Apparently being overly courteous on the road – something regular readers of this column know by now as random acts of safety – is nothing new in these parts.
Just ask Everett’s Don McLees.
It was 30 years ago that McLees wrote a book about good driving behavior. He dedicated a whole chapter to drivers whose attempts at politeness create confusion that leads to accidents.
Who knew there was someone right here in Everett sharing a topic so near and dear to me?
A retired engineer and inventor, the author dropped by the newsroom the other day to tell me that my random acts of safety columns took him down memory lane. He brought with him a dusty cardboard box.
When I cracked it open I found a musty manuscript entitled “Dynamic Driving.”
“I haven’t even read it in 20 years,” McLees said. In fact, no one has read it since then because the book was never published.
McLees thought he had a deal to publish the 152 pages and 40,000 words, but that deal petered out, leaving the book shelved for all those years.
As soon as I got it, I flipped right to the chapter titled “To hell with courtesy … sometimes.”
“Mutual courtesy between drivers is sometimes a necessity for survival, but it must not be overdone,” McLees wrote. “There are many situations in which an overdose of courtesy may be lethal.”
Things haven’t changed much since 1976. The first bad driving habit McLees mentions in his book still plays out in front of his downtown Everett home.
A driver in the far right lane sees that McLees is waiting to cross Everett Avenue. The driver waves at him to cross, not realizing he could be sentencing McLees to death.
“For all the driver who is passing knows, the car or truck (doing the waving) could be slowing to turn,” McLees writes. “And the pedestrian’s view of the passing car is also obscured.”
To this day, McLees always refuses the friendly waves, a decision that usually gets him a hard stare or an unfriendly gesture.
Can speed limit be cut?
Question: We live on 40th Avenue W. in Lynnwood. Our cross street to the north is 148th Street SW and to the south is Highway 99.
Our road is used as a shortcut from Highway 99 to 148th to avoid a traffic light at Safeway. The 35-mph speed limit was set before all the houses and condo complexes were built here. Can the speed be reduced to 25 mph?
Elaine Edwards, Lynnwood
Answer: A traffic study showed that 90 percent of 1,600 weekday drivers actually drove slower than 35 mph on 40th Avenue W. The number of cars surveyed is also in line with the number of dwellings on the roadway, so cut-through traffic is minimal.
Since the roadway is being used primarily by residents and there is no pattern of speed related collisions, we believe that the current speed limit is the best speed for the street.
Chris Eaves, Snohomish County traffic investigator
Reporter Lukas Velush: 425-339-3449 or stsmarts@heraldnet.com.
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