Another gorgeous day in paradise with an odd haze towards the south
making the horizon a tad fuzzy. Of course I just woke up, maybe it's me.
(Note, an hour later, I notice it is STILL fuzzy on the horizon).
81 degrees with slight to moderate winds, a bit overcast but comfy.
Arthur
Bertha
Cristobal
Dolly
Edouard
Fay
Gustav
Hanna
Ike
Josephine
Kyle
Laura
Marco
Nana
Omar
Paloma
Rene
Sally
Teddy
Vicky
Wilfred
We've already had BERTHA hit us years ago, in July, I think it was
1996, but I guess she didn't do enough damage to be retired. 
But I do remember her
well, as I had my uninsured boat at the time (but I took refuge ashore) only a
fool stays on their boat during a hurricane and mama didn't raise me a
fool... If you are a big old cruise ship, you can outrun a hurricane, but
unless you can, don't.
Sunday morning we had 2 accidents, minutes apart, involving
5 cars at Brandywine Bay. Did I read that right? Good heavens, is that
a sign of too many cars on our roads or too many idiot drivers?
I know I see a lot of folks trying to cause wrecks. My pet peeves
are BIG TRUCKS and their drivers. It seems to ME that if a BIG TRUCK is coming
around a blind curve and overtaking your lane, he should HONK long and loud
before the turn and give you a chance to run and hide.
Several times I have been on these switchbacks, only to have a BIG
TRUCK suddenly appear in my lane, forcing me off the road and speeding my heart
up to triple pace! A few times, I've almost ruined perfectly good
undies! Makes me wonder if these BIG TRUCKS have properly trained drivers.
This also goes for those big oversized SUVS that are becoming so common here, if
they intend to take over your lane, seems to me they should HONK loud and clear
before hand so you know, something BIG is about to run you down.
My other pet peeve is TAXIS. The cruise ship business seems to have
brought egotistical taxi drivers out of the wood works. (My friend referred to
them as snakes coming out of the woods...) They stop in the middle of the
road, blocking traffic and very often blocking parking lot entrances, driveways
and turn-offs to other roads. They don't want to pull off cause it takes 10
seconds out of their time.
A few times I've nearly been killed at the Frenchman's Cay bridge
intersection. The Cay road has the Stop signs, the cars exiting the bridge and
coming onto the Cay (turning left or right) have the right away. BUt here
comes some oversized taxi, barrelin down the road, with his mirror brushing by
the Stop Sign,1/2 inch away, which he thoroughly ignores, catching
anyone coming off thebridge total unaware (it's a blind corner!)
Recently this happened (again) to me and I wanted to yell at the
taxi driver that he was supposed to STOP (isn't that what the STOP sign is for?)
but instead he yelled at me for being in the way! I guess those STOP signs
are just put up for decoration. Maybe we need new STOP signs that read
"STOP! unless you are a
TAXI!"
I don't know of any new traffic laws that
exempt taxis from obeying the rules of the road, but drive around the island for
a day and make a list of all the taxi infractions and you will need a BIG thick
pad of paper and several pens (cause you will run out of
ink!)
The buses hauling the tourist cargo seem to think, that they can
block in parking lots and block entire roads. Time and time again, I have gotten
stuck for 5-15 minutes, because taxis are parked in the road in both lanes, not
allowing any traffic to pass in either direction.
I went into a grocery store, came out and the road had so many
taxis parked on it, I couldn't get out of the parking lot at Sopers Hole. I
politely asked a taxi driver to move so I could leave, and he told me off. He
was the one illegally parked while I was legally parked, wishing to depart.
Something wrong with this picture. 
Makes me miss my boat life even more, back then I didn't even own a
car. Walked everywhere or hitchhiked and because I lived on a boat, I rarely
shopped anyhow except for bare necessities, many which couldn't be found half
the time anyhow (at least in those days!) Once in a great while I splurged
on a taxi bu tfinding their rates pretty awful, it was very RARE.
Which remains my number one pet peeve is we still DON'T have
a public bus system. Something simple with small buses, and park-and-ride
parking lots. So you could own your own car, but leave it in a public parking
area, near your home, hop on the bus, do your ting, then come back, and drive
your car home. Many folks here don't want to own cars (me included!) so this
would solve a lot of problems for loads of hitchikers as wellas car owners.
This should alleviate tons of traffic, particularly since at any
given moment on a weekday, it seems over 1/2 the island is stuck in Road Town
traffic.
I remember my first trip here, back in the dark ages, I rode in a
beat up old rusty taxi out of West End. There were 3 taxis when I came
off the ferry and they agreed among themselves who got me as the fare. On
the way to town, we passed ONE car and the taxi stopped because he knew the
driver and we chatted then went onwards. ONE CAR we passed in ten miles of bumpy
driving. Ah those were the days...
