Gridlock

For the third time in as many days, I have narrowly avoided a collision caused by some fool running a red light, darting into the middle of the intersection and coming to a dead stop behind a line of other cars also blocking the intersection at 3rd Street and Figueroa. I’m sure it happens at many other intersections as well, but here is where I’m invariably confronted with our modern-day metropolitan rush-hour companion--GRIDLOCK.

I find it incomprehensible that in a traffic-ridden city such as Los Angeles anti-gridlock laws not enforced.

I’ve recently moved here from New York, where drivers are notoriously aggressive, if not downright rude, and the traffic is even worse than in Los Angeles. But when the light turns red in New York, cars don’t shoot out into the intersection, blocking traffic that theoretically has the right of way.

Since anti-gridlock laws were instituted and enforced in New York City, traffic flow has improved tremendously.

By scurrying into the intersection at the last minute, you may gain a momentary lead, but you inevitably lose that lead at the next corner when someone cuts you off.

In a city so concerned with its traffic problems, this obvious alleviator is noticeably absent. Why?

MICHAEL L. BAIETTI

Pasadena