It is a cruel law of the universe or a joke of the county road works division to put a stop sign at the bottom of every hill.
It never fails that after you crank up a hill risking a heart attack or heat stroke and you finally get to glide down the other side in the cooling breeze looking forward to the free wheeling ride of coasting for a half mile or more at the bottom you see a stop sign with cross traffic. You squeeze your break levers until the veins in your hands burst and your finger joints dislocate while you hope your break cables can take the strain and that your brake pads don't melt. After you come to a stop often five feet into traffic you have to wobble next to the curve waiting for the light to change or the side traffic to yield. Then without sufficient time to recover you wobble through the intersection still gasping for breath grinding your way through gears. Thinking, "If only I could have kept going on when I had the speed," and looking up before you is a hill which you could have coasted over like a carnival ride if you didn't have to stop.
I do not doubt that some committee in a secret bunker under city hall has a good reason for the stop sign policy, (doubtless out of fear of aliens from Mars invading on Schwinn bicycles). No matter how founded their fears are I feel personally affronted by the practice. Couldn't they have a sign stopping the cross traffic so cars could take a peek to see if there are any semis thundering down the incline and if the way is clear they can dash across the intersection and get on with their travels?
I suspect it is an arrangement with a brother of someone who works at city hall, a brother who paints stop signs and needs a market for them so city hall says "George is a good guy who buys us beer on Fridays and wine on Christmas, so lets give him a little something." and you have stop signs at every corner.
When you have brothers painting stop signs you have no choice but stop at the bottom of every hill or else you will find a four way stop at every drive way across town. You can't fight city hall because you will never get through all the stop signs to get there.
It never fails that after you crank up a hill risking a heart attack or heat stroke and you finally get to glide down the other side in the cooling breeze looking forward to the free wheeling ride of coasting for a half mile or more at the bottom you see a stop sign with cross traffic. You squeeze your break levers until the veins in your hands burst and your finger joints dislocate while you hope your break cables can take the strain and that your brake pads don't melt. After you come to a stop often five feet into traffic you have to wobble next to the curve waiting for the light to change or the side traffic to yield. Then without sufficient time to recover you wobble through the intersection still gasping for breath grinding your way through gears. Thinking, "If only I could have kept going on when I had the speed," and looking up before you is a hill which you could have coasted over like a carnival ride if you didn't have to stop.
I do not doubt that some committee in a secret bunker under city hall has a good reason for the stop sign policy, (doubtless out of fear of aliens from Mars invading on Schwinn bicycles). No matter how founded their fears are I feel personally affronted by the practice. Couldn't they have a sign stopping the cross traffic so cars could take a peek to see if there are any semis thundering down the incline and if the way is clear they can dash across the intersection and get on with their travels?
I suspect it is an arrangement with a brother of someone who works at city hall, a brother who paints stop signs and needs a market for them so city hall says "George is a good guy who buys us beer on Fridays and wine on Christmas, so lets give him a little something." and you have stop signs at every corner.
When you have brothers painting stop signs you have no choice but stop at the bottom of every hill or else you will find a four way stop at every drive way across town. You can't fight city hall because you will never get through all the stop signs to get there.
