Would love to cross-reference this with demographic data

Impetus: Kars 4 Kids conducts survey to determine grades of courtesy of all 50 United States

I came across this article that declared Georgia amongst the rudest drivers in America, so I was curious to what the criteria actually entailed.  Ultimately, the sample size was way, way, way too small at 2,500 correspondents considering the fact that the United States has a population of nearly 320 million, so I don’t think this is nearly that accurate of a survey.

Especially the ranking of Maryland, which somehow scrapes into the top-half of the spectrum as “friendlier” drivers, because the reality is that Maryland has some of the worst drivers on the planet who would rather let entire third-world nations die of genocide before letting you merge in front of them.

However, it’s still not entirely inaccurate either, and despite the strokes being very wide and broad, it’s still entertaining to see the obvious correspondence with stuff like population densities and demographics in relation to how certain places graded.

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Now it’s time to party

Honestly, I’ve lost track of all the contents of all the trucks that have overturned, crashed and dumped their contents all over Georgia highways.  I remember off the top of my head the hams, some potatoes, a few beer trucks, and the recent spilling of watermelons all over the highway, but the intricate list of everything I’ve posted in the past is kind of forgotten in the time being while my site is still mostly offline.

So my general intentions of trying to see what ingredients were available, that might be able to pair or mix with the truck full of Jack Daniels that overturned on the ramp to I-75 south this morning is not really going to happen, but if anything at all, we can simply add a liquor truck to the hall of pain of rogues to have crashed and dumped all their shit onto the roads.

The funny thing about this particular situation is that given its location, near a lot of bougie, WASPy area is the speed in which this was taken care of.  At the time of me writing about this, the truck has already been uprighted, and will probably be towed off and cleared by the time I’m done vomiting words about the incident.  Coincidentally, all those who contributed to the expedient resolution of the incident just might be absconding with any unbroken cargo, and when loss prevention tries to inventory the payload, they’ll just be deemed lost assets.

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Too easy

Readers formerly known as my six readers might know that I have this strange fascination with trucks full of food stuffs crashing on the highway.  And throughout the years, especially in Georgia, we’ve seen quite a smorgasbord of food overturned onto the roads, from hams, beer, potato chips, more beer and turkeys spilled in magnificent messes, due to mostly the negligence of the drivers of these delectable consumables.

And throughout it all, I’ve always had something to say about each such incident, mostly overly sarcastic remarks about how the food spilled onto Georgia highways could amount to one massive banquet had the food not been declared inedible on account of it spilling onto asphalt.

But this incident, with a truck full of watermelons spilling onto the I-85/I-985 split up in Suwanee?  I got nothing.  Sometimes, there are some things that just write themselves, or the pictures do all the talking, and when a truck full of watermelons dumps its entire load onto the highways, resulting a temporary but complete closure of the road so that GDOT crews can basically sweep red sticky sweet slush and rinds off of the road, there’s really not much to add, without the humor going very inappropriate in the process.

What a visual though.  It’s absolutely everything that you’d expect to see upon hearing a watermelon spill.  I’d imagine that if I were trying to leave the city northbound, and then came to a complete standstill for reasons unknown, I’d probably eventually become livid.  But upon the even the eventual crawl through of ground zero, and seeing wet roads, red slush and rinds all over the shoulders, I’d probably end up laughing maniacally at the ironic reveal.

Whatever though, add it to the list!  Watermelons.  Might make a decent dessert option in the never ending buffet of food lost to the Georgia highway system.

Obvious answers to obvious questions

CBS46 Atlanta asks: How will MARTA ridership change with I-85 open? In spite of Keith Parker’s diabolical efforts to destroy roads, induce sinkholes, and cause agonizing gridlock throughout Atlanta roads to boost MARTA ridership, the answer to the question is about as obvious as finding out Cobb taxpayers will be on the hook for some Braves-related expenses despite countless promises that they wouldn’t.

Errbody ‘gon get their asses back in their cars and back on the streets and in no time, clog up I-85 and sit in traffic rather than ride MARTA.

