A reader, Tom Gump, wrote in to ask about the traffic light at Old Pasco Road and County Road 54 intersection in Wesley Chapel.  He wondered if they had changed the timing of the light for those turning onto State Road 54. He said it seems they sit at that light by 7-Eleven a lot longer than in the past and traffic seems to be backing up farther on Old Pasco Road waiting for the light to change.

Actually, Tom is not the only one who has commented on that, so it was worth checking out.

Kris Carson, DOT’s public information officer for our district, said the traffic signal sensors are out due to construction, and the right turn lane has been removed due to a traffic shift for the six-lane reconstruction of County Road 54.
Apparently there are no quick fixes for motorists traveling that route.

Pothole promises
Well, leaving the problems of Pasco County for a moment, let’s motor south to Hillsborough County.

If you have to weave a little to avoid potholes on Hillsborough County roads, there’s good news. The county has created what it calls its Quality Service Guarantees Program.  The program offers residents service guarantees from 18 different departments or divisions.

As for potholes, Public Works guarantees that it will respond to pothole reports within 72 hours of the report.

Now, three days might sound like a long time to some of you. It’s all relative. I recall a large pothole in Pasco County that I would drive around – and occasionally into when not in my pothole-alert mode or when it was concealed by rain – that was there for a couple of weeks or longer before it was filled.

Another Public Works guarantee: it will respond to reports of damaged regulatory signs such as stop signs, yields or malfunctioning traffic signals within 24 hours of the report.

If you’d like to get this straight from the horse’s mouth, or to put it in 21st-century jargon, from the county’s Web site, visit http://www.hillsboroughcounty.org., click on the A-Z Index on the left side of the window, then scroll down to “Quality Service Guarantees.” You’ll find everything from “water meters will be read and billed correctly” (Hmm, do I smell a story behind that?) to free boarding of stray pets that have been picked up by Animal Services (if the pets are registered and microchipped) and Animal Services does not attempt to notify the owner within one business day that they have the pet.

Appeasing road rage
To show how screwed up our thinking has become – or is it just me? – what about the left lane loiterers law Sen. Mike Bennett, R-Bradenton keeps trying to get passed? The bill says that if you are driving in the left lane and know (or reasonably should know) that you are being overtaken by a car traveling at a higher rate of speed, you have to move over for that car to pass. Failure to move over is a ticketable offense and would also be added to the list of offenses that identify you as an aggressive driver. The exception is if you, yourself, are passing another car or going to make a left turn.

The thought is that left lane drivers going too slow force tailgating or lane changing and cause road rage. Now, I totally agree that no driver should be in the left lane driving under the posted speed limit, but let’s be honest. How often does that happen? I do a lot of driving every day, and what I observe is that, except in cases where a driver plans to turn left, the left lane drivers invariably exceed the speed limit. The tailgating and lane switching is done, not because the left lane driver is going too slow, but because the aggressive driver is going even faster than the speeder ahead of him.

Let us reason together. Suppose the speed limit is 55 mph, and drivers in the left lane (commonly called the fast lane) are actually going 55 mph. Now we who drive the highways and byways of Florida very much all know that hardly anyone actually goes the speed limit, so most of the drivers in the left lane will be zipping along somewhere between 5 and 30 mph over the speed limit. The way I interpret it, the bill, should it ever pass, says, in effect, that a person going 55 mph who does not make way for the driver going 70 mph could be ticketed for slowing down traffic and impeding the flow of the speeders, forcing the speeder to tailgate and do other illegal or unsafe maneuvers. Does this make sense? Only in Florida.

What kind of dilemma would this make for FHP? The trooper sees a car speeding 15 mph over the legal speed limit of 55 mph, but because the car in front of the speeder is only going 5 mph over the speed limit, the speeder will undoubtedly first tailgate (illegal), then zig-zag lanes to maintain his illegal speed of 70 mph. (Not an unusual scenario, by the way.)

What’s a trooper to do? Go after the speeder/tailgater going 70 mph? Or go after the motorist going only 60 mph and ticket that motorist for not moving over for the speeder? And, while the trooper’s at it, kill two birds with one stone. That is, ticket the 60 mph driver twice, once for going 60 mph (too slow) and again for going 60 mph (too fast). Wow! A double-donut moment. (Sorry, troopers. I love you all, but I couldn’t resist.)

A well-known person, whose name I apologize I have forgotten, said that we spend millions and millions of tax-payer dollars searching for intelligent life in the universe. To what purpose, I ask. Is that going to solve any of our problems here on Earth? Will it stop road rage? He said it would be better if that money were spent searching for intelligent life in our own government. To which I say, amen.

Today’s bumper sticker (actually a Burma Shave sign)
Around the curve, lickety-split. Beautiful car, wasn’t it?

Carole Dickey is a staff writer and a Pasco County resident. Send your rants and raves about traffic and motorists in the Land O’ Lakes/Wesley Chapel/New Tampa areas to .