Nothing short of lunacy

Is what I think of the Missouri Transportation Department Officials idea to construct an interstate approach that would make people drive on the left side of the road. What drugs are these people using(Or off of)?

Missouri Transportation Department officials considered a number of plans for the downtown Front Street approach to Interstate 435. But the one they settled on appears to be a national first. It involves briefly crisscrossing lanes and putting drivers on the left.

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Drivers will reach a traffic signal, then be guided to the opposite side of the road, which will be divided by a concrete median with glare screens to minimize the potentially disorienting sight of oncoming cars to the right. After about 600 to 700 feet, motorists reach another traffic signal and are returned to the right side of the road.

Ramps before the first and second lights will allow motorists to enter I-435. The design spares motorists from having to turn left in front of oncoming traffic to get onto the highway.

"Most of us look at it and we say, `What?'" said Susan McCubbins, a transportation project manager for the state. "Then we think it through and we realize the safety and traffic advantages."

Doug Hecox, a Federal Highway Administration spokesman, said this was the first such use of the diverging diamond in this country, and he suggested it could be seen more often.

"The design is something that really has some potential," he said.

It sure has lots of potential. For catastrophe. People get confused enough about where to drive as it is, then there are also the plain old dumb people. I don't care how well designed the roadwork would be, its a recipie for disaster. For you can never account for one thing in engineering- The Human element. Will it take a dead family before these 'smart' people learn how dumb this idea is?

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