Posted by nezman, a resident of San Ramon, on Jan 29, 2013 at 10:14 pm

The police did an absolute despicable job in traffic control on Bollinger Canyon during the outage, at least from what I saw at 6:30pm, almost 40 minutes after the outage.

Cars were speeding down Bollinger Canyon, blowing through the intersections, nearly hitting other vehicles. Apparently a lighted intersection with no power just becomes a free-for-all in San Ramon.

Not only that, but the traffic was causing a logjam on all of the 680 off-ramps. I understand that there are other problems during a power outage that require police assistance, but during rush hour there really should have been some form of traffic control.

Posted by Longtime Resident, a resident of San Ramon, on Jan 29, 2013 at 11:08 pm

I suspect San Ramon probably doesn't have enough officers on duty at one time to direct traffic at all of the intersections during a power outage and you're correct, they probably were busy with higher priority calls than hand holding at intersections. The vehicle code requires drivers to treat dark intersections as a four way stop. Seeing how poorly people typically drive in this town, I'm not surprised they were driving stupidly.

Posted by Mark, a resident of San Ramon, on Jan 30, 2013 at 9:01 am

I guess I'm old and they don't teach driving the same way anymore. When I took drivers ed it was in school and the middle of winter on snowy streets. We had formal classes (with the red highway of death type movies) and driving sessions. They taught the rules of the road. You also had the advantage of seeing the other two students in the car doing it wrong. To this day I still always use my turn signal. I don't do the California "Stop" at intersections (San Ramon could make a fortune if they station a cruiser on the East Bound Bollinger turn onto South Bound Alcosta). Turn on my hazards as a warning when I drop below 45 mph on the freeway (I turn them off immediately, just a signal). I also don't tow a trailer in the #1 lane on the freeway. My kids did the online class and a few hours with an instructor to get a license. They are not even required to parallel park to pass the exam. At the cost of the private classes maybe we should bring it back to the schools and spend the money there. We pay for it anyway.

Posted by Claire M, a resident of San Ramon, on Jan 30, 2013 at 3:23 pm

On January 6th the power was out in my neighborhood for 8 hours and we never received any explanation from PG&E and I never saw anything about it in any paper. Also, a week ago in the evening I encountered another power failure in Walnut Creek.

I have never experienced so many power failures anywhere else I have lived, including the freezing northeast.

Posted by Rob, a resident of San Ramon, on Jan 31, 2013 at 11:03 pm

I too was traveling when the power was out and the intersection of Bollinger and San Ramon Valley Blvd. It was a dangerous mess. There should have been an officer there directing traffic. It was a dangerous situation and an officer should have been there. I have spoken to some of my neighbors and one said she called police due to fact that situation was getting out of hand and drivers were not abiding traffic laws. She said she was told that there were only 10 officers and they could not send someone. Not reassuring to hear.

Posted by Bob P, a resident of another community, on Feb 1, 2013 at 9:40 am

I will repeat what was said earlier, there are never enough police officers on duty to handle traffic control at every major intersection in San Ramon during a power outage. Every available officer and non-sworn personnel qualified for traffic control are busy, more than likely with traffic accidents.

The solution to the problem is for drivers to not go temporarily insane every time a traffic signal goes out and be courteous and careful. The same holds true for driving in inclement weather. SLOW DOWN, increase the distance between cars and be NICE!

Posted by another voice, a resident of San Ramon, on Feb 1, 2013 at 12:44 pm

It is silly for police officers, with all their specialized training and high paycheck, to control traffic in this type of situation, those where they would be doing it for a long time.

The dept should hire people who are trained to control traffic, who are on-call when needed. Of course they can be trained to do other tasks as well. Remember the days of the volunteer firemen? they only worked when needed. This is the same thing.

These people (not volunteers) can be employed at other full-time jobs, or people who work in their home, are unemployed, etc. when the call goes out, if available, they can respond. With enough people on the list, not everyoen would be needed at any one time, so it woudln't matter if a number of them couldn't make it.

think about it, anyway.

Posted by Dirka_Dirka, a resident of San Ramon, on Feb 7, 2013 at 8:56 pm

I tried to cross with my herd, but some moron in a X5 almost ran over my favorite goat. We didn't need crossing guards in the old country. If someone ran over a goat we would take their oldest daughter as a servant for a month. You people are sheeple, grow some man parts. It's just a blackout. Dirka Dirka Bakala