Turn On Those Lights...

if you're planning on driving on the safety corridor on Highway 101 between Eureka and Arcata. Looks like the Highway Patrol will start citing people who don't have their headlights on starting April 1. Funny, when that stretch of road officially became a safety corridor back in January, I thought they said they were giving warnings for a month and after that, tickets would be written. I guess I'm either remebering wrong or they changed their minds.

Law enforcement has a daunting task enforcing that law. I head over to Jacob's Avenue a couple times a month and try to keep track of how many cars coming from Arcata don't have their lights on. Quite a few don't, although it's too hard to count and try and get a percentage when one's driving. I can't understand why so many people don't have their lights on with all the notices, signs and flashing lights. Are these folks deaf, dumb and blind?

That said, while I appreciate the effort to make the corridor safer, I kinda wonder if requiring headlights would have unintended consequences? If most people drive the corridor with their lights on, what about the few (at least the eventual few assuming more and more people turn their lights on) that don't turn on their lights? I would think people would condition themselves to looking for headlights and it might make a car without lights much less noticeable. So, someone tries to cross 101 at Indianola Road and sees a bunch of headlights in the distance but doesn't notice the car without headlights that's closest to him or her and we have another accident. Could be a problem but I guess anything might be better than the way it was. Who knows?

I wonder if I'll get a ticket for not turning my lights on for the short distance from the Ryan Slough bridge to Jacobs Avenue? Don't see any need to since there's no cross traffic there anymore unless you go farther up the road to the Murray Field turnoff.