A Smarter Highway

During my blogging hiatus there has been a bunch of progress on our commute route.  Some of it very positive.  The HOV lane expansion through Fife is promising and the reworking of the Nalley Valley Viaduct is sorely needed.

Then of course there’s the Smarter Highway System.  We’ve watched this come to life over the last year or so.  The system is made up of multiple sets of LED signs positioned above each lane.  The intention (hmm, good intentions, there’s a phrase) is to be able to dynamically change the speed of individual lanes as well as close them to route traffic around accidents etc.  In theory that sounds terrific, however, in practice it makes no sense at all.

First of all, no one in the commuting frenzy gives a feather weight about the speed limit.  You have two categories in play.  The first are people who drive Warp 9 fully expecting that with the combination of their superior driving skills and high velocity the molecules of their car will some how move out of phase long enough to pass through solid objects should a collision become imminent.  The second are folks who have somehow decided that 52 is the magic number and attempt to drive exactly 52 MPH regardless of the lane they are in or the current traffic volume. 

The next behavior that knocks the Smart Highway idea off the common sense list is the utter lack of enforcement.  The State can’t afford to hire enough Troopers (much less properly compensate the one’s we have) to handle the existing volume of traffic related problems.  How about the number of drunk and reckless drivers we all see and say “where’s a policeman when you need them”.  Remember the Hands Free cell phone use law that just went into effect?  Not much press about those tickets getting written is there?  Guess what, not enough police to enforce the law.  Seems like we could have spent that $23 million dollars, yes $23 million dollars, on hiring more Troopers to enforce the laws we already have.

Last but not least on my list of why this system is pure silliness, the posted limits change like a Vegas slot machine.  Washington drivers can’t pay attention to the other cars on the road, how do we expect them to adjust to dynamic speed limit changes? 

Don’t drive angry, drive weird!