No Left Turn - This Means You!

Every so often citified attitudes intrude upon our little portion of New Hampshire. Sometimes it can be something about the food at a local restaurant or the lack of certain items at the village store. Most times this “city folk” attitude is minor in nature, garnering a few amused glances in the direction of the offender. Sometimes the offense is over the top, generating a lot of bad feelings on part of the offended and the offender. And at times the offense lies somewhere between those two extremes. Today was one of those times.

I, as many in out little town, drop of my son in front of his school weekday mornings while I am on my way to work. It is not inconvenient for me as I pass right by his school on my way to work.

One of the things that helps keep traffic flowing smoothly mornings as we drop our kids off at school is that the exit from the school allows right turns only. This keeps things from getting jammed up as there won't be anyone waiting to make a left turn across traffic in order to leave. Someone waiting to make a left turn will stop the dropping-off-the-kids process dead in its tracks because no one else will be able to enter the drop off lane until they leave.

For the most part everyone makes the right turn at the exit. But not everyone.

This morning was a perfect example.

BeezleBub and I followed a woman driving a Subaru Forester into the drop off entrance. Her young charge got out of the car, slung their backpack over one shoulder, closed the car door and charged towards the front door of the school. As BeezleBub was getting out of our car the woman drove off towards the exit. Once our car door was closed and BeezleBub was well on his way into the school, I followed her.

She stopped at the exit looking to see if traffic was coming. I expected her to make the right turn, just like everyone else. But instead she pulled forward a foot or so, stopped next to the No Left Turn sign, and put on her turn signal. The left turn signal.

A line of school buses was coming from the left, entering the bus lane to drop of the rest of the kids at the school. Traffic was starting to back up as ever more impatient parents waited to get into the drop off lane. But they couldn't because the witless woman in the Subaru insisted on making her left turn. She sat there waiting to make the left turn for over 5 minutes, tying up traffic. It would have taken her less than a minute to make the right turn, go to the next street, make a right, go to the next intersection and take another right to get to the same place she wasted all that time waiting to make her all so important left turn.

This is the type of behavior I might expect from city folk, figuring that the laws don't apply to them. If I had to guess, she was a flatlander who brought her big city attitude to a small town and managed to piss off a lot of people in the process, all to no good. Her thoughtless need to make a left turn inconvenienced over 100 people, tied up traffic, broke at least one traffic law, and may have made a number of people late for work or school.

It was rude, and we don't take to rudeness very well.