Ground Control

Today, the street next to my house is closed.  It's a busy street that connects the east end of my town and all of the towns east of me to the center of Our Small City.  There are houses, an office park, a gas station, a Girl Scout Camp, a Community Farm, Bentley University, a Private School, a baseball field (which is hosting a big fair today), and two historic estates (Lyman and Stonehurst, the Paine Estate) along the two mile length of the road.  And it is closed, which is annoying and inconvenient and a pain in the arse.  

But that's not what this is about.  No, what this is about is the police details that accompany every single construction project everywhere ever.

I am a supporter of community police and I think that, in general, police have a pretty crappy job and that they should be able to supplement their income with overtime.  Also, having police presence along a gridlocked road probably goes a long way to stop people from actively killing each other while trying to cut in front of cars in a lane closure.  The police are very helpful at directing traffic.  When they do that.

What bugs me is how many of the police officers stationed at construction sites do NOT direct traffic or assist motorists in any way.  Instead, they WATCH the construction.  As if they are supervising the work.  Their backs are typically turned away from the traffic which they are supposed to be directing and they are watching the diggers and the jackhammers and the guys who are in the holes in the ground.  Meanwhile, there are jackaninnies trying to avoid the delay by DRIVING ON SIDEWALKS or making U-turns in the middle of intersections with pedestrian crosswalks or driving up in the Left Turn Only lane and then trying to cut into the right lane because the jackaninnies are MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANYONE ELSE.

Instead of observing the construction workers, I would like to see the police officers ARREST THE JACKANINNIES and put them in Bad Driver Jail, which will teach them a Thing.

Or, the police officers could just direct the traffic.