Traffic NO-NO

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I love crosswords. They are an exercise in thinking about things in different ways. Yesterday I was working on the crossword puzzle in the Saturday edition of the News and Record. I found the answer to one of the clues doesn't apply to Greensboro. The clue was "a traffic no-no." The answer was UTURN.

In Greensboro and in many other cities nowadays, it is almost impossible to drive anywhere without at least one U-turn. These annoying medians that are using up transportation funds that could be used in better ways are causing many U-turns. Many are made around medians that are not wide enough to accomodate the full length of an average-size passenger vehicle.

It seems to me that the medians would cause more accidents and traffic back-ups. And while I am on the traffic track, I have some comments on red light traffic cameras. I think they are a good idea. The money trail could be worked out. I think that one of the main reasons the traffic light program failed is not because of a law that most of the profits have to go to schools. I think that one reason the program failed is because offenders had to pay first and appeal later. Because the fine was relatively small, and there was no violation record to increase insurance costs, there was very little incentive to hire a lawyer and no profits for insurance companies. Lawyers and Insurance Companies hate that.

The NC legislature could change the law to bring back traffic cameras by allowing a better distribution of the fines. I guess that the law-makers in NC are too busy taking care of trivia and campaign fund-raising to even think about doing much useful work.