A little while ago one of my colleagues at work told me that at about 0845 this morning he saw a cyclist trying to make a properly positioned and legal left turn from Diamond onto Pajarito and was repeatedly harassed by a following white pickup truck operator who was tailing him and repeatedly blasting his truck horn. So the white truck was apparently headed down the Pajarito corridor.
According to the law, that motorist could have been, at minimum, cited for Sec. 38-545, (f) No person shall operate a motor vehicle in such a manner as to harass or endanger the operator of a bicycle.
If this is due to the morning snarl on Diamond, it might also be worth reminding the work force via official Laboratory channels that to minimize construction delays and frayed nerves, (here quoting the Diamond Construction Web site) "...Alternative options (to the multitude of single occupant vehicles clogging the construction zone) include minimizing the number of vehicles on Diamond Drive by riding Atomic City Transit, carpooling, or flexing schedules when possible. "
One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Most of the traffic I saw yesterday and my wife saw today in the construction zone quagmire was in single-occupant motor vehicles. Its not likely we will reduce the traffic snafus if everyone out there keeps pretending we don't have a seriously constricted construction zone out there for the near future and modify our habits appropriately.
At minimum, single-occupant vehicle operators ought to put some soothing music on the vehicle CD player and just ride it out. Wal-Mart pays a lot less than most of the jobs at the Laboratory, and as we know, the DOE clearance people don't look kindly on arrests.
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