A Happy Medium by Erin Murtaugh

I don’t know what bothers me more, when people don’t use their turn signal at all or wait until they’ve already started turning to use their signal. It’s a part of your car for a reason, so use it.

Something else that bothers me is an event that occurs regularly on the way out of school in the afternoons.

School buses exit the Albert Lea High School lot from a different area than other cars. Cars exit on Y.H. Hanson Road and school buses exit on Hammer Road. A lot of cars turn on to Hammer from Y.H. Hanson. Cars that do this drive right past the place where buses turn out of the parking lot. The buses idle while waiting for a break in the stream of cars.

However, there is a driver who turns out of the parking lot every day at the same time as when the buses are turning on to Hammer. This driver stops in the middle of the road to let the buses on to Hammer.

This is really annoying and also a safety hazard. When this car stops, it backs up the traffic behind it. This is dangerous because right before where this happens, the speed limit changes from 55 to 30, so many cars are still going quite fast. The cars turning the corner also aren’t expecting there to be stopped traffic.

The buses have a stop sign and can wait for there to be a break in traffic to turn out of the lot. A car does not need to stop in the middle of the road just to let buses in. That’s not how it works.

Dear driver who lets buses onto Hammer Road,

Please stop your bad habit. It is dangerous and not the right thing to do.

Sincerely,

A Concerned High School Driver.

 

Albert Lea resident Erin Murtaugh is a senior at Albert Lea High School. She will be an intern this summer at the Albert Lea Tribune.