How safety forces hose the public

摘要

There has been a big change in the way safety forces respond to routine fender-benders, at least where I live. When I drive to the office, I use a freeway having four lanes in each direction. Initially, if there was a fender-bender, a single police car would show up, and as soon as possible, the police would have the damaged vehicles moved to the shoulder so that all four lanes would remain open to traffic. Then, a fire-department ambulance began snowing up with the police car regardless of whether or not anyone was injured. (As an aside, I'll mention that the police also began to leave the vehicles wherever they collided, apparently unmindful of the terrible traffic tie-ups this creates.) Next, two police cars began showing up along with the ambulance. Then a fire truck began showing up along with the ambulance and two police cars. With all these vehicles spread over the highway, every minor collision essentially shut down the freeway.