Best safety equipment is better driver attitude
The news that aging traffic signals at the intersection of Route 8 and Airport Road in Penn Township — the site of numerous car crashes and fatal accidents — will soon be replaced is very welcome.
The township will receive nearly $450,000 from the Pa. Department of Transportation in the form of an Automated Red Light Enforcement Transportation Enhancements Grant to pay for the upgrade work at the intersection.
Plans call for the traffic lights to be replaced, and signal turning lanes and illuminated advanced warning signs will be added.
The intersection has come under increased scrutiny since well-known Realtor Ed Shields was killed in June. Three years earlier, a couple sustained life-altering injuries in the intersection.
Unfortunately, all of the latest safety equipment in the world cannot mitigate the most dangerous factor on county roads today — drivers with bad attitudes.
Township officials say drivers are trying to “beat” the yellow light and are speeding through the intersection rather than stopping and waiting through the traffic light cycle.
It’s gotten so bad, Penn Township Supervisor Chairman Sam Ward said, residents around Route 8 and Airport Road know to delay driving into the intersection even on the green light, hoping to avoid colliding with some speeding vehicle trying to avoid the red light.
“We have to change the mindset of people driving on Route 8,” said Ward, and it’s hard not to agree.
And it’s not just hitting the gas to avoid stopping for a red light. People weave in and out of traffic lanes on Route 8 as if they are in the Dakar Rally and every second shaved off from traveling from Point A to Point B is vital.
Whether too many people have played too many video games and don’t realize an accident can’t be reset with the push of a button or whether too many drivers have an inflated sense of their own driving skills to slow down for the other guy, it’s got to stop.
People say the social contract is fraying, and people are less inclined to listen to any viewpoint that contradicts their own.
But if we all can’t agree that red means stop and yellow means slow down, not speed up — or if we believe every driver is entitled to their own interpretation of the Rules of the Road — then no amount of improved traffic lights, turn lanes or warning signs are going to make a difference.
— EKF
