Column: Driving is interesting and an adventure in Carson City

Driving a vehicle is very interesting and often an adventure in Carson City. I have found that when driving in our fair city, you must be on your toes at all times and be ready to react to whoever is approaching from any direction.

In my less-than-humble opinion, Carson City has more than its fair share of dumb, stupid, indifferent, inattentive, careless, reckless and rude drivers; and I seem to encounter many of them when driving around town.

Here are some examples of what I have experienced around Carson City – Do any of these sound familiar to you?

1. Vehicles speeding past as if you are parked, when you’re driving either north or south on Carson Street:
Apparently speed limits are not meant for them. More often than not, most of those vehicles are driven by young drivers.

2. The slow pokes: The vehicles slowly plodding down main arterials on the west side (such as Division or Mountain Street) at 15-20 miles per hour (the speed limit is 25 MPH) and slowing down to almost a complete stop at each intersection. Those vehicles are usually driven by an older person, who probably has no business driving any kind of vehicle, anywhere, at any time.

3. The tailgaters: They appear out of nowhere, rush up behind you and proceed to closely tail gate your vehicle, no matter what speed you are driving. If you had to stop in a hurry, they would plow into your rear end.
It would seem that those vehicles are driven by people who apparently have little or no depth perception.

4. The drivers who run stop signs: If the sheriff’s office wants to write tickets for moving violations, they need look no further than the stop signs at the intersections of Nevada and Bath Streets or Division and Bath Streets or Long and Division Streets in my part of the older west side of Carson City. Rolling stops or non-stops are a very common, every hour occurrence. Those locations are a potential gold mine for traffic violation fines.

5. Vehicles that run red lights at signaled intersections: If the local sheriff’s office also wants to write tickets for running red lights, they should stake out any one of the many traffic signals on Carson Street.
I could make a fortune if I were writing the tickets at those traffic lights.
Most interesting, I have never seen a vehicle being pulled over and ticketed for running a red light. Have you?

6. The parking lot at our main U.S. Post Office: Most days, you take your life in your hands just going to get mail.
It is like a giant game of “Bumper Cars,” when you are in that miserable lot.
People speed through that lot, park from the wrong direction, back out in the wrong direction, double park, ignore walkers in the crosswalk, etc.
To further compound the chaos of the dumb and/or rude drivers, whoever designed that lot, must have flunked Parking Lot Design 101, or it is a classic example of government inefficiency at its best.
That parking layout is a fender bender just waiting to happen to the unwary.

7. Vehicles being driven by drivers preoccupied with: A. Talking on cell phones. You see them on a daily basis in Carson City. They are also the ones who rarely if ever use their turn signals.
B. Texting on cell phones. Those are the vehicles that speed up or slow down while drifting back and forth in their lane and even into yours.
C. Women: Putting on lipstick, putting on makeup or combing their hair.
D. Men: Drinking a cup of coffee or, worse yet, drinking a can of beer.
E. Both sexes: Eating hamburgers, sandwiches, salads, pastries, etc.
F. Young males: Listening to deafening music blaring out of their speakers.

8. The timing sequences of our traffic lights: I have a deep suspicion that the reason so many people run red lights in Carson City is because of the long waits at red lights for the side streets along Carson Street, especially at locations such as Long, Washington, Robinson, Musser and Fifth Streets. Those waits are ridiculously long.
I also have a deep suspicion that my miles per gallon on my little red pickup would be a lot higher if not for the inordinate amount of time spent waiting for those lights to finally turn green.
Whoever times the side streets at their intersections with Carson Street needs to spend time (like the rest of us) waiting and waiting and waiting for one of those traffic lights to finally turn green. It takes forever!

9. Our infamous roundabout: If you want to get scared out of your wits, try driving through the roundabout at the intersection of Fifth Street and Edmonds Drive.

That Fifth Street and Edmonds Drive Roundabout must have been designed for small “Smart Cars,” because regular-sized vehicles, trucks, buses, etc., struggle to go around on that tiny merry-go-round.
Their struggles are further compounded by drivers who apparently have no understanding of how to enter and move through a roundabout.

If you are one of them: The vehicle IN the roundabout has the right-of-way. If I were in charge, I would remove that design failure and replace it with a four-way stop or God forbid…another of our poorly timed traffic lights.

Finally:
Sigh, now that I’m through venting, I would be willing to bet that many of the examples I have cited have happened to each and every one of you.
And, sadly, you can bet the ranch it is not going to get better, only worse.
So, be on the alert and be ready for some hair-raising defensive driving, as you travel about in our beloved state capitol. Good luck to you! Stay safe!

— Don Quilici is the Outdoor editor of Carson Now. He can be reached at donquilici@hotmail.com.