Serious Street Stupidity

Last night I saw the most dangerous thing I have ever seen on B'game's streets in 30 years.  During the daytime, the set of traffic lights on El Camino at Bayswater went out.  That is the five-way intersection at St. Catherine's church.  It is normally pretty safe even though it's more complex than your average intersection.  The quick fix involved putting saw horses with Stop signs attached in the middle of each of the five converging streets.  There were no flashing lights attached.  During the daytime, I saw several cars handle the surprising situation by slowing down to the rolling "California stop" and proceeding with caution.  There were several more that just blew through the intersection like there was nothing there--one almost hitting a pedestrian who peered southbound down ECR in amazement.

After dark I happened to be there again on foot--still no lights, no enforcement, just the signage shown below.  It got even more unnerving as car after car blew straight through on ECR in the dark.  On one hand, perhaps the drivers with cars behind them were acting rationally since they could have been rear-ended.  But really?  Whoever made the call to just put up unlit signs, no warning back a block, no flares, and no parked empty police cruiser on the sidewalk with its lights flashing ought to be fired tomorrow.

Luckily I did not hear any sirens through the night and the lights were working this morning.  But it's pure dumb luck.

  

Comments

[Matt M]

So many people are oblivious and dangerous when they're driving. It's sad.

[Handle Bard]

A 30 minute flare costs 2 bucks. It's a no-brainer.

[fred]

Look what's back:

https://www.cityofsanmateo.org/2792/US-101Peninsula-Avenue-Interchange-Proje

The top "Serious Street Stupidity" in the county is the Poplar exit.

[Joe]

I second your nomination, Fred.

[MV]

This is the thing that people miss when talking about El Camino, with the poor pavement, the poor drainage and the dangerous sidewalks. The traffic signal infrastructure is also falling apart.

https://goo.gl/maps/YymShXhTsWQ1m1i67

The wiring is almost completely shot and is at the end of its useful life, so you will be seeing more of these outages as the wires and underground conduits fail. The poles are 40-50 years old, the vehicle and signal head frameworks are rusted and just barely hanging on to the decrepit poles. Already made this comment to the ECR project website. I hope it's not overlooked.