Last week we noticed with great delight while driving up Crown Mountain Road the "raised reflective lane indicators" that had been installed down the center line of the road.
We noticed when we crept over into the opposite lane and heard—and felt—the rapid rat tat tat of the reflectors on our tires.
Thank you Public Works!
We hope the plan is to install these potentially life saving fixtures on all the islands' roads.
Our hope is that "hearing" that one is on the wrong side of the road will provide an unmistakable warning that the driver could be endangering someone's life, sanity and property.
How many times do we round a curve to find a huge truck or taxi van coming directly toward us in the wrong lane and often at a high rate of speed?
Truly a hair-raising, rage-producing experience.
The sense is that sometimes the overgrown bush on the side of the road is the culprit; drivers shy away from it to protect their paint jobs, without considering what a head-on collision would do to those same paint jobs.
The raised reflectors can't be too good for tires, another reason for staying on your side of the centerline.
So, please Public Works, don't stop at Crown Mountain Road but keep going with those "amber angels."
And while we're addressing Public Works, we'd like to take this opportunity to re-run an editorial we wrote, including the doggerel, when we were testing St. Thomas Source before it was launched seven months ago.
Unfortunately it still applies.
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Mirror, mirror on the road,
During Georges down you blow'd.
Public Works, we've cut you slack.
It's time to put our mirrors back!
Lots of St. Thomas residents are screaming about potholes. And with good reason. Our roads are so rutted and pitted they threaten our safety and our vehicles' structural soundness.
But we have another road-safety problem no one has talked much about: the Public Works Department's failure to restore mirrors and road signs after Hurricane Georges.
The area around Mafolie Hotel offers a good—though decidedly not the only—example.
Before Georges, drivers turning south onto Mafolie Road from the road in front of the hotel had the benefit at that treacherous intersection of utilizing a round mirror that reflected hidden traffic coming up the hill.
No more. Hurricane Georges blew it down. That was more than three months ago. Surely it shouldn't take three months to replace roadside mirrors, stop signs and other safety devices that motorists depend on.
Please, Public Works. This is routine stuff — the nuts and bolts of your mission. We hope it won't take a devastating accident to spur you to action.
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And that was seven months ago. The mirror has now been missing for the better part of a year.
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