In an orderly fashion
As part of their overblown mischievousness this year, the Band erected a rather stylish traffic control device in the Intersection of Death last week, creating a much-needed roundabout – one with a Santa hat and trousers – where I had my accident back in October. (To the Bostonians out there, it’s not a rotary: I can’t dial home on it.)
While I can’t claim credit for the ingenious structure, I must say that it’s about time! You don’t see a whole lot of these things in America, simply because traffic lights are a whole lot more efficient for cars. But for bikes, they’re perfect. Most of the time I can just cruise right by that Traffic Circle of Life and not worry about getting jackknifed by another overwhelmed biker. Seriously, it works: now you only have to look both ways before crossing, rather than three ways.
Nevertheless, I have seen quite a few bikers who simply don’t get it. They see the big rightwards arrow, straight out of an episode of Sesame Street… and promptly veer to the left. These might be the same people who got the turn signals wrong in their written driving test. At Stanford.
No offense to dyslexics. I’m pretty bad telling my right from my left at times, but if you’re going through the Intersection of Death, you’ve got to be alert.
TrackBacks
Comments
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I find it funny that we both posted about the roundabout in the intersection of death and both cited the article in the Stanford Daily. However, I also find it disturbing that Stanford students do not understand the concepts of arrows and circles. Perhaps in addition to essays, Stanford should add a shape comprehension exam to their application.
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I find it funny that we both posted about the roundabout in the intersection of death and both cited the article in the Stanford Daily. However, I also find it disturbing that Stanford students do not understand the concepts of arrows and circles. Perhaps in addition to essays, Stanford should add a shape comprehension exam to their application.
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I find it funny that we both posted about the roundabout in the intersection of death and both cited the article in the Stanford Daily. However, I also find it disturbing that Stanford students do not understand the concepts of arrows and circles. Perhaps in addition to essays, Stanford should add a shape comprehension exam to their application.
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Over the summer, when I switched computers (probably forgot to blog about that), I basically had to recreate my blog-reading list from scratch. Somehow, your blog didn’t make it onto my new list, and I didn’t even realize (until I saw your comments) that it was missing. If I’d known you’d already posted, I would’ve just linked to your blog instead of finding a suitable program to make that crayon drawing in. (By the way, I find it funny that you saw fit to triple-post. My website’s just a little slow, so even if it looks like it won’t take, it probably already did – thrice.)
7/21/2007 @ 10:58 PM
Minh’s Notes
The joy of clicking
I know of no other program where drawing a dark line with a marker involves going over the same spot three times, and drawing a purple line over a green one makes for an icky shade of gray – but that’s what happens in real life.
8/19/2007 @ 12:06 PM
Minh’s Notes
Counterclockwise
Earlier this summer, the roundabout in the former Intersection of Death was removed. Originally placed there by the Band to add some color to the otherwise-loathsome junction, the wooden platform had saved countless bikers from head-on collisions, and ...