respublica

Ladders lead

Just an FYI

Mattresses 2

Ladders 3

2020 's first tally

Mattresses 1

Ladders 1

Mattresses and Ladders year end final total

It's interesting to keep a casual notice of the number of mattresses and ladders which fall on St. Louis roads. However, it's not just for fun, it's also useful so that we become aware of the vehicles around us. We tend to drive more defensively when we see cars and trucks loaded with things that could fall around us. The important thing to realize is that many more of these probably fell and weren't reported.

At the end of 2019 the final tally of these two things which fell is:

Mattresses 134

Ladders 136

This is a rare win for ladders.

Last year the final total for 2018 was Mattresses 136 Ladders 115

Back to the tally

Late yesterday afternoon a mattress hit the road on 143 near Edwardsville.

Mattresses 131

Ladders 127

Gas prices

This is in aid of nothing really, but we found it interesting. As we left the campus last night heading for Ted Drewes to get our Christmas tree, we passed numerous gas stations. The first was the Big Amoco famous for its huge sign and continuing on past stations on McCausland and Jamison. The prices ranged from 34 cents a gallon to 25 to 33 to 31 and 25 again.  Each being 2 dollars and change. We thought those were quite the variation in price for such a short distance between each one.

It had to have something to do with what municipality each station was in and the taxes each required. Still, 2.34 cents a gallon was certainly lower than what we saw in Collinsville yesterday.

As to Ted Drewes, it was packed with people. We innocently believed that after a long day of various church things, leaving at 5:30 after a beautiful Advent service put on by our students, the crowds would be less than during the day. We were so wrong. There were long lines at all the frozen custard windows, cars parked everywhere, and many other people looking for trees. But we found our tree immediately which is rare.

I was reminded by Facebook yesterday that on the same date in 2012 we were again at Ted Drewes getting our tree. The photo made me happy and sad all at the same time.

We often took Ferdie with us to get our tree at Ted Drewes. I miss him so much, especially seeing this picture with him and a smile.

 

The last month of the year

Playing catch up after the Thanksgiving long weekend. Here is the tally to begin the last month of the year.

Mattresses 126

Ladders 130

Last year in mid December the tally stood at Mattresses 126 and Ladders 112 so we are a bit ahead of mattresses this year and well ahead of ladders.

Taking on MoDOT

This is one of those news stories that made me stop and cheer. It's about time. "A state lawmaker from eastern Missouri is criticizing what he calls the state Department of Transportation’s (MoDOT’s) incompetence, for its handling of the Veterans Day winter storm."  State Rep, NIck Schoer of O'Fallon wants MoDOT to examine how other states handle snow, including the chemicals they’re using. Schroer says the agency wasn’t ready for the storm.

If you remember that cold, wet, icy, snowy burst of winter weather during afternoon rush hour, you'll remember how many accidents and hours it took for drivers to get home. Meanwhile, those drivers heading east related that when they finally got into Illinois they found the roads very drive-able. And yet, MoDOT responds to Schoer's comments with all kinds of excuses and talk of how much they did.

I've said the same thing as Rep Schoer for some years. It only takes living in Missouri for a bit to realize MoDOT does not get its roads free of ice and snow like Illinois does and, probably many other states. On this blog I've practically begged MoDOT to go over to the Collinsville IDOT headquarters and learn what they do to the winter roads that Missouri does not.

Here is a post I wrote on just this issue from the past February.

Red light cameras coming back?

St. Louis Mayor Krewson is considering bringing back the red light cameras which were eliminated in 2015.  She has statistics which show that since the cameras were removed 171 people were killed in roadway accidents. The number of pedestrians killed by cars rose by 54 percent.

We've noticed an uptick in cars running red lights recently. In our area we see this on Clayton road and Big Bend every day. You have to wait after your light turns green to make sure there isn't a car in the other lane direction whose driver stepped on the gas well before the intersection to speed through a light which was turning red. It is totally red before the car completes the intersection. We've seen this enough that waiting a second or two when our light turns green is best for safety. 

It's hard to say why so many are zooming through lights that are turning red. It may be that our area and many other St. Louis streets have too many lights. Many streets have stoplights block after block after block and it does become frustrating when the sync is off and you find yourself never getting a string of green lights. I do believe the timing sync should be looked at in many places. For instance, at Clayton Road and Bellevue and Clayton and Demun (our exits from campus) have terrible timing. Clayton Road green lights go on a long time but the exit streets are lucky to get 5 seconds. Seriously. In many parts of the day getting onto Clayton Road across from St. Mary's means sitting through at least 2 series of long red lights as lots of traffic from the hospital stream through.

In any event, there is much more red light running right now and if bringing back those cameras will help, I'm all for it.

3 flying ladders

On Saturday night 3 ladders flew off a truck onto 55 near Weber Road. How would you like to have been behind that guy.

Ladders 122

Mattresses 118

End of week tally with quite the jump

Mattresses 118

Ladders 117

5 mattresses and 6 ladders since the last report