Driving the back roads of Florida...

I had to go to Gainesville the other day for work. The route to Gainesville from Jacksonville is not straightforward. There is no highway, freeway or other direct route from Jacksonville to Gainesville. I did take I-10 part way, to avoid some of the streets on the westside that I always see in the news with shootings and other crime scenes. Plus, Mapquest recommended I-295 to I-10, so that's the way I went.

Anyway, once I got on the road, it was a straight shot, for the most part, to the office. But I did notice a few things:

1) people inch through red lights. I'll be the first car in my lane at a stop light, stopped because it's red. Yet the person next to me will start inching forward. And they don't wait until the light's about to turn green. They'll start doing this even if the light just turned red. Anyway, I'm stopped at a light, and this guy in the left lane started inching through, and finally he just went all the way through the red light, even though the folks in the left turn lane had a green arrow. They just honked at him as he went through the intersection.

2) they have speed trap warning billboards saying warning, speed trap ahead

3) there were lane realignment ahead signs on I-10, and I saw them and expected that there would be a decent change to the lanes ahead. Nope, the lanes shifted about a foot from the existing lane lines. In California, if they have one of those signs, it usually means a 45 degree angle change, dips and bumps over temporary construction stuff, and a lane not quite big enough for big rigs that runs right next to those white concrete dividers.

4) signage is lacking -- I noticed, or maybe I didn't notice, there was no sign indicating which was the north direction and which the south. See, there are no mountains or other large direction indicators out in Florida, so sometimes, especially at night, it's difficult for me to tell what direction something is, particularly if there's no sign saying which way is north and which is south. So I came to an intersection and had to guess, because it wasn't a straightforward intersection, I had to turn right and go over some railroad tracks and then cut back over to catch the road, and I never saw a sign that said go right for south and left for north.