Speed Trap Atlanta

The AJC 6/6/15 features the article: Speeding Ticket It May Cost More Soon, Atlanta’s budget plan suggests big jumps in penalties for offences suggests several negative unintended consequences. 

The City of Atlanta will continue to scramble to build “venues” everybody is invited to visit, but the hassle to find it, get there, find a place to park and pay high fees for the “venue” lessens the excitement. Now we will know we’re also entering a speed trap.

All of our Interstate Highways go straight through Atlanta.  Most of the speeding can be found on these highways.  I assume that predatory traffic cops will set traps on the highways.  GDOT will need to build a more shoulders to stack up on.

Predatory speed traps in the South has been a theme in movies and television for decades. It congers up stereotypes of corrupt Southern counties where locals love to speed and cops like to harass visitors.  Boss Hog and Cutcher from the Dukes of Hazzard are well known along with a series of Bert Reynolds movies.  Speed seems to be associated with the South.

Higher traffic tickets will be one more reason to not go to Atlanta.  It gives folks in the Atlanta suburbs another reason not to venture into the city to visit all the “venues”.  This could reduce traffic on the highways, but could also reduce the number of consumers.

Adding predatory fines for all traffic violations in a city that is already difficult to drive in is the last straw. I suspect this is yet another tactic to increase MARTA utilization, but those trains and buses still don’t go where we need to go. This is going to hit those who cannot afford $200 fines the hardest.

See earlier post:

Metro Atlanta Mayhem I

Road Problems: Visitors Beware

Atlanta Metro has a number of problems with its streets and roads.   If you are new to town, just passing through or visiting here, you need to read this:

1. Street numbers go up and then down; try to find the 3400 block of Buford Highway; you will find it twice, once inside the perimeter and again way out in Gwinnett County. 
2. Roads change names several times, everywhere.
3. Roads turn left and right without telling you. 
4. Roads stop and then continue several blocks down from where they dead-ended.
5. All verbal directions require that you drive to the Big Chicken before you can find your way to your destination.
6. All office building have three to five names for their complex thanks to the marketing people.  Try finding the Palladium by Greenway at the Ponds from the Big Chicken.
7. Few addresses are visible from the street.   Many addresses are not on their buildings at all.  You really can’t slow down enough to catch an address; the minimum traffic speed on our roads is 45 mph.
8. Hotels change hands faster than a hot Rolex watch.   Restaurants go up and down even faster.
9. Left turns are only allowed on 3 downtown streets.  Everyone else continues to turn right.
10. The I-75 North exit out of downtown no longer means I-75 / I-85 North.  You may want to go to Gwinnett, but you will end up in Chattanooga.
11. There are never any cars on the big 17^th Street overpass.  I go there just to clear my head.
12. The exhaust from line of cars idling at the GA-400 toll booth caused the EPA to ban road building in Atlanta for decades due to poor air quality.  The people who don’t want you to drive were ecstatic.
13. Coming up I-75 / I-85 North through downtown Atlanta, you need to get into one of the 3 left lanes to go right to I-85 or into one of the 3 right lanes to go left to I-75.   Nashville has you switch lanes like that 5 times.  Nashville needs a 17^th Street overpass where you can go to have your nervous breakdown.
14. Some roads can suddenly turn into highway entrance ramps.  If you go south on Buford Highway, the entire road becomes an entrance ramp to I-85 South.  Nobody knows what they did with the rest of Buford Highway or how to get there.
15. The Interstate highways we use, I-85, I-75 and I-285 require some warnings: 

The minimum traffic speed on our highways is always the posted speed plus 20.  If you try to drive the posted speed on I-85 South from the Williams Street Exit to the Hwy 20 Exit, you will cause a huge pile-up, multi-car accident.  Just pick a center lane and hope for the best.

It is common to lose your lane as the highway narrows.  That’s because your right lane has become an exit ramp and you must cut over to the next lane on your left.  This can be difficult and harrowing, but it is a good idea.  If you don’t and you take the exit ramp, you will probably not be able to get back on to the highway, ever.  

The worst entry ramp was from the airport to I-85 N.  You had to accelerate from zero to 80 miles per hour in 4 seconds to cut left through 5 lanes of on-coming traffic to get to your ramp way over on the left.  Otherwise, you couldn’t get on to I-85, ever.

Our Exit Ahead signs are designed to stun and confuse you.  They are very large and cover the entire highway.  They announce the coming exits for the tangled plethora of roads and highways you may want to take. There are no through-lane signs, so it’s hard to know if you’re still on the highway you started on.  Just pick a middle lane and hope it’s not an exit lane.

We have HOV Lanes for car pools and buses. No one knows what HOV means.   If you have two or more people in your car or bus, you can use them.  Our HOV Lanes are on the left and so are their exit ramps; you may be required to exit and then you won’t be able to get back on the highway, ever, and you may not know where you are.  Our HOV Exits are designed to hide what is ahead, so you really don’t know where they will take you.  It’s the GDOT’s way of making your driving experience exciting.

You may notice the placement of traffic lights on entrance ramps to our highways.  These are really fun.  Until they added these unnecessary traffic lights we were able to form a single lane before reaching the highway entrance lane.  We all took turns shuffling our cars.  We did that all by ourselves and it worked fine.  But the GDOT didn’t think we could handle this shuffling on our own, so they put stop signs on the entrance ramps.  They go Red, Green, Red Green alternately and very fast.   You’ve got to see this.  It creates a huge line of cars that back up on the road that leads up to the entrance ramp.   They are not always on; nobody knows why.  The best time to catch them is rush hour.  You can pack a picnic lunch, and sit on the grass across from the entrance ramp for the best view.  You won’t believe it.

You may notice that some parts of some highways have signs with people’s names on them.  These are not the names of people who died there; these are the names of well connected, retired Georgia politicians who are not currently incarcerated.

Posted 6/16/11  NTL Conservative Blog

 

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader