We can complain to each other, but it’s better to actually do something

The story of a guy who decided to make an intersection safer.

There’s a dangerous turn on a popular road near Birmingham that, according to Strava, I’ve done 775 times. I used to worry about it every time. It’s midway down a descent on Old Leeds Road where you turn left onto Cherokee Road. The speed limit as you approach the turn drops from 30 mph to 25. But no one is going 25. Even on my bike I’m often over 30. Cars are going at least that fast. I know because they pass me. The average speed for the fastest descent on a bike is 43.5 mph.

He probably could have given me a speeding ticket.

Did I mention this left turn is also in a blind curve? Cars coming up the hill come around a curve, appearing as if from thin air. At just 30 mph we’re each traveling 44 feet per second. Two cars — or a car and a bike — approaching each other at that speed close an 88 foot gap in one second. Barely enough time for a driver to look up from their phone.

Here’s a video of the intersection in 2022, years before the lights were installed:

I’ve worried about this turn for more than a decade and done nothing. My friend Eric Riddle worried, but he did something about it.

First he called another cyclist, Darrell O’Quinn, who is serving his third term on the Birmingham City Council. But since the intersection is in the neighboring city of Mountain Brook, Darrell referred Eric to someone there. It took a while, but Eric found the right person. And the city decided to do a time and motion study even though Eric doesn’t live in Mountain Brook. What they found wouldn’t surprise anyone who rides that road.

Cars routinely exceed the speed limit in both directions, reducing the reaction time required for drivers to avoid a collision and making that bad outcome more likely. The results of the study justified the city installing warning lights at the intersection at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars. But that’s a bargain when you consider what could happen without them.

So now when we bomb down Old Leeds, we have plenty of warning about oncoming traffic before we make that left. It can still be tricky — and you can’t count on cutting the corner because you can’t always see whether there’s a car on the left coming. But it’s infinitely safer.

It made me think about an intersection just half a mile from our house. A busy road where drivers routinely speed, and a blind left turn where you can’t see oncoming traffic until the last second. There was a pretty bad car crash there a couple of months ago. And I haven’t done anything. Yet. I had coffee with Eric this morning, and I’ll be getting in touch with our city officials first thing Monday.

Is there something you’re complaining about but not doing anything to solve?