The Indy 500

We have this bridge, two lanes each way plus a turning lane going east. It’s wide and it’s made for racing because the street on the west side is straight, a mile long and at night the lights are green. That long patch of black with yellow lines has been a weekend favorite for people with cars to show off and the rubber to get them rolling.

For some reason (Can you spell “cops”? Can you spell “enforcement”?), the activity has become fairly non-existent in recent years. Perhaps not even existing at all. I seldom see any of that; Old Men Wearing Hats are free to cross the bridge at 20mph or, roughly, 15mph below the limit and 20mph lower than most people go.

The aforementioned Officers of the Law still run little operations on the city side of the structure once in a while. I’ll be listening on the scanner during the business day, when regular folk are out, surprised at the speeds these mom & pop drivers are doing as they race across the structure to the very real possibility of a red traffic signal.

“55,” says one cop. “45 this one… here’s a 50 … this one’s going 55.” Unless it’s a big red truck with lights and sirens, they aren’t going to a fire.

It’s not as if the bridge is breaking apart behind them; that only happens in disaster movies. Well, it might come to be on the 8th Street Bridge in Wyoming Borough, which I use fairly often. But other than that decaying pile of iron, our bridge is sturdy and there’s no sense in screaming across it. Unless you’re in a big red truck…