The in basket: Longtime friend Vickie Barrie wrote the other day, “Well, Travis, you answered this concern a few years ago, but it continues and I don’t think it was addressed quite right.
“Homer Jones Drive is a one-way street running past the Bremerton YMCA,” she said. “When I leave the YMCA, I go to the north end of the street, driving and staying in the left lane because I plan to make a left turn. Many times, another driver pulls up in the right hand lane and plans to turn left also (they may have forgotten that this is a one-way street).
“I have had fingers wagged at me and near-miss collisions. Could there be arrows painted on the road or a sign put up indicating that the right lane is for right turns and the left lane is for left turns?”
The out basket: Vickie is right that I didn’t give much credence to this when a reader first brought it to my attention a few years ago. It just didn’t seem likely that it was a common occurrence.
I quickly got a snarl from another reader saying it does happen regularly and now Vickie checks in with her update. She says it occurs in her presence a couple of times a month.
I’ve sat and watched the intersection off and on over the ensuing years, but it seems I always choose the wrong hour, early afternoon, as there is hardly any traffic at all while I’m there, let alone conflicts.
Jerry Hauth, in his first year as street engineer for Bremerton, says, “This is the first that I have heard of this one though I can see how it could happen. I am passing this on to the Road Department, with this email, to see what they think of the arrows idea.”
I’m still stumped by how a succession of drivers could make this mistake. Are they assuming cars in the curb lane on the left are parked, or parking? Perhaps some red paint on the curb to create a short no-parking zone would help a little.