My home is not a place, it is people.
Published on June 9, 2004 By Cordelia In Misc
Ok, so I went to our storage unit today to drop off the last load of boxes. Making a left turn in Michigan is almost more annoying than trying to make a left in Downtown LA during rush hour. "They" - whoever they are - have decided in their little pointy heads that they can't just allow anyone to make a left turn when they want to. To make a left turn you are often forced to go down to the next stoplight and make a u-turn and come back. Obviously that is so much more efficient and better for traffic than just allowing people to make a left whenever the fancy strikes them. For example, say when someone wants to get on the freeway. It would be silly to just allow them to get on the freeway, so they force you to take your time about getting onto that on-ramp, just on the off chance you'll come to your senses and stay home instead. Ah yes, a very efficient plan.

Then of course instead of getting onto the 275 south like I was supposed to I got on the the M14 and didn't even realize it at first. I mean, nothing looked familiar, but then again nothing out here does look familiar to me. It's all just kind of generally green. I managed to get myself turned around though and back home and thus I am writing this blog. Otherwise I may have ended up on the mean streets of Toledo, or wherever that road leads, and may never have made it back.

Having said all of that, Michigan is one of the greenest states I have ever seen. Southern California is fairly brown, all things considered. It is a desert after all. It's quite lovely here. It might even rain today. I do like rain. At the moment.

Comments (Page 2)
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on Jun 30, 2006
I'm one of the pointy headed engineers (I'm Ok with that). I've done quite a bit of research and operations involving michigan lefts. A few key points:

A comparable 5 lane road has around 4 times as many crashes.

As left turn volumes go up michigan lefts still operate fine. M-59 has around 90,000 vehicles per day. Before 696, opened, 8 Mile carried upwards of 130,000. Most freeways can't handle that.
on Jul 21, 2006
Born and raised on the "mean streets of Toledo," but I spent a lot of time tooling around Michigan. A couple of thoughts occur to me:

If it takes less time overall to go right then hang a u-turn, then isn't that better?

For the person that lives 1000' away from their bank: Have you thought about walking there? It sounds likke it could be quicker & definitely easier.

Anyway, I imagine you have more traffic here since michiganhighways.org put up a link to this article @ www.michiganhighways.org/indepth/michigan_left.html

Cheers!
Steve
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