Two letters on traffic: dangerous roundabout, helpful deputy

Here's what your neighbors are talking about.


  • By
  • | 6:20 a.m. October 28, 2021
  • Palm Coast Observer
  • Opinion
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Drivers need to yield at roundabouts

Dear Editor:

At the Matanzas Woods Parkway-U.S. 1 roundabout, they put in those crossing buttons that were suppose to get drivers to yield right of way to people crossing road. Doesn’t happen!

I decided to ride up both sides of the U.S. 1 trail and crossed from the east side to the west side. Not a single car slowed or stopped even when I was in the cross walk; I had to back off three times before I finally crossed when there was no traffic in sight.

On the way back from west to east, after I tried to cross for about five minutes, a dump truck driver stopped, and I started to cross, only to have to back off again because a driver swerved around him and would have hit me.

People are so unfamiliar with roundabouts that they pay more attention on how to navigate them than to pay any attention to pedestrians trying to cross. If you crossed like most people do, expecting cars to stop, this would be a major kill zone. I will continue to cross at the parking lot about half way between Palm Coast Parkway and Matanzas — no cross walk, but much safer. A traffic light like at County Road 206 would have cost less and been much safer. I am a bicyclist with 45 years’ experience.

Martin Vickers II

Palm Coast

 

Thanks to the deputy who stopped to help

Dear Editor:

I couldn't get the bolts off my license plate to change it on my car, so I carried the new tag around with me in the front seat. Yesterday, on my way home from the doctor, a deputy pulled me over in front of the hospital, and. as he walked up alongside the passenger car, I leaned over the passenger window and handed the plate. He said, “Oh, you've got it.” I said, “I knew what you were coming for.”

I explained the situation to him, and he said, “Well, I have a screwdriver and pliers in the trunk of my car. Let me see if I can't put it on for you.”

He proceeded, on the side of the road at 11 a.m., with cars flying by, to change my license plate for me. What a fine young man.

I trust my life with the deputies of the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office, and I have for many years. I will continue to do so. It was just a beautiful gesture on his part.

For all the terrible things they endure mentally and physically, for them to be able to do something like this to help somebody who really really appreciated, it has to make them feel as good as it made me feel. Again whoever you are out there, God bless you and thank you.

Lizbeth Alberts

Palm Coast

 

Send letters to [email protected].

 

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