I’ve cajoled on this site time and again about how ridiculous Detroit drivers can be. I’m reminded of the level of idiocy whenever I travel away from the city.

As I write from Pittsburgh, I want to give a prime example of why MDOT and the MVC sometime exacerbate the situation.

Regardless of our 12-month orange barrel season (which I firmly believe is a conspiracy between the Big Three, MDOT and contractors – more on that later), there are some rules of the road that make NO sense. One is regarding lane closures…

I was driving here in Pittsburgh last night, and came upon a lane closure on I-79. These never seem to bother me in Pennsylvania (while they drive me BATTY in Michigan) because of the way they’re handled. Here, the law says that all lanes should be used as far as possible before a car-by-car merge. In other words, if the right lane on a 2-lane highway is closed, cars drive all the way up the merge point, then cars take turns merging. AMAZINGLY, the jams aren’t as long, and people let each other in regularly as the law requires.

IN CONTRAST, the Michigan law states that, using the same example, as soon as a driver in the right lane sees the ‘blinking arrow’ indicator sign, the car must merge ASAP. So, why does it matter? Let’s see:

a) half the drivers ignore the rule and speed quickly to the end of the lane, then force their merge between angry drivers that are POd at the ‘cheating’ driver (if you’ve ever driven to a Wings game, and driven on Jefferson under Cobo, you know EXACTLY what I mean);
b) Bernoulli’s principle, baby: why put all the cars in one lane before you have to? It creates more pressure in that lane, and wastes an open lane, sometimes for as long as a mile before the lane closure.

Nothing surprises me about the stupidity of the Michigan Vehicle Code, nor about Detroit/Michigan drivers. But there are definitely some obvious changes that could be made, just by looking at other states and seeing the success of their laws.

Detroit Metblog Holiday Party

Originally uploaded by mainegal.

The Detroit Metblog authors and friends came by for a holiday party this evening. We had plenty of food, wine, drinks and fun.. including petanque on my living room floor.

It was a fun time had by all.

This German design company has devised an interesting – but somewhat frightening solution for those of us who have a great apartment – but a lousy view. The mobile space extension for city apartments is basically a device which is supported completely within your apartment, but which can extend a beam out your window, and then you, strapped to a metal chair, slide out – along the beam – for a better view of your surroundings.

Of course… I’m not sure what health/safety codes this will violate (if anyone catches you) – but it’ll sure be an entertaining centerpiece for those drab Holiday-end parties…

My best friend is getting married on New Years Eve in Windsor Locks, CT. My parents plan to return to Maine tomorrow anyways, so GD and I will be tagging along. Nineteen wonderful hours of driving through Michigan, Ohio, New York and more. Yes, we could cut across Canada but there is a good reason why we won’t be.

So any suggestions on what we can do to pass the driving time? I’ve already added some french language cds to my iPod but that will only get me so far.

We may keep on adding sibling cities, but here in Detroit, we are always looking for more authors. Interested? Let me know in the comment section…

Did anyone go to the Motor City Bowl on Monday at Ford Field? I did not attend this year, but am going to make a point to go next year.

I’d love to get some feedback as to how it was from anyone that went.

After reading Terry Foster’s column about it yesterday, I, too, wonder why we don’t hype it up more. The bowl is in its ninth year, yet there doesn’t seem to be much excitement leading up to it – other than the big billboard at the end of I-375 downtown.

No, it isn’t the Rose Bowl, but wouldn’t it be a lot more fun if everyone hyped it up instead of just dismissing it? As Lawson’s article mentions, this bowl brings in $15 miilion in revenue for the city, and exposes outsiders to Detroit that probably wouldn’t make a trip here otherwise.

The teams that play work just as hard as all of the other football teams in their league, and, what’s more, they actually show some heart.

Scientists at the Paris, France based International Earth Rotation & Reference Systems Service (I.E.R.R.S.S.) have regulated the co-ordinated resynchronization of the Earth’s clocks to astrological time to account for the extra leap second for 2005. Unfortunately, this has also allowed Davros, Supreme Commander of the Intergalactic Dalek space army to slip into Detroit without being seen by the Time Lords. It has been learned that Davros utilized a hiijacked Tardis to do so.

What does this mean for the people of Earth, and more specifically, metro-Detroiters?

“Total extermination of all Inferior beings…” or so Commander Davros has told local reporters while catching a hot dog at Lafayette Coney. Commander Davros admitted that he wants to first catch the R&B show by “The Detroit Cobras” over at Magic Stick before starting his program of worldwide domination.

Advice on methods to thwart the Dalek death-rays and how to avoid large pot-holes on I-75 will soon follow…

There are, honestly, countless more reasons to be more proud to be from Detroit than reasons to be embarrassed – regardless of how well we all concentrate on the negative. Unfortunately, our elected officials have almost consistently fall within the latter.

Not today.

U.S. House Representative John Conyers Jr. has recently released a report regarding lies, deception, leaks and cover-ups performed by the White House in the lead-up to the Iraq War.

You can read the report here, and I highly suggest you do.

Rep. Conyers’ tireless efforts in researching the truth – whether it be election irregularities or deceiving the American people into going to war – makes me so proud to say I’m from Detroit (even though he’s not actually my congressperson)

BTW… Barron’s (one of the nation’s great conservative rags) is now using the “i” word (impeachment) over this NSA spying deal – imagine that! I think this Administration’s darkest days are still ahead.

My brother and father spent yesterday at the movies. They had a marathon day planned, so my mother and I had some time to ourselves. We spent our time at the DIA and Historical Museum. You really should go check out the two special exhibits going on.

The DIA has Claudel and Rodin until February 5th. The Historical Museum will have the exhibit featuring costumes worn by the Supremes until February 12th. Both exhibits are good date fodder or just rainy day adventures.

So are you going?

As we end 2005, we also welcome city #40 to the Metroblogging family – Mumbai! (Mumbai is the city formerly known as Bombay).

I’ll ask my younger brother if he has any photos from his adventures in Mumbai a few years back.