Why does it seem that in the Santa Clarita Valley and surrounding areas we are witnessing what seems to be a huge upturn in serious auto accidents that we are reading about every day in The Mighty Signal? I have a theory: Simply put, we are all having to deal with “too much darn traffic” and too many frustrated drivers trying to commute through the SCV becoming irritated with their inability to maintain some sort of decent forward rate of travel! And why is this so? I believe we are over-building here in the SCV. With every new home or business comes more people that bring many more vehicles per household, and per business, and also way more traffic than this valley can efficiently handle. With excess traffic comes excess frustration, and now all of our traffic signs and traffic lights are becoming merely a “suggestion.
” That is, you can go faster than the posted speed limit, you can drive as crazy as you think you can get away with, you can run red lights, you can do a rolling stop at stop signs, etc. God forbid you should try to keep a safe driving distance behind the vehicle in front of you, because if you leave more than just one car-length distance this will allow crazy drivers the ability to cut in front of you, which most of us give into just to be courteous. Some will signal then come on over while others just cut you off knowing that you’ll back off and let them in or risk damaging both vehicles.
It’s like drivers are playing some sort of a computer race car game, seeing who can cut who off and continue on down the road speeding or driving erratically. Pent-up frustration on the driver’s part? Maybe. I suppose it’s best to just relax and drive defensively because, sadly, road rage is but a heartbeat away for some drivers.
No need to “poke the bear” when driving. Checking in your rear view mirror constantly also will scare you to death because sometimes the car behind you is literally within inches of your bumper and you are praying you don’t have to stop quickly or those behind you will be entombed in the rear end of your vehicle. And all of this craziness is happening sometimes at way in excess of the posted speed limits.
It’s like running a NASCAR race on the high banks of the Daytona Speedway every time you leave the house. You’ve literally got someone “drafting” on your bumper attempting to “make the pass” speeding to the checkered flag. Why do some folks have to drive their cars like they stole it? I’ve lived here since 1976 and I’ve never seen so much crazy traffic, especially where I live up “Bouquet Canyon Speedway” (and sometimes Parking Lot depending on the time of day) where you literally take your life in your hands every time you leave your driveway.
It isn’t much better on our canyon roads up here, either. You are constantly being inundated to “go faster or get the hell out the way.” You had better be prepared to stay with the “Big Dogs” through the curves and into the straightaways or risk possibly being given the “Middle Finger Salute” for impeding their right to drive/ride as fast as they want.
I actually had that happen to me by a bunch of crazy sports motorcycle riders. Guess they didn’t like Corvettes on that day. These once beautiful sprawling hills surrounding the SCV are now lit up at night with homes and I fear this craziness isn’t going to end until we’ve managed to “bottleneck” ourselves into so much traffic that we literally couldn’t get out of this valley were there an emergency (earthquake?) if we had to! What once took me only seven to 10 minutes to travel from Bouquet and Seco canyon roads just a few years ago now takes over 25 minutes, sometimes longer if you catch every red light to Highway 14, and especially if you happen to catch a slow-moving freight train crossing Railroad Avenue.
Then you might as well just turn your engine off and enjoy the view because you ain’t going anywhere quickly on that day as the traffic backs up clear to Lyons Avenue. Getting across the SCV, east to west or vice versa, at certain times of the day is maddening, too, taking an inordinate amount of time having to stop for every intersection and God only knows the SCV is the No. 1 place in all of Southern California for the most traffic lights in a town or city.
Now I know why they are often called “stop lights” instead of traffic lights, because everyone in all four directions is stopping for longer periods of time due to excess amounts of traffic flowing onto these roads at any given time allowing a much slower, albeit not always safer, traffic flow. Pure frustration sets in as we wait in our vehicles for the next green light and if the first vehicle in line has a driver not paying attention (on their cell phones or worse, texting) it can be maddening because not everyone is going to “make the light”and that can lead to even more anxiety as you contemplate going through a yellow light or even a red light as I’ve seen happen so many times lately. Looking at your watch or clock in your vehicle you sometimes think to yourself, “I’m going to be late for my appointment even though I left in plenty of time, what’s going on here?” What’s going here is that we are experiencing uncontrolled growth of the SCV and surrounding areas, on all four points of the compass, too many people in too many vehicles for the amount of roads we have.
I’ll just bet my next Social Security check that it isn’t going get any better. No sir, I can see it getting worse, almost by the day! Maybe it’s time to slow the growth factor down, here in the SCV. Stop the over-building for a while.
Let’s try to control what we’ve managed to build for the amount of people we currently have living and working in this still popular valley. Stop trying to cover every square inch of available open land with homes and new businesses. And in the meantime try to control the flow of traffic better in every direction because I believe one day we might all possibly need one of our amazing first responders and they’ll need to be able to get to you or your loved ones in a lifesaving amount of time, and from what I’ve been seeing lately at peak traffic hours at our overcrowded intersections, they’re having a tough time making it through them on their way to the hospital or to and from an emergency, sirens and lights going or not.
If the intersection is crowded it can be a dangerous place to traverse as we’ve seen a few months ago as one of our local sheriff’s black-and-white patrol cars got totaled, being hit broadside by another car who somehow didn’t observe everyone else stopping for the sheriff’s vehicle. This could have been a fatality type of an accident, but thank God it wasn’t. Let’s find a better, safer way of moving traffic in the SCV.
It’ll be a big job, of course. Lots of advanced planning, more roads with better accesses, and that’ll take a lot of money, always the deciding factor when planning anything for the populace. So, will “the powers that be” actually help to make this happen, to help stop the pent-up frustration of moving slower and with less efficiently through this valley, and will we continue to have to have to put up with what I feel is now a substandard, irritating and unsafe way of controlling traffic flow though the SCV? I know it’s a big job.
I know the Planning Commission means well and is doing their best, but things as they are today, to me are unacceptable if not downright dangerous at times as we watch these deadly and horrendous accidents happen almost daily. Please, be courteous to your fellow drivers because the life you save may be your own or a loved family member, or a good friend or maybe just someone who would like to safely make it home tonight. Stay safe, everyone.
Rich LaGrasta Valencia.
