If you are an Alabamian reading this post, you likely share my same frustration with the current promotion by the state to "take our streets back". For those of you who are not aware, this week, our major highways (aka, for those in the Montgomery area, interstates 85 & 65) are being highly patrolled by state troopers. What is the point? Well, they claim that this is a targeted effort to accomplish a couple of things: 1) to help reduce the number of highway fatalities, which we have had several of over the past couple of months, and 2) to catch the druggies who apparently speed down the highway instead of creep along our neighborhood streets ("they" say that drug busts are commonly made by the routine traffic stop). So is this promotion on anyone else's nerves but mine? I don't usually blog about current events, but this is frustrating to me for several reasons:
1. This may help with the number of highway fatalities we have THIS WEEK, but what happens after this week is over? Everyone goes back to speeding.
2. If you want to really catch people speeding, DON'T ADVERTISE IT. Hello - everyone's driving slower because we have known about this for weeks now. (Ok so apparently EVERYONE isn't driving slower, because I have seen people pulled over...which makes me want to roll down my window & yell, "You idiot! Have you been living under a rock for the past month?" I digress.)
3. When drivers see someone pulled over by a trooper, they freak out & slow down to 30 miles UNDER the speed limit. Ok, people. You are allowed to actually drive the speed limit. Seriously - on my way home yesterday, several people were pulled over on the OTHER side of the interstate, so the traffic on my side slowed to a crawl of a whopping 40 mph in a 60 mph zone. Stop freaking out when others get pulled over!
What do y'all think about this "taking our streets back" promotion? Do you think it's going to do any good, besides collecting money for our state from the 6,000 tickets that were apparently issued yesterday? I personally think it's a political promotion to make it look like the state government is trying to do something about the speeding on the roads. Here's a novel idea - maybe crack down on speeders ALL THE TIME instead of just one week??
