Delaware’s Roadways Are Deadlier Than Most
Delawareans drive like shit. We apparently cross streets like shit as well. The News Journal reported:
Beefed up highway education and enforcement efforts in Delaware contributed to a drop in fatal crashes in 2016, state Office of Highway Safety Director Jana Simpler said. Yet national data continue to show First State roadways remain deadlier than much of the nation, particularly for pedestrians.
Tags: Road Deaths
Alternate theory: Delaware designs roads and develops land in ways that makes it hard for pedestrians and drivers to peacefully co-exist.
Example: if you build an apartment complex and a shopping center on either side of a busy highway and you install crossings that make pedestrians walk an extra mile roundtrip to legally and safely cross, you are begging for the two of them to come in conflict.
“Beefed up enforcement” has been going on since I moved to the state in 1974, I view this as yet another excuse for Ticket Fest 5,000, as if it changes anything. My life as a musician has taken me to a dozen different states over the years, statistics or not the fact is that Delawareans are no better or worse than the rest. As noted by liberalgeek there is no such thing as traffic planning in the state, unless it’s to fix what should have been done 30 years ago when it would have been easy to do.
50 states ranked by intelligence scores
29.Delaware
http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2016/06/50_states_ranked_by_intelligen.html
I propose increasing our education spending so we can raise our average IQ.
Tickets in DE are predatory. They hide behind the bushes where the speed drops suddenly around a blind curve then hit ya. Parasites. Then you ask for a trial for a bogus ticket an hour from home and when you get there, it’s not a trial, it’s a hearing to plead innocent where you have to come back and drive another hour to go to trial. The cop coerces you outside telling you that you will lose so you pay the damn ticket. So sick of predatory capitalism.
@MP: That’s a useless measure. They basically just made it up.
I propose deporting Modern Progressive to raise our average IQ.
All this in-fighting is making me sick.
And you wonder why we are losing?
@MP: You are doing nothing to dispel my suspicion that you’re a right-wing troll of the James O’Keefe sort, trying a false-flag operation. You are much too stupid to be an actual liberal.
For example, suggesting that we spend money on education to “raise our average IQ” shows a complete lack of understanding of what an IQ supposedly measures, or how. This would be completely in keeping with the ignorance of the typical conservative, but few liberals would say something so dumb.
Also, it’s not “in-fighting” to point out that you linked to a listicle with standards that were completely made up so someone could fill column inches. Did you even look at the criteria?
Why not just shut up and learn something instead of showing us all what a fool you are?
“Are you suggesting IQ can’t be improved with education? That’s beyond absurd. Why do you think we spend so much on education?”
Clearly it was wasted on you. Buh-bye.
To double down on what LG said above–two years ago the State built a bike lane in Pike Creek, right in front of Goldy Beacom College. At one of the busiest intersections on Limestone Road, this lane threads in between the northbound lanes and a major right turn lane. Even ignoring the overall shit habits of Delaware drivers, this “bike lane” is so patently unsafe that never in the time since it was built have I seen a single biker use it. Bikers use other parts of Limestone Road every day, and in large numbers on weekends. But not that segment–they detour around that suicide strip. With all props to Joe Miro for getting construction money for our district, this is one of the most insane projects I’ve ever seen.
Just north of that, another inept DelDot contractor has finished repaving (if you could generously call it that) Stony Batter Road. The old road was full of potholes and quite damaging to tires. The new paving, however, was clearly done on days too cold for such work, and is already cracking. Nor does the paving job extent completely to the sides of the right of way, leaving in some places an abrupt drop-off of 3-4 inches. This is a steep and slick road in winter will its usual share of accidents. I confidently expect more of them this winter.
We not only don’t know how to drive, we don’t know how to make roads.
The positioning of the I-95 rest area in the middle island has fully loaded semis merging onto the fast lane at 30 mph. To get to Wilmington going north on 95 you have to get into the far left hand lane as the others peel off for 295 and 495. Conservative drivers move over there as quickly as they can leaving people going 60 mph in the fast lane of a major interstate during rush hour. For through traffic people unfamiliar with the road numbering system will assume that following I-95 will get them to the NJ turnpike, you can see the brake lights as they approach the 295 exit and their GPS is trying to guide them through the confusion. And to top it all off, some DE drivers are the rudest I’ve seen anywhere and I used to drive a delivery truck on the Long Island Expressway.
Many of our pedestrian injuries involve drunk pedestrians doing stupid things. Maybe our data will improve as natural selection plays itself out?
Certainly true in Dewey, but I’m not sure that is the leading cause throughout the state.