Left Turns Into Parking Spaces and Other Craziness
As I'm out and about in Highland Park, I'm often amazed at the crazy things drivers do. Here's a few I've seen in just the past week:
- Left turns into parking spaces. More often than not, right in front of a sign prohibiting the practice. Highland Park has done an admirable job of angling the parking spaces to discourage this, but I can't even recount the number of times where I've seen drivers make a sharp left, then back up, try to straighten out, back up and straighten out again, to get into the parking space. All the while backing up traffic...
- U-turns in the middle of intersections. Central Avenue and Beverly Place - typically drivers who are eastbound and then desire to turn westbound.
- A left turn from westbound Central Avenue onto eastbound Deerfield Road (right past the triangular spot).
- Vehicles simply stopping in the middle of the street - no signals, nothing. Then letting out a passenger - I've seen this on Green Bay Road, Central Avenue, Laurel by the library, etc...
- and my personal favorite: Talking on the cell phone without a hands-free device...
What, if anything can be done? I'd suggest the following for kind consideration:
- Left turns: Put up medium height poles with chains on them down the middle of the roadway in the Central Business District. Make them removable for the winter months. This might also have the added benefit of keeping pedestrians from crossing in the middle of the street.
- U-turns: Signs preventing the practice would be nice. But extending the median out longer by a few feet might help keep drivers from considering a U-turn.
What do you, kind reader, think? How about suggestions for the rest?
In the meantime - stay safe!
Steve Firestone
7:40 am on Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Wow, I guess the city has plenty of money. You are sure free with it.
Restrictions are easy to come up with. Avoiding them is hard.
Adding more curbs is what many cities end up doing, (including HP, I think they have already tried every thing) and drivers usual hate them.
Remember, the purpose of downtown is to get as many people as possible stopping or flowing through.
David Greenberg
9:57 am on Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Steve, thanks for your comments. I don't think I've proposed anything that would cost a lot of money or that would prevent people from stopping and flowing through the downtown.
The area where I proposed extending the median out by a few feet has had some kind of plastic pole glued at the end of it, and that pole has been replaced so many times over the years that I've lost count (from drivers pulling U turns and clipping the pole). There's a cost associated with each replacement too.
Traffic doesn't flow too well when someone pulls an illegal U-turn into a parking space and then spends the next five minutes fooling around trying to get their vehicle straightened out...
Dan Jenks
10:45 am on Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Your observations are on the mark, particularly talking on a cellphone without a hands-free device. My high school daughter nearly got hit in downtown HP last month while walking in a cross walk. The driver, of course, was talking on a handheld cellphone and not paying attention. I generally don’t like additional rules and regulations – but I think the hands-free cellphone requirement promotes public safety.
My frustration is that City doesn’t appear to be enforcing this rule – particularly in downtown. My guess is that HP doesn’t want to turn off out-of-town shoppers from visiting our stores – thus the lack of active enforcement. Putting aside the effect on the retail environment, HP could make a lot of money on the weekends by stationing officers at Central/2nd and Central/St. Johns.
While HP doesn’t enforce the cellphone ban, HP uses a camera to enforce a no-right turn on red at Park/41. This seems to me to be a classic “gotcha” trap that doesn’t have a clear connection to public safety - but it sures makes the City a lot of money!
Doug Purington
10:46 am on Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Re: left turns into parking spaces, you're right on! I see this all too much and as a good citizen, I attempt to bring to task anyone I see doing this. All I get is: "Oh, I know", as if it doesn't apply to them; "it's none of my business"; "It's OK, I live here"; "I'd lose the spot if I didn't do this"; not to mention the expletives and middle fingers thrown my way!
My take on this is that no matter what is done to try and prevent these illegal movements, people will still do what they want to do because they're "entitled"!
Bob Levi
12:21 pm on Wednesday, May 30, 2012
If I'm not mistaken, anyone can report any traffuc violation to the police and they'll send out a warning. All you need to do is note the license plate, time & place and the infraction and call the non-emergeny police number (847-432-7730), Of course, you will not be idenfified as the person who called the police.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but that used to be the case a while back. Maybe it's not the way things are done today due to budget cutbacks in local services.
David Greenberg
1:47 pm on Wednesday, May 30, 2012
There used to be an online form you could submit and the Police would make a record of the incident but not actually send out a warning/citation. I haven't seen the form on the current incarnation of the City's website, although there is an online method to submit reports for different issues.
Karen F
7:10 pm on Wednesday, May 30, 2012
My pet peeves: 1) People driving on the wrong side of the road directly into oncoming traffic when their lane is blocked. They can't be bothered to wait until no opposing traffic is coming. 2) Blatant disregard for stop sign rules. I've seen people second in line at a stop sign go when the person in front of them goes.
Seems to me people need a refresher on driving rules, a dose of courtesy, and a decrease in entitlement behavior!
David Greenberg
5:56 pm on Thursday, May 31, 2012
This happens virtually every day on Beverly. Vehicles parked where they shouldn't be force traffic into the opposing lane, and well, you know the rest.
forest barbieri
9:11 am on Thursday, May 31, 2012
Yes, driving in our city has it's share of smiles. Unfortunatly, those smiles will hurt someone sometime! The sense of entitlement, "why should I be inconvienced?" combined with the dreaded cell phone/texting along with with drivers having impared reflexes makes an unfortunate situation inevitable.
I remember parking my 800 lb motorcycle in front of Starbucks and someone behind me in a giant 4 X 4 rolling down their window and asking why I was taking up a whole parking space followed by "can't you just park on the sidewalk?. Obviously I had inconvienced her as she now would need to park a few feet away from the door. I said sorry but you need to find your own parking spot, to which I was called a few choice names by this mom who obviously just dropped her kids at school .
Stuart Senescu
11:20 pm on Thursday, May 31, 2012
Put a plains clothes policeman in one of the nice chairs in front of Perfect Blend or Hot Tamales during the summer evenings, and one uniformed office down by First National Bank of HP (ooops Chase Bank) and they can probably ticket 1/2 dozen drivers a night for making U turns from eastbound Central to westbound Central. It would more than pay for the cost of the police on an hourly basis.