that work! Did you ever notice that once a road construction project is supposed to be finished, it is immediately re-work central? Again, let’s not do it right the first time as that could affect the wallets! So when we finally start getting the basics right, like road construction bent on doing it right, then maybe we can progress to doing other things correct, like voting in a non-pathetic legislature that realizes oil bucks are drying up. And a gas line is but a joke wherein Juneau continues to spend it all away, for the real pipe dream. But like is the situation along with excuses worn out, we have not the time to do things right, as there is a Wild West show down at the Dimond Center, live rounds and all. Wow, at least the tourists will be excited!