Traffic Laws

Long time, no see! I am so sorry for the delay in posting, but life is catching me and passing me as the days go by.

As many, if not all, of you know, I am in the midst of a CPE internship at New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington. I drive to NH twice a week at least and then again when I'm on call. I've been amazed at the traffic infractions I see along the way. Now, again, as most of you know, I am not above breaking a traffic law myself, but one does learn after a pink slip falls into your lap with a pricetag of $145.

However, I drive through a relatively new development on my way which has new turning lanes. It's quite interesting but also very different than what we're used to. I think they call them Michigan turning lanes. You pull into the lane and make half a U-turn then wait for the light to change. This is pretty self-explanatory, right? Well, then there is the situation of a right turn. When you leave the Wal-Mart parking lot, you much make a right turn no matter which direction you want to go. Now, here's the catch. The red light is a red arrow which means, NO TURN ON RED!!!!!

So, I'm sitting in the lane, waiting for the light to turn green and this BOZO blows his horn at me to go ahead. Well, having just given the state of NC a little funding for traffic violations, I'm not keen on doing it anytime soon, so I sit there. The longer I sit, the more he blows his horn. By this time I'm getting the giggles and the man behind me is getting red faced. Because, you see, the folks in the other lane are turning on red.

You can imagine his frustration with me, but if he knew the traffic laws in NC, then he would be very patient with me ............ or use the other lane.