Thursday, April 17, 2008

One Way Streets Suck

If you have ever driven in downtown Tulsa, you know that it is a maze of one way streets. Now I lived in Tulsa most of my life and know my way around downtown. I know which streets go which way. More importantly, I know to always look and determine which way traffic flows, before I turn onto any street. Even if I am certain which way the street runs, I look. Since I'm used to them, the one way streets never bothered me.

Today, I was taking the family to the Violin Shop (which I cannot recommend highly enough) to have some minor work done on the Elder Daughter's violin. The Violin Shop is on the north side of the tracks, and I chose to cross the tracks on Detroit Ave, here. Now, if you aren't familiar with the area, or can't tell from the satellite shot, Detroit crosses the railroad tracks via an overpass the rises and drops over twenty feet in about a city block. It's a big hill, and you can't see the other side until you are right at the top. It is also one-way, north. (I'm sure you can see where this is going.) When I was almost to the top of the hill, this crappy, mid 80's import comes bopping over the hill, right towards me, and in my lane. Did I mention the bus right behind me in the lane to the right? Somehow, I and he managed to not trigger my airbags. I went on my way saying things like, "gee that was interesting". I didn't even need to change my shorts.

Now, I think the one way streets are a bad idea. At least over blind overpasses.

3 comments:

Mike Looney said...

When Darling Wife and I made our airbags trigger we were in the extreme right hand lane of a wide 4 lane chunk of Utica (right in front of Swan Lake). Most of the damage to the car was on the passenger side front. We hit the side of other car. Idiot drivers suck. It has little to do with the one way/two way aspect of the street.

Dafydd said...

Idiot drivers suck, but if I remember, in your case, ice on the road also sucks.

Mike Looney said...

For very small values of "ice on the road". No one north of, oh, Oklahoma, would have thought it was icy. I didn't slide around at all walking back to the ER. Yeah, it was misting. It might have been a little below freezing, but no one, including the police who wrote up the report, said he road was icy enough to cause some one going south on Utica to end up sidewise in the far right hand lane of north bound Utica unless they were trying to get there. I will also note that what ever ice there was didn't stop him from driving off.