COVID Fallout
So yesterday, Wednesday, I was driving south on Ramsdell toward Honolulu, right near Jeremy’s Coffee Shop. I saw the traffic signal, which is usually red, was actually green. Thankfully, I didn’t speed up because a man, totally oblivious to my approach, stepped into the middle of the street (not in the crosswalk) while talking on his phone. Though I had to slam on my brakes, the man didn’t even look up much less react to a car bearing down on him.
Of course by the time he got across the street to his truck the light had turned and I had to wait a full cycle before getting the green go ahead.
I was mad when I got into the office – not a good thing on production day when all focus should be on the paper. I shared with Mary O’Keefe and our office manager Rachelle what had happened and Mary attributed it to “COVID fallout.”
As we come out of quarantine, people, she opined, are no longer expecting to see others out and about at the same level that we were before the pandemic. We talked about the possibility that this, too, could be why there are more incidents of road rage. For over a year we didn’t have a lot of traffic on the road and now it is back, causing delays and stress.
It seems like a valid reason to me.
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Wasn’t Monday night’s chase unbelievable? I live north of Foothill Boulevard and it sounded like helicopters were going to land on my rooftop. My son Danny and his wife Tricia were arriving back home, moving from Georgia, and were surprised to see the drama taking place in their hometown. (Don’t worry, honey, this doesn’t happen very often.)
Not surprisingly, Mary O’Keefe was on the scene of the pursuit’s end and had the chance to talk to some of LAPD’s finest while waiting to see what the suspect would do (he wouldn’t come out of his car for about an hour). The officer mentioned what a nice place Glendale was.
“We’re not in Glendale,” Mary corrected him, though there were Glendale officers on scene.
The officer was confused, so Mary pointed west, way down the boulevard, where Pennsylvania Avenue is located.
“That’s Glendale,” she told him explaining that the pursuit ended in the unincorporated portion of Los Angeles County – La Crescenta.
It could have been worse; earlier one of the TV news media outlets said the pursuit ended at La Crescenta Avenue and Foothill Boulevard … in Pasadena!
Sigh.