A whirl of sunrise colors with sunny breaks in the leaves of the trees. The sweet taste of the morning air and music to wake you up a little more than the coffee does. Feeling strong, you brave the green light, and a car is plowing towards you at 7:30 a.m. because they can’t see you over the hill. You have made the decision to try to go to school and take a left turn, a rookie mistake.
Thankfully, this hasn’t happened to me yet, but it’s a very real threat for many of the lights around Clemson, especially the intersection of Old Stone Church Road and Old Greenville Highway, which seems to stump many drivers. The necessity of a left-turn light cannot be overstated.
Finding a way to keep all drivers safe, avoid confusion and generally make the light less of a hazard can be so easy. When coming down Old Stone Church Road from the park, you can’t see the drivers who are coming up the hill. The left turn becomes a guessing game, and since the turn has to be taken so wide due to the median anyway, there never seems to be a good time to take a left until you get three-quarters of the way into the median.
A simple, steady green left-turn traffic light for the already separated lane would ease the stressful situation.
So many roads in Clemson have a variety of issues, whether it’s overcrowded medians, short traffic lights, potholes or overall poor design. Downtown seems to be the hub of traffic at the moment, especially with the construction underway. As soon as Clemson was labeled an underrated college town, we suddenly had to start the thousandth construction project that takes up more road space and seems to never finish.
Things like turning into a Walgreens or leaving a coffee shop shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes, and lights that almost everyone uses should be reevaluated for general safety. Clemson needs to consider the traffic issue and how it affects residents in the area and those who attend the University.
Sarah Bandhauer is a sophomore food science major from Brevard, North Carolina. Sarah can be reached at [email protected].
