Are we there yet? Doctorates and common sense

For a good couple of weeks now, the main city’s traffic brain box has decided to implement an anti-NASCAR policy along the Ban-Tal route.  For those who aren’t familiar with this sport, NASCAR or the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, is a motorsport involving, as the name suggests, stock cars going around an oval or d-shaped track in an anti-clockwise direction.  As you trace your finger in the air trying to figure out what anti-clockwise is, it’s basically making left turn, after left turn, after left turn.  And this goes on and on until the drivers complete over four to five hundred laps.  Get the picture?  Good.  Let’s move along.

Implementing the ‘No Left Turn’ policy along what the “experts” call the Ban-Tal corridor has left a lot of motorists confused and frustrated.  Confused because they suddenly found out that they couldn’t turn left at the vicinity of their intended destination and had to travel to another time zone to make a u-turn.  Not only that, the moment they get to their desired u-turn slot, they will be waved off by a traffic enforcer telling them that the u-turn slot is another time zone away.  All this got a lot of motorists frustrated.  Aside from the obvious, this anti-NASCAR scheme of theirs actually made traffic worse.  Even with the limited time that they implement this scheme (From 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.), a lot of motorists still feel the effects an hour or two after.  Did it help decongest traffic?  No.  Did it make matters worse?  Yes.

It made the traffic so bad that at the most critical of moments, this scheme played its part in the tragic loss of a traffic enforcer’s life.  At around half past the hour of five in the afternoon, a K-Pop vehicle driven by a K-Pop operator struck a traffic enforcer manning the Ban-Tal corridor.  Despite the dispatch center of the volunteer emergency services being very close by, their emergency vehicle was having the toughest of times getting past the snarled traffic brought about by this “expertly planned” anti-NASCAR scheme.  As I am not a medical practitioner, I can only but assume that the delay in providing medical assistance to the fallen enforcer played its role in the tragedy.  The volunteer emergency response service did their best to save the enforcer’s life.  Sadly, special treatment and recklessness took away the life of a person who had served the public for over twelve years.

Special treatment?  What special treatment?  You see, the mall which the reckless K-Pop driver came from had been given the special privilege to allow its patrons to turn left during anti-NASCAR time.  Had this privilege not been given, we could assume that the traffic enforcer would possibly be alive and well today.  Sadly, some public office seat-polishers prefer to give special treatment to friends who can provide them much needed votes come election time.

And speaking of special treatment, there is a rumor that a ranking law official was trying his darndest to broker a settlement deal with the reckless K-Pop driver and the family of the fallen enforcer.  Fortunately, that didn’t bear fruit.

This “expertly studied” anti-NASCAR scheme of theirs has proven to be nothing but a failure.  It has even claimed the life of a public servant.  Common sense, which does not require a PhD, dictates that this ludicrous anti-NASCAR scheme should be stopped and thought over some more.   [email protected]