You’ll often come across this situation on a standard two-lane highway.
You’re driving along, listening to your favorite Barstool SportsTM podcast.
Speed limit is 55.
Then out of nowhere, a come across a small town.
A town where every house is right along the highway.
Its population may or may not reach triple digits.
The homes are all kinda shitty.
There isalwaysa deaf child living there.
As you approach the town, the speed limit drops to 45.
A couple hundred feet later it drops to 35.
Roughly ten feet after that it abruptly drops to 25.
If you’re a normal well-adjusted person, at most you’re mildly annoyed by this.
As you pass through, you take note of the most run down house on the block.
You attempt to pinpoint where the deaf kid lives.
But not all drivers have time for such nonsense.
Especially drivers who are forced to drive through that town on a daily basis.
Are these homes even livable?
I never see anyone.
I’ve definitely never seen the deaf kid.
What the hell am I slowing down for?"
Eventually they just say “fuck it” and start zipping through Townsville at breakneck speeds.
But little do they know, there are people in those houses.
And she’s taking rigorous notes.
At the end of each day she phones the sheriff’s office to tattle on each and every car.
In particular, the more dangerous, dark colored ones (because they’re harder to see).
They insist that the fake deaf kid sign is no longer working.
Something more needs to be done immediately.
It looks like in Graysville, PA, the solution they settled on was wavy street lines.
It’s a creative solution.
I’ll give them that much.
As a driver, I would slow down out of sheer confusion.
So I imagine this will work for a while.
People aren’t actually going to swerve down the road the way the markings suggest.
And people will always be more comfortable driving over the shoulder than they will be crossing the center.
So cars may be driving 5mph slower, but they’ll also be closer to pedestrians on the sidewalk.
Apparently speed bumps weren’t in the budget.
Neither were more cops.
But still… score one for People Who Live on Busy Roads.
They’ve got a brand new trick up their sleeve.
It’s not a knockout punch by any means.
Not even a damage inflicting jab.
But it counts as punch on the scorecard nonetheless.
Which will almost certainly be insignificant in the end.
But it’s something.
