My recent column about the rampant disregard of red lights – along with other basic rules of the road – generated a lot of in-box traffic. As I wrote, it’s not strictly a Plymouth problem, but since this is where we live, it’s where we drive the most, and why we care more.
Of the 60 or so emails I’ve received, most have been along the lines of “I’m glad someone is finally writing about this.” But in what is, unfortunately, a sign of our tenuous times, many people said they did not want me to publish their names, fearing retribution from the police. I don’t believe officers would react that way – they have plenty more to deal with – but I get it. “Paranoia strikes deep,” as the Buffalo Springfield sang back in 1967. (Check it out, kids.)
Since I’ve had my say on the issue, this time I’m, uh, yielding to readers’ views.
The “it’s all about me” attitude of some motorists has been a common theme of emailers.
“I go crazy all day witnessing these selfish drivers,” wrote Sherman Gellar. “It goes along with an accepted attitude of getting an edge on our daily life transactions even if our fellow man is harmed by our selfishness.”
“I do think overall traffic has gotten worse in the past 10 years or so,” said a reader whose email subject line was “Bad driving in Plymouth and Massachusetts.”
“It’s kind of like when I grew up honesty was the best policy,” she added. “Today it’s about speed and greed.
Patti Weston was among the ranks of readers who didn’t mind their name being published. “I travel up Pilgrim Hill Road daily and take my left onto Summer St. The number of times a car speeds through the red light on Summer Street is frightening,” she wrote. “And even if they have a green light and take the left onto Pilgrim Hill Road, they do it at full speed and barely miss the car stopped at the red light on Pilgrim Hill Road. They perform more of a drift than an actual left turn. It is frightening out there for sure. It’s a ‘rules are for other people’ mentality that seems to be growing.”
Ana Chapin wrote to say that the “police department’s hands-off approach” to reckless driving is “really concerning.” But she disagreed with one of my theories for why motorists are so impatient – I wrote that they’re frustrated by increased traffic congestion on roads built when the town had fewer people.
“If you look into the concept of induced demand as it relates to traffic, you’ll see there’s quite a bit of research out there that suggests widening roads/adding lanes only makes traffic worse, not better,” Chapin said. “I do fully agree that the normalization of huge cars has contributed to people’s feelings of invincibility on the road, though. I also think there’s just a general post-pandemic sense of ‘everyone for themselves’ in the air these days.”
A few readers didn’t appreciate a joking reference I made to incoming vice president J.D. Vance. (The column was a commentary backed by reporting, but the Vance crack was purely my opinion.)
“Why the jab at J.D. Vance in an article about red light infractions?” one wrote. “I guess it’s his fault. Any wonder people are fed up with ‘the press?’”
Another reader called my mention of Vance “bizarre.” “There was no reason for this gratuitous shot in this article,” he said. “…I agree with you that driving in eastern Massachusetts is extremely dangerous. However, it isn’t a political issue, so your politics shouldn’t have been inserted into the piece.”
This reader saw it a bit differently: “I think you hit the nail on the head re: the increase in blatant disregard for the law – our divisive country and a ‘you’re first after me’ attitude,” he wrote. “My biggest complaint is the disregard for yield signs, especially when entering, say, Route 3 from a ramp. The expectation is that the vehicles in the travel lane are to move over or slow down and allow the driver on the ramp to enter the highway and that’s obviously not the law. I’ve driven in many other states and most drivers will even stop when approaching the highway from a ramp.”
But the prime concern for many people was Flynn’s reticence. He agreed only to answer questions by email and declined to respond to follow ups. Instead, he had Casey Kennedy, the town’s new communications director, reply. “No further responses will be provided to follow-up inquiries regarding this topic at this time,” she said in an email.
This reader, however, was pleased that the topic was addressed on the PI site: Red-light running “has been bothering me and I was so happy to see someone bring it to print,” she said. “I was disappointed in the police chief’s lack of interest, though.”
A reader who confessed to having once received a ticket from Plymouth police for a rolling stop infraction, wrote: “Thank you for addressing this problem. What’s extremely disappointing is the dismissive responses that you received pertaining to the questions you posed to the Chief of Police as well as from the director of communications. Concerning one of your questions, the chief’s response was rather pathetic, as he basically said that it’s up to each patrol to deal with this…I appreciate this article, but as usual it just falls on deaf ears to our safety officials.”
This email was in a similar vein: “That is not the way that the press should be treated.”
And this one, too: “The police chief’s responses were extremely disappointing, to say the least.”
It wasn’t only drivers who complained about the “wild streets” of Plymouth.
“I walk from my property to Long Beach five times a week,” one man wrote. “I cannot tell you how dangerous this is. People are driving at such high speeds that I fear for my life when I need to cross the road. No one observes the yield signs nor slows down.”
Also, two people wrote to say that motorcyclists are particularly vulnerable when pickups and other gigantic vehicles disregard traffic signals. A bike rider has less chance of surviving a collision with a Ram 1500 than Mike Tyson did of winning that “fight” last Friday night.
Social media comments on the column – and there were hundreds – covered a wide range of opinions. Sadly, but not surprisingly, some mined familiar anti-immigrant/racist territory (“I don’t think the people that recently got their licenses have traffic lights in their home country.”)
Blowing through red lights is “the newest sport,” someone wrote on Facebook. “Yellow signals, go faster. Red signal, hell, I got 5 seconds before the driver on the cross street can respond, go even faster. Not unusual to see up to 5 vehicles zip through after the light turns red.”
Another poster suggested a way for the town to generate revenue while making the roads safer.
“All the police have to do is sit across the street from Dunks in Tracy’s Chev dealership and watch for the exit of the left turners against the big “No Left Turn” sign,” he wrote. “They’ll make a month’s quota (I know you don’t have a quota) in two hours.”
But it was this online comment that perhaps best illustrates the challenge facing police when it comes to traffic law enforcement, and the risks facing drivers who just want to travel from point A to point B without getting broadsided: “I’ll run reds on long pond rd. I live .25 miles from Home Depot, I hit every red without fail leaving the plaza. It’ll take me 15 mins to go a quarter mile.”
Sadly, that is how some people in Plymouth now define “personal freedom.”
Unlike our news stories, this piece includes the author’s opinions, along with his reporting, which is why it’s labeled “commentary.” Mark Pothier can be reached at mark@plymouthindependent.org.