I mean, the proof is already in the pudding, as it’s not even been one full day, and MARTA stations are reporting a wealth of available parking spaces, despite the fact that just weeks ago, ridership was up massively and warranted the need for additional parking.  In that regard, I actually kind of feel bad for MARTA, because they seemed to go all-in with trying to improve service and become the commuting savior the city needed, even if they probably were the ones behind it in the first place.

But $3.1 million reasons existed why the I-85 repairs were going to get done ahead of schedule, and I have to imagine a guy like Keith Parker is incensed with the notion that such a generous bonus came into play to get people to actually do their jobs in an expedient manner.  He did so much, destroying roads, causing gridlock as well as improving MARTA ridership, and now the whole plan kind of goes to pot now that I-85 was repaired as fast as it was.  It wasn’t even adequate time for riders to reinforce and get used to MARTA being the norm, and their asses are already back in cars, preferring to slog through traffic and have the freedom that cars bring, rather than ride MARTA.

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Who knew how loudly money spoke?

Shocker of the year: I-85 announced to be opening Monday morning, tremendously ahead of schedule

Funny how predictable things become once money is introduced into the equation.  Back when the bridge originally collapsed, there were rumblings about how it would take until Thanksgiving to repair.  Eventually people realized that cities can’t necessarily operate efficiently with a massive chasm in the road, so the timeline to repair was suddenly bumped to early June. 

And then the Georgia Department of Transportation put a big fat $3.1 million dollar incentive reward in play if the contractors responsible for the bridge repair could finish before Memorial Day weekend, May 26-29.

A surprise to nobody at all, the bridge repairs are not only going to beat the Memorial Day reward deadline, they’re going to beat it by nearly two full weeks.  How interesting that a potential reward has sufficiently motivated people to do their jobs.

Whatever though, regardless of the pathetic display of greed exhibited by this whole debacle, I’m just glad that I-85 is going to be repaired sooner rather than later.  I know other people have had it way worse than I have, but it’s definitely made some trips way more tedious and time-consuming than they should be if GDOT weren’t such irresponsible slugs leaving their flammable shit underneath bridges with the crackheads.

Close enough IT’S MARTA

I did predict that something else was going to happen: water main erupts on Roswell Road, causing a massive sinkhole, causing debilitating traffic to Roswell residents attempting to commute into Sandy Springs or Atlanta

The incident occurred mere miles away from the North Springs MARTA station, the current end of the Red line.  This does not do any favors to any Roswell, Alpharetta or further northern communities, as they still will have to slog down GA-400 in order to take MARTA.

SO CONSIDER THIS TOO A MESSAGE, north Fulton/Milton whatever you WASPy NIMBYs want to call yourselves way the fuck up north.  Cobb county got their message a little while ago, now it’s time for the white suburbs way up north to get their message too, that perhaps some extended MARTA service up to their communities might not be such a bad idea.  I mean, the proposal for the Red line to go all the way up to Windward Parkway is nothing new, but shit like this, like seeing Roswell Rd. go down is just what the people might need to see in order to be reminded of just how beneficial it could be to have an alternate means available to them, and to perhaps stop dragging feet in rolling this out, so that things like this can be alleviated in the future.

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MARTA STRIKES AGAIN

This one was to send a message: “Suspicious package” near the Howell Mill Road exit leads to shutdown of I-75 southbound during the heart of the morning rush hour.  There is no MARTA alternative route coming from this direction.

This one’s for you, Cobb County.  For those of you who aren’t necessarily savvy to Atlanta county-isms, despite the fact that it would make more sense than peanut butter and jelly, Cobb County absolutely refuses to allow MARTA into its hallowed county lines.  To the point where MARTA rail almost patronizingly skates on the county line as it goes all the way up into the northern part of Fulton County.

Don’t believe anything else you may or may not care to inquire about why Cobb refuses MARTA, and just know that it has entirely everything to do with the simple fact that Cobb County does not want black people to have rail access into their sacred communities.  Because nothing is more synonymous with scary, scary colored people and their definitive crime that they will in fact bring, than rail access.

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