Nowhere To Go

I feel like every town has a stretch of road that is always under construction. You know what I'm talking about: a construction crew has been working on the same three hundred feet for the last eight months, leaves it looking essentially the same, then takes time off to tease you with two weeks of traffic-free driving, only to show back up unannounced to begin fixing the next three hundred feet at the same break-neck pace, all of which puts the project on schedule to be complete around the time my nieces are learning to drive. This has been going on so long that you almost forget what it was like to pass through that area without seeing traffic cones and a cop on detail. I'm sure you all have your own stretch of road in mind. However, that issue is not the point of this post.

I have no problems driving through normal construction zones. I can slow down and merge from two lanes down to one with the best of them. The only thing I really hate driving through are the stretches of road where they have put up dueling jersey barriers on each side of a suddenly one-lane road. In the blink of an eye you go from driving on a normal road to being in the middle of the world's widest luge course. I think what I don't like is the fact that should something happen with the car in front of me I can't turn away from it, unless I feel like putting some serious dents into the side of my truck. This is why I could be driving a school bus and I still wouldn't use the HOV lane. It makes me very uncomfortable to know that I have no where to go. It puts a tremendous amount of trust in my fellow drivers and I hate to be the one to have to tell you this, but most of you suck at driving.

But, at the very least I understand they are a necessary evil. The other night I was driving through one of these mini-luge courses when I saw a sign just about at the halfway point, sitting on top of the wall. It simply read, "No U-Turn". Oh, you think so, doctor? A motorcycle couldn't u-turn in the middle of one of these stretches of road. (I guess you could do it on a unicycle, but I wouldn't recommend it.) Once you have entered there is no going back - you are locked in and no amount of kicking and screaming is going to get you out early. It's the roadway equivalent of a gym membership.

Now, normally I am against unnecessary signage, but in this case I found it very amusing. I have to guess that the road crew had a good laugh putting that up. Do you think they waited and put that up so far into the barriers to point out the ridiculousness of the sign? It's nice to imagine that they have a sense of humor. Of course, the scary thought is that it may not be unnecessary. There are enough dings and paint scrapes on the sides of some of these barriers to make you think someone tried to bash their way through it. And you wonder why I don't want to be locked in behind some of the cars on the road.