Monday, September 11, 2017

Yet Another Cluster in Mississippi.

Mississippi cops have to b some of the most incompetent in the US.

After the abysmal performance last night in Grenada, where they shut down an entire interstate for four hour because some loser was throwing a tantrum, Belle and I checked into a hotel  You can read all about it here.  But, we sent four hours in traffic and on back roads to go maybe 20 miles, throwing everyone behind schedule and costing thousands of people, collectively,  millions o dollars.

But, we spent the night in a hotel, and got up this morning, ready for a relaxing drive home.  Never again will I be so naive.  Just about the time we got on I-55, we got a traffic alert about an accident near milepost 119, which was 90 miles (or so) from us.  I commented that any barely competent cop, fresh out of the academy, should be able to clear a wreck inside of 90 minutes.  Boy, was I wrong.

About ten miles from the crash site, the travel shuts down.  We're on a standard four-lane interstate,  with two travel lanes in each direction.  We start creeping, about one miler per hour, and traffic piles up quickly.  As we approach the crash site, after about 40 minutes, I see that the highway is expanding as we get into Jackson, MS, and when we get to the crash site,  I  observe two motorcycle units and about five patrol units.    One of the crashed vehicles is on a tilt-bed wrecker  There is nothing in any of those five travel lanes, but cops standing around, scratching their asses and picking their noses.  One fat cop is standing in the lane near the fast lane, directing us through the crash site.

If he had taken three steps back, he would have had two travel lanes to move traffic, but that was obviously too apparent for him to notice.     I started to run the sonsofbitch  over to remind him what his primary consideration should be.  But,  Belle insisted that they'd probably close the interstate for another hour before they dragged his sorry ass to the shoulder.

So, the cops in Mississippi have twice, in 24 hours, on the same piece of road, ailed to keep it open.

And really, traffic management is that simple.  Keep the road open.  Protect life and keep the travel lanes open.    There is no, I repeat NO reason to close a highway to clear a wreck.

Geez, the Governor of Mississippi needs to hire a whole  new police force.    Seriously, no a one I've seen has any idea how to do the job.  In the past 24 hours I have seen the police in Mississippi put the motoring public at risk on two separate occasions, simply because they don't know how to clear a traffic lane.

3 comments:

Old NFO said...

It's MS... sigh...

kamas716@yahoo.com said...

What OLD NFO said.

Seriously, when my parents got to MS (I was born in Meridian when my Dad was stationed there) they were informed that the state was so broke the staties could only go out two to three days a week and only had gas for about 50 miles for each squad during those days. I don't think that state has ever been run with anything someone might consider efficiency.

Dave said...

There might be two reasons to block the interstate:

1) Fatality accident. Always an order of magnitude more PITA.
2) HAZMAT. If the accident requires guys in moonsuits to clean up, you're going to close the road.

But blocking 5 lanes for a fender bender? Stupid.