This is a Navy town; maybe that’s why so many locals think that if there’s a line, everyone should get in it. Navy retiree Gary Fisher (Letters, June 8) thinks so. He says that “most people form a single line” in the left lane when going up the hill past Wal-Mart on Highway 20, but “it’s the others that are the problem.”
Wrong. Those who compulsively form a single line are the problem, for several reasons:
(1) Not everyone who drives through Oak Harbor knows that the right lane ends just past Erie Street. The average driver is not psychic and is obliged to heed a sign at the point where it is posted, not before.
(2) When the revered single line extends past Burger King (maybe even onto Pioneer Way!), drivers can enter Highway 20 from Barlow Street and businesses north of Highway 20 only by turning into the right lane. Some drivers on Barlow actually wait in vain for a kindly soul to let them merge immediately into the left lane, thus backing up traffic on Barlow too!
(3) Some drivers in the right lane try to move left between Barlow and Erie and block those who want to turn right at Erie or before.
(4) When traffic is backed up past Erie, it is impossible for drivers to turn right from Erie into the left lane.
The best solution in all cases is for traffic to merge where the lanes merge. Do you suppose that’s why the sign is there (duh) and why the right lane beyond Erie is not planted in flowers?
In general, anyone who putts along at 30 mph in the left lane in a 40-mph zone shouldn’t begrudge being passed on the right as long as a legal lane exists.
During bumper-to-bumper conditions, some righteous roadhogs actually straddle the lane divider right beside the merge sign to prevent anyone from passing on the right. They got in line three blocks earlier, and there’s no way in hell they are going to give up a car length. These people are worse than just a “problem.”
Multiple lanes improve traffic flow only if drivers use them as they are intended. This includes “move right except to pass” on the highway, but that is asking way too much of Washington’s left-lane cruisers.
James M. Bruner
Oak Harbor
