County plans roundabout for Saks-area crossing
"Are you going to let women use that intersection?" asked County Commissioner
Commissioners voted 5-0 Thursday to approve preliminary engineering work on "intersection improvements" where
The plan, said assistant county engineer
Roundabouts are common in
Hosch said there's enough land to add the roundabout, at cost that could exceed
The county could instead add turn lanes and upgrade the traffic lights to accommodate current traffic, Hosch said, but that would require the county to acquire more land. There's also the cost of maintaining the lights over time, Hosch said.
"It probably wouldn't be any cheaper to add a turn lane," he said.
At least one local resident at the commission meeting was skeptical of the idea. Oxford resident
"I can foresee a situation where you have to wait five or seven or 10 minutes," he said.
Henderson, the commissioner, seemed to ask whether any
"You go round and round," he said. "I'm afraid my wife will get on it and be there for days."
County staff didn't answer Henderson's question about women and the intersection, and the meeting moved on. Henderson brought up the topic again during the regular commission meeting. Just as the commission was preparing to vote, Henderson said he wanted to comment on the issue.
"How many of us have ever been, Bill, have you ever been around a roundabout?" Henderson said, addressing
"Not in
"I'm worried that my wife's going to get on the thing and spend two days going around and around," Henderson said.
"That's because she's never seen a shop to stop that," Robison said.
In an interview after the meeting, Robison said he wasn't in the work session and wasn't aware of Henderson's earlier comment about women on the roundabout. He said he believed the roundabout would be hard to navigate without a landmark.
"There aren't any shops to pull over to," he said.
Attempts to reach Henderson's wife,
"You know how women drivers are," he said. Asked if he had proof that women drive differently than men, Henderson seemed to back away from that comment.
"You know, some of them might be a lot better, some of them might be worse," he said.
Nationwide crash numbers, collected by the
Young men, between 21 and 24, are the most likely to be in a fatal car accident. That risk declines as men age, but men Henderson's age -- he's 82 -- are more likely to die as drivers in fatal accidents than women of any age. That includes women aged 16-20, the highest-risk female group.
"Men are more likely to take risks behind the wheel, including driving without seat belts, speeding and driving while intoxicated," said
Rader said male drivers are a higher risk in every category of crash -- fatal wrecks, wrecks with non-fatal injuries and wrecks that cause property damage.
Men do drive more miles, overall, than women, Rader noted.
"Even when you normalize for mileage, men are still in fatal crashes about 60 percent more often," he said.
The base was the headquarters for the
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