MrOpinionated's Blog

As often as I have sat in traffic, I wonder if St. Louis' finest have ever learned to direct traffic.   The cops like to sit around the traffic jams and watch the traffic instead of getting out tof their cars to direct it.  

Yesterday was another nightmare.  I came into the "city" and made the unfortunate mistake of getting off the MLK bridge just as the Rams game got out.  The exit to Broadway was blocked by a police car and the traffic light was blinking red and the woman in the car in front of me decided to sit there.  Maybe she was waiting for the spring thaw because she didn't move until I leaned on my horn for a few minutes.  The cop that was standing there did nothing.

I'm sure that the officers do a great job otherwise, but it would be great if they learned how to get the traffic moving. .  They would never make it in a real city like New York. 

It looks like oil is now trading about $113 a barrel. That's quite a drop from the $145 or so that we saw just a month or two ago I just wonder if our gas prices are decreasing in line with the barrel price. Does anyone know what we were paying for gas as oil hit $113 on the way up? It seems to me that it was less than the $3.69 I paid at the pump this morning in IL.

There are plenty of sites around the Internet where you can research the prices in other parts of the country but I decided to do an impromptu survey of some of my friends and family by email. What was interesting and depressing at the same time is that Illinois gas priced at $3.79 is the highest I came across. I work in St Louis, so I fill up before I cross the PSB and save 20 cents a gallon.

Here are the results of my survey with just 5 responses so far:

Indianapolis $3,66, Pensacola, FL $3.45, Phoenix, AZ $3.39 and New Jersey running around $3.39. My friend in Colorado responded with a vague "about the same".

What is interesting is that I heard a story that in NJ, there were lower prices on the Garden State Parkway and Turnpike and that people were waiting at those rest stops for an hour for gas. Consider this also....in New Jersey it is illegal to pump your own gas, so they are getting Full Service for 40 cents less per gallon. And somebody cleans your windshield and will check your oil if you ask.

I haven't heard a lot about the progress on the McKinley Bridge.   I think the last news story I remember was from the Post-Dispatch and they said it would be completed in September.    So what's the deal?   Is the work still ongoing?   When will it be opened again?

Driving home from work last night, I saw that some sort of road work was about to start on 55 into Illinois.   What got me to thinking were the warning signs about slowing down for workers.  OK, I totally agree that we should slow down and be extremely careful in the work areas but the amounts for the fines really shocked me.  Hit a worker and it's a $10,000 fine and 14 years in jail.   Why is the jail term so long when murderers and other violent criminals often get lesser terms for their deliberate actions?    I am not advocating changing the penalties but perhaps the court system needs to look at this and increase the penalties for other crimes.   It almost seems like you are better off shooting someone and getting a 5 year term.  It makes no sense. 

I want to hear your opinion about merging traffic. Why is it that when people see a sign that says "Left Lane Closed 1/2 Mile Ahead" everyone immediately gets in the right lane? You've got another half mile to go and wouldn't it be easier to just merge one by one when you get to the lane closier spot. There are always people who will stay in the left in the left lane and then when they need to merge nobody will let them in. Geesh....it only takes 10 seconds of your time. What's your opinion on this...change lanes immediately OR merge where the lane closes?