The Sacred Flow

I'd love to see our state and local governments establish the position of "motorists' advocate," or something similar. I envision a person of authority in this position. He or she would monitor construction sites and other intentional disruptions to the flow of traffic in order to ensure that motorists are not unnecessarily delayed. The work that highway departments do is vital, to be sure, but it is important for them to remember why they do the work in the first place and who it is they work for. They must make every effort to accommodate them (us), which I don't think is happening.

Here's an example of who they work for: Recently, one of my sons was headed to the other side of the city in order to take a very important and expensive test. But, as he was passing through downtown, he encountered road construction. The street he wanted to use was closed so he turned and, because he is a new driver and not yet familiar with the city, he was soon lost. He never did make it to the testing site. In this instance the construction and subsequent road closure was necessary, but the story serves to demonstrate how important it is for the flow of traffic to be facilitated and how a driver's time can be very valuable.



I remember working parades as a police officer and watching all the traffic back up at each of the blocked streets and thinking about how annoyingly troublesome it must have been for those drivers. I was especially concerned for the drivers of stopped semi-trucks and other business vehicles as I considered the money they were losing by the minute.

I am not saying we don't need road construction or parades (OK, maybe we don't need parades) and I know that the road work done by our government is very important and appreciated. However, I think it is extremely necessary for them to remember how important it is for each of the drivers to get where they're going in a timely manner, like it was for my son en route to the test. When those few minutes of delay are multiplied by the number of people involved, it very well might justify removing the barrels for the weekend, for example, or clearing an accident scene as quickly as possible.

There would probably be more complaints from the public about the issue if it weren't for the perception of insensitivity concerning worker safety. But, no one really thinks that any of us want to increase the danger for the workers. Actually, if we all knew the highway department was making a great effort to respect us and our time, there would probably be less frustration resulting in more consideration for the construction workers. So, maybe it would be more important for the government to pay for a "motorists' advocate" than overtime to the troopers lying in wait in construction zones to charge us double fines under the guise of safety. Note - I say "guise of safety" again not because I have no concern for the construction workers' safety. In fact, my own son works at road construction sites. I say this because safety is not the reason the troopers are there. Construction sites are dangerous indeed, but the real danger is not the speed of the vehicles (within reason, of course) which the troopers monitor, but in vehicles leaving the roadway or construction workers entering the roadway. This is instead a money making plan, thus reducing our respect of the entire situation.

It is unlikely that there will be a motorists' advocate anytime soon so, until then, I ask that the government consider the flow of traffic as the sacred life-blood of a community and that they make decisions under that assumption. We will always have construction delays, but there would be a lot less frustration if we knew you valued our time.

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