Tales From Exit 22 by Al Batt

Opinions vary, from “Putting in those roundabouts was a good idea and driving in those roundabouts is a bad idea,” to “Putting in those roundabouts was a bad idea and driving in those roundabouts is a bad idea.”

Someone named Prospero said, “We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life, is rounded with a sleep.”

Some guy named Peterson told me that his little life is rounded with a nightmare called a roundabout. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created one of the greatest fictional detectives ever, Sherlock Holmes. According to Peterson, even Holmes wouldn’t be able to figure out a roundabout.

To Peterson, a roundabout brings back painful memories of his divorce from the first Mrs. Peterson. He and his missus taught music. The divorce went smoothly until they came to the division of band instruments.

They owned a pair of cymbals. They were each given possession of one cymbal. What do you do with a single cymbal? It’s of no use. It’s impossible to clash one cymbal together. Peterson claimed the roundabout he drove regularly was a single cymbal.

Rod Serling wrote a “Twilight Zone” script called “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” in which aliens landed in a quiet American neighborhood with the intention of conquering the earth.

They didn’t use weapons. They cut the electricity to all but one house in the neighborhood. The other residents of Maple Street became enraged, assuming that the people living in the lighted home had caused the problems. The situation became violent. The aliens quickly realized that people were their own worst enemies.

If aliens wanted to mess with us, they might allow only one driver to understand roundabouts. Am I suggesting that the roundabout is the creation of an extraterrestrial being intent on gaining control of our world? I don’t think so, but if it happens, it was my idea.

In this windshield-based world, getting from point A to point B while driving an automobile can be a humdrum task. If a roundabout adds a bit of excitement and mystique to the process, that’s not all bad.

Plus, it can be highly entertaining to watch travelers on a roundabout from the safe distance of a restaurant while enjoying a breakfast special of two eggs over easy, crispy hash browns, two slices of bacon, and English muffins covered in smooth peanut butter (they gave me crunchy one morning and it put me off my game for a day) — all of it washed down with hot tea.

We don’t have any roundabouts in Hartland. Even then, that might be more than we need. As I visit with people, it’s apparent that most drivers would rather have traditional intersections equipped with traffic lights, which are more perilous, but are what we’re accustomed to and therefore, less confusing. It’s an odd preference because traffic lights can be slow-moving tortures.

I’m a surviving veteran of driving roundabouts. I’ll pass along what I’ve learned. You’ll need to do more than nothing. When entering a roundabout, don’t keep your fingers crossed in the hopes that a traffic light will suddenly appear.

While on that subject, don’t keep your fingers crossed while driving.

Yield to traffic in the roundabout. Don’t yield to traffic outside the roundabout. It might be polite, but it’s wrong. Signal your way out of the roundabout. Just because NASCAR drivers don’t signal is no reason why you shouldn’t.

Once in the roundabout, you could drive around for days if you’d like. It might generate some wind energy. You could do that, but I’m sure you have better ways to spend your time.

I talked to a young fellow who had attended a tuba camp last summer. I’m sure he learned a lot about the ways of the wily wind instrument. There should be summer camps for roundabouts. If we learned to tie our shoes, we can learn to drive on a roundabout.

While intersections with traffic lights provide the thrill of traveling at breakneck speeds on a death-defying attempt to beat a red light that has never had a bad word to say about us, roundabouts cut down on deaths and serious injuries.

That which doesn’t kill us makes us stranger. It might make some of us stronger, but it makes all of us stranger. Try to think of a roundabout as a single rose in miles of thorns. If a roundabout saves one life, it’s a good thing.

Every click of an odometer is like a doggy bag. It gives us something to take home.

 

Hartland resident Al Batt’s columns appear every Wednesday and Sunday.