Hey: The traffic signal at Maumelle Boulevard and Odom Boulevard South is out. I called the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department. They said it was the city's problem. I called the city, and the person who answered the phone said it was the Highway Department's problem. I figured this is something you can address. -- Joe
Dear Joe: In the matter of responsibility, the system works thusly on Maumelle Boulevard, or Arkansas 100. The Highway Department puts up the traffic signals; after which, the city is responsible for upkeep. It's this way all over when a state highway is primarily a city street.
This arrangement, so simple and elegant, can be confusing. A kind heart would forgive whoever in city government misspoke.
Emails have zipped about, and Mayor Mike Watson of Maumelle clarified the problem.
The signal is the city's responsibility, he confirmed. It appears the signal took a direct lightning strike Tuesday morning.
Signal technicians are working on a fix. On the basis of the mayor's description, which included mention of schematic diagrams, the problem is complicated and makes us happy to not be a signal technician.
The mayor said no one wants this signal fixed more than he does -- phone calls, email and texts have poured in.
O Great Knower: I was pulled over while trying to warn fellow motorists about the evil radar gun. It was explained to me that I was obstructing government operations, a serious crime. I thought I was assisting the police by trying to slow down speeding traffic. -- Anarchist Driver
Dear Anarchist: Yours was one of several emails in which drivers said they'd either been warned by police or actually ticketed for flashing their headlights.
One email came from John Wesley Hall, the esteemed Little Rock lawyer, who said it's his considered opinion, and the opinion of many of his ilk, that the flashing of headlights is protected speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Hall said the flashing of lights is a time-honored tradition. He even did a search and found, in short order, three cases around the country in which judges ruled the flashing to be protected speech. He recalls, from many years ago, a trial brief in which the warning of speed traps is analogous to Paul Revere's ride.
Listen my children and you shall hear ...
Greetings, Mahatma: Near McCain Mall in North Little Rock a guardrail was recently mowed down. Who foots the replacement cost, the taxpayers or the individual who destroyed it? -- Curious
Dear Curious: David Nilles speaks for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department. He said the agency gets accident reports from law enforcement agencies whenever there is damage to Highway Department property.
The agency then contacts the insurance company of the driver to seek reimbursement for the repairs.
Vanity plate seen around town: RISK E.
Mahatma@arkansasonline.com
Metro on 02/18/2017