The ice storm has left a huge mess in its wake. There are lots of tree branches down all over the neighborhood. Especially hard hit were rows of older trees with more frail branches on Winton Road in Brighton. I saw a town crew out today picking up downed branches, and there seemed to be huge piles of them in front of every house on Winton.

The real problem though was power outages. A few stores were wisely closed today because of them. The worst problem was with signals that were out. It seems that people have forgotten what to do when you come to an intersection that has a signal outage.

Pop quiz: What do you do when you come to an intersection with its signal out?

1. Act like an asshat
2. Act like an asshat
3. Don't stop
4. Treat the intersection as if it had a all-way stop sign.

If you chose A, B, or C, then you were probably out driving in Brighton today.

What do you do if you're a police officer in the vicinity of that traffic signal outage?

1. Get you and another patrol car to pull over an asshat down the street from the signal outage
2. Get a cup of coffee over at Jay's Diner, just down the street from the signal outage
3. Stand outside your car in the middle of traffic looking like an asshat just a few hundred yards from the signal outage
4. Get out your reflective vest, some road flares, and start directing traffic

If you chose A, B, or C, you might be working for the Brighton police department.

*sigh*

Asshats. Can't live with them... shoulda stayed home.