Pot Holes and Pennsylvanians

We create smooth asphalt or concrete roadways, then wonder why people drive too fast and don't obey the speed limits.

Currently, our streets are being torn up because sewers are being installed.  The sewer / pipe-laying crews throw loose asphalt back on top of the torn up streets, but don't put a steam roller on it to smooth it out.

The consequence is that it is almost impossible to drive the 0.9 mile stretch from the market to our street at anything more than 25 miles an hour ... unless you want to tear up your car undercarriage.

The result of this trash on the road: even the known speeders, and the construction trucks, the teenagers and vacation visitors from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Canada and New York have been observed driving on the torn up streets at a reasonable speed, i.e., at 25 mph, despite the posted Speed Limit being 35 mph.  The Speed Limit signs have never been effective, but the cruddy roadway has slowed everyone down. 

Is there a message here?  Maybe we should petition the City Council to leave the ruts and ruined asphalt just the way they are and see what happens to the number of speeding tickets in the next few months.   In the current jargon: "I'm just sayin' ..."

PS: Nothing against the Pennsylvanians, or other tourists who visit Our Fair City.  They just happened to come from a state that allowed alliteration in the title.  I could have used POntario, PDelaware or PNew Jersey, but it just wouldn't have been the same.

The Work You Speed to Hate

An irony of the depressed economy: Roughly 9% of people in the US don’t have a job … and they comprise a group whose complaints about being out of work rank at the top of most survey concerns about our country.

However, one of the common complaints from people who have work is how they hate their jobs. 

So I don't understand why the ones with jobs speed on the freeway, pass on curves, cut in and out of traffic and, in general, make a NASCAR-like race out of driving to work every morning.

Reminds me of the poem (I would post an attribution, but can’t find one):

            As a rule

Man’s a fool:

When it’s hot

He wants it cool.

When it’s cool

He wants it hot.

What it is

He wants it not.