The writing on the Wall

 Harrisonburg driving hazardous to Health

 by Brian Goodman, senior writer

Harrisonburg, for all its poultry-processed glory, is one of the most idiotic displays of “urban planning” this side of the Beltway. I often wonder as I drive — and by drive, I mean sit in traffic — around Harrisonburg if measure was actually taken to dumb up the roads.

Take, for example, the genius of Court Square. I don’t know who looked at a map, saw the intersection of two major shipping routes, and decided to build a courthouse in the geographic center of the intersection. My first thought would have been to build a stoplight.

Instead we have managed to turn one of the basic traffic situations, the four-way intersection, into an intangible mass of one-way streets and sharp turns. Rumor has it that the blatant display of stupidity that is Seven Corners was inspired by this very absurdity.

This is counter-intuitive, for drawing upon the sights and experiences I have had in my two long years in this state, Virginians do not need the help of the road to drive like imbeciles — that comes naturally. Instead of finding ways to complicate the roads, I would have thought they would have made them all straight lines and covered them in bubble wrap.

Now, before you dismount the guns off the back of your truck, I am not claiming we New Yorkers are renowned for our impeccable driving habits. In fact, I will proudly admit to the contrary.

A recent survey conducted by the GMAC Insurance Company, which graded driving habits in the contingent 48 states, ranked New York as fourth — but from the bottom, tied at 44th place with Maryland and Washington, D.C. On the plus side, the study also proved what many of us have been saying all along: New Jersey, clocking in 47th place, is even worse.

The difference between New Yorkers and Virginians, who pulled an impressive 15th place finish, is that for all our diversity, we New Yorkers drive homogenously; in effect, like New Yorkers. While that means we do drive like jerks, we all drive like jerks and are therefore able to anticipate and compensate for each other, to provide a fairly safe, if high stress, driving environment.

But one cannot compensate for stupidity. The only accurate prediction that can be made in Virginia is that the other drivers probably don’t know what they’re doing, a prediction consistently reaffirmed every time I drive through Wal-Mart and see people come to complete stops at every pedestrian crosswalk.

This is most frequently demonstrated in the phenomenon I have dubbed “The Virginia Turn.” To the best of my knowledge, every state has the driving rule that one must turn from the left-most lane to the left-most lane, or the right-most lane to the right-most.

Unless, of course, the car has Virginia plates. In that unfortunate case, they will instead make the widest turn they possibly can, sweeping through intersections like Roseanne would sweep through D-hall. I have actually seen two oncoming cars, one making a right and one making a left onto the same road, trade places in the middle of the intersection, resulting in the left-turning car in the right lane and the right-turning car in the left lane. As any insurance man will tell you, this is exactly how easily preventable accidents happen — stupidity.

This tragic combination of bad roads and bad drivers leaves even me, a jaded post-modern New Yorker, quaking with fear at the prospect of taking the beautiful four-wheeled sanctuary that is my car onto these roads between eight in the morning to midnight.

Save me the nasty letters — as enjoyable as they are — and instead write to your congressperson, requesting that large bumpers, patterned after those used in children’s parties at bowling alleys, be installed along every road within the Harrisonburg city limits. Unless we begin to improve our driving, that is the most progressive step we can take.

Brian Goodman is a junior communications major.