Thanks for the chuckle

I have reviewed a mountain of collision reports during my career and often find it difficult to decipher exactly what happened based on what gets written. A picture (or drawing) can indeed replace a thousand words!

Weird thing is that I often write myself a list of things to do, and almost always put down, as the very first item, something that I have already completed. Must be a subconscious need to see that I have actually accomplished something other than just writing the list.

Unfortunately there is one problem that can come up when they don't put visual obstructions in the central island ... in poorly lit areas in particular, an approaching driver might see the road beyond the roundabout and not realize that it is a roundabout with an island and try to drive straight through the middle of the whole thing. Sometimes you just can't win

From the perspective of a seasoned (37 years) traffic engineering consultant there is no question that roundabouts take some getting used to, and that some people are either very slow to learn or refuse to even try to figure them out. They definitely have pros and cons. They have been proven to reduce or completely eliminate serious collisions such as "T-bones" as you no longer have two streams of traffic intersecting at right angles. They also provide a degree of "traffic calming" if designed properly and they happen to operate just fine in a power outage situation.

Things are pretty simple with a single-lane roundabout ... the rules are pretty straightforward and people tend to catch on pretty quickly. One exception is when the pavement in the roundabout is very wide, to allow for a large truck to get through, and people think maybe it is wide enough to be two lanes and maybe someone forgot to pain a line down the middle.

Make it a multi-lane roundabout and things can get crazy as there are basic rules of thumb about their use but those rules can be over-ruled with signs and/or pavement markings. Imagine the fun when you have a two-lane roundabout with pavement markings telling you what movements you can make from each lane and the pavement markings are regularly obscured by snow for many months of the year, or pavement markings that are not regularly repainted. Now add to the mix some idiot who adds signage in advance of the roundabout clearly showing you what movements you can make from each lane ... and those signs show a different message than the pavement markings. I used to be able to watch this exact situation from my office window, and I regularly saw people having to slam on the brakes and/or swerve to avoid a collision. It took multiple calls to the city to get them to understand the problem and come out and fix it.

There are certain combinations of traffic volumes that can make a roundabout work great and make it a perfect choice. There are, however, other situations where the specific mix of traffic movements make a roundabout a really bad choice. As long as the person reviewing the situation understands this and has the latitude to make decisions/recommendations that best fit the specific needs of the location then things should work out fine. Problems can arise when you get a "roundabout zealot" in charge of things and roundabouts become mandated as the one and only solution to everything!

OK, I've rambled enough. I should get back to work on one of our projects ... figuring out how to fit the first roundabout into a small rural municipality where it might not be well received by the locals

I don't have any pics of my old classrooms but I don't recall them being anything unusual or special. I did, however, uncover some old photos of my mom in two classroom settings.

The first one ("Class of 49") photo was very badly torn/cracked/scratched with lots of dust/water spots ... it needed a lot of TLC, including many hours of retouching. She was born in 1939 so would have been 10 yrs old (+/-) in this picture.

The other one was simply labelled "Grade 8" so maybe early teens (early 1950s). It too had a good helping of cracks and scratches but a lot less work was needed in that regard. Biggest issue on this one was/is a light area on the left side ... I can't tell if it was there from when it was taken, or when printed, or if it faded over time. Whatever the origin, I did not feel qualified to try and fix that aspect of it.

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Variation on your original about the tape measure ... twice now in our 36 years together I have heard the words "does that wall really need to be there?"

I have seen a note on a photocopier at my office (previous employer I believe, 5+ years back) indicating that attempting to photocopy currency would cause the copier to lock itself down, requiring a reset from a service tech which would of course involve admin people. I never did get up enough nerve to try it out to see if they were bluffing to scare people into compliance :)

Got it ... thanks Jerry :)

Very nice ... sounds cliche but they sure don't make them like that any more.

The typos in the sign describing the car are a bit odd (sorry, my eye is always drawn to stuff like that for some reason)

Nice scene ... and better still, I don't have to shovel it this time! :)

[ oops, maybe I should open the blinds and take a peek at my driveway before saying that ... all clear :) ]

Looking forward to your review/feedback on the scanner as I am trying to decide whether to buy one or just send out the slides/negatives I want scanned.

Thanks for the post ... Snowing here at the moment (has snowed a bit every day for a week now) so a nice "ray of sunshine" is most welcome :)

Many years ago, before the "personal computer" became the platform for office usage, the firm my wife worked for had a dedicated word processing system installed. Brand name was NBI and she insisted that the acronym stood for Nothing But Initials :)

Maybe you shouldn't have been yelling while you were at the computer ... looks like you must have had your Caps Lock key on! :)

Amen ... Psalm 23 was on my reading list this morning

Beautiful picture BTW