December 01, 2014
Monday PM

I found Donita O'Dell’s letter on the “Ketchikan parking failures” Facebook page interesting. If the intent of her letter was to promote civil discourse, then on that point I agree; that is something we can all improve on.

However with most things in life there are always two sides to any story or issue; e.g. Newton’s third law. While Donita’s intent was probably noble the actual result was she promoted the page and likely increased its popularity.

After nearly a quarter of a century in law enforcement I have a slightly different take on things like this. Public shaming has been part of human culture (and early American), crime and punishment from the beginning of time up until about 50-60 years ago and was effective.

Remember the Stocks, Tar and Feathering, the Dunce Cap? All of these types of punishment were intended to cause no physical harm, but use public/peer pressure…the power of the community… to change unacceptable behavior. It was a low cost and effective means of dissuading bad conduct for minor offenses.

As we became an “enlightened” society we moved from making little Johnny in school wear the dunce cap, or get a few swats with a paddle to suspending him for a day and giving him a “gold star” and universal praise for average performance. In the day of the dunce cap and swats, chewing gum was considered the number one school problem. Today teachers worry about drugs, assaults and school shootings.

Imagine if today Ketchikan had a set of Stocks on the downtown dock. I would strongly suspect that the effect of being shackled for a day, in the rain with the entire community as your audience would dissuade future bad acts far more than a comfortable night in jail with three hot meals. As it stands now, over 75% of people who are incarcerated in Alaska will reoffend.

In any regards, people who commit the parking violations highlighted on the Facebook page generally do so for only two reasons:

They simply do not care about others, or
They are inattentive or poor drivers

For those who do not care about others a little public shaming is probably warranted. Their behavior is selfish and if they are called on it, perhaps they will change.

Regarding the inattentive / poor drivers. Anyone not skilled enough to park in a standard size parking space probably shouldn’t be driving until they learn how to drive better. A few feet over the parking line is no different than a few feet over the fog line, where people walk and bike.

As our community grows it becomes increasingly important for the motoring public to consider their fellow drivers. If everyone did the following we could dramatically reduce traffic problems in Ketchikan:

Ketchikan’s Top Ten Traffic Issues:

01. Use center turn lanes where they are available and don’t expect north and southbound traffic to stop to let you merge left. This is a local phenomenon in Ketchikan for some reason to not use center turn lanes for their intended purpose.

02. Use your blinker if you are going southbound on Tongass, in the inside lane, and are turning left onto Jefferson. This will inform the people behind you to get into the outside lane to keep from being stopped behind you when the light turns green. Or better yet, use Third Ave. access if possible.

03. If you are going northbound on Tongass and need to turn into the mall area, turn left before the Chevron station if possible and avoid turning left on Jefferson. This will keep northbound traffic flowing instead of backing up behind your vehicle.

04. Limit your stops for pedestrians to cross walks if possible. We have all followed the very polite wonderful driver who stops for every pedestrian/cannery worker, car, between the Landing and Tatsudas. While this is certainly polite in some regards, it actually increases congestion and increases wait times for cars/people entering the traffic stream. A free flowing traffic stream has natural breaks for pedestrians and vehicles to enter or cross. Stopping/starting backs up vehicles and leaves no breaks. It also increases congestion through the start/stop delay reaction times for each driver behind the person stopping.

05. If you use the main post office by A&P consider going when you can make right turns in and out. For example, if you live north of the post office, but work in town, go in the mornings before work.

06. Pedestrians, especially those living in Tongass Towers, please use the cross walks and don’t cross in the middle of the road across from the mall. Playing a game of “Frogger” is eventually not going to end well for someone.

07. If you are turning left out of the airport parking lot use the north exit. This is clearly marked, however a number of lazy/disrespectful people always sit at the south entrance/exit “do not turn left sign”… doing just that… trying to turn left.

08. If you want to drive slower than the posted speed, pull over and let traffic pass when 5 or more vehicles are backed up behind you (required by law).

09. Don’t double park on Tongass… using your hazard lights doesn’t make it ok, and…

10. Park in the assigned parking space so that others can also park and the Ketchikan Parking failures Facebook page will disappear on its own.

Have great holidays Ketchikan.

Rodney Dial
Ketchikan, Alaska

Received November 28, 2014 - Published December 01, 2014

Related Viewpoint:

Anonymous naming-and-shaming on social media By Donita O'Dell

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