Why? Because people have become so used to rolling through 4-way stops with no one waiting that they also roll right through the subordinate direction of 2-way stops. Then there is an oops, and someone tries to sue the city not protecting them from their own stupidity.

Personally, I would prefer removing stop signs and creating more intersections at which people actually have to stop to see if it is safe. I’ve read that where this has been tried, accidents decreased. Can anyone find this citation? I couldn’t, on short notice.

That was exactly the idea I had when I started this blog: that we need to deal directly with the topics that seem “dangerous.” It’s much more dangerous to avoid the dangerous intersections. And if you have the courage to enter, you will naturally be inclined to enter with some care because they seem dangerous–and you’ll likely emerge at least OK, and probably better off.

Kind of poetic, don’t you think? The daunting, scary topics that make many feeble minds shy away are the very topics that save us. It is the mundane, the lazy contentment that comes from the safe and predictable that spells our doom.

A few months ago, i visited an old friend that lives near the campus, we drove to the campus so I could see how it had changed over the years. I noticed that Malfunction Junction had been replaced by a traffic circle. I am not a fan of traffic circles, but in this case it was an improvement.