Backroads Hazards Part 2: Lawbreakers Gonna Lawbreak

Delivering mail in Sis-Town must be a nightmare for The Pony. It's not exactly laid out on a grid. Some streets are mere fragments. Some have a different name halfway through. The phrase, "You can't get there from here," could be the city motto. Hick knows how to get everywhere, having worked for the city in his early years. I know a lot, having lived there during my formative years, with nothing to do on Saturday nights but drive around with your friends.

Anyhoo... there is one intersection that I find particularly loathsome. It's a FIVE-WAY STOP.

It was there that I encountered my second Backroads Hazard on Thursday. I had just dropped Genius's weekly letter into the drive-up mailbox behind the post office. It requires the driver to park on the wrong side of the road, unless you have a passenger to do your mailing. That's okay. The street there is only used by post office workers, who are used to driving on the wrong side of a car, so are probably not fazed by wrong-side drivers.

Anyhoo... I had turned onto the street that runs beside the post office, to head toward my next destination, the School-Turn Casey's, and then home.

This street runs north and south. I was headed north. I stopped at the stop sign to wait my turn. I only needed to go straight across, and one block down, past my mom's old church, to where this street ends and I take a main road.

So here I was, at the FIVE-WAY STOP, waiting my turn. The cross street is Main Street. It runs east and west. West was to my left, which would take me up a big hill in the direction of the home of my sister the ex-mayor's wife. To the right would take me downhill, past my credit union, and toward an area of town where The Pony broke his ankle. But I was only going straight across. Waiting my turn...

The fifth part of this FIVE-WAY STOP is a street that runs parallel to the street I was on. It was to my left. Railroad tracks between us. A road that runs past the firehouse and city hall and the police station. There is nothing across from this fifth street's stop sign. The cars must go either west or east, onto Main Street. 

As I was waiting my turn, for the only other vehicle to pass by me, a black truck that was to my left on Main Street, heading east across my path... my peripheral vision detected a white sedan moving along the firehouse street towards the stop sign. 

Just a few more yards, and the black truck would be by me, allowing my turn. I eased my foot off the brake, getting ready for the accelerator.

WHAT IN THE NOT-HEAVEN???

That white sedan rolled through the stop sign, made a right, and followed the black truck! Didn't even stop! It was MY turn, by cracky! MY TURN! If I was not an observant person, I would have collided with that white sedan. Which, did I mention, DID NOT WAIT ITS TURN? Didn't even stop!

Of course I threw up my hands in disgust as it passed. That young girl driving had the gall to turn her head and LOOK AT ME! All the way facing me. Not even watching the road in front of her. The B-WORD might have escaped my lips.

Seriously. How hard is it to obey the law and come to a stop at a STOP sign? And then wait for each of the other vehicles at the FIVE-WAY STOP to go before you do. You only need to be able to count to four. Then it's your turn.

Hmpf! Police station right there, and never a cop around when you need one...