Atlanta deserves poor driving ranking
Atlantans are fond of saying “outsiders” are the cause of the rude driving around here. Well, I grew up in the Washington D.C. metro and worked in metro New York City before moving to Atlanta 30 years ago. I thought that I had driven in some pretty bad large cities. Little did I know!
While I would contend that there are discourteous drivers who moved to Atlanta, poor driving habits — such as no use of turn signals, aggressive lane changing, excessive speeding, red-light running and driving with lights off in the pouring rain, were phenomena I noticed when I first got here. And doubling the population since then certainly hasn’t done anything to improve the situation.
Our poor driving ranking is well-deserved. If you don’t recognize that, then you don’t travel out of the area very much.
RICK BARNETT, JOHNS CREEK
Ideologically extreme parties are cancerous
No doubt, the political polarization decried by your guest columnists Lee Raudonis and Frederick Northup on July 9 (“Both parties fail divided U.S.,” and “Could new party arise in U.S.?”) is a grave danger to our democracy. It will result in more civil dysfunction if not addressed and corrected. But the rise of a moderate third party which could help is unlikely.
Unless congressional districting is depoliticized and neutralized, our U.S. House of Representatives — which sets the tone for all our political discussions and decisions — will continue to be populated by members who represent the most ideologically extreme positions of their constituents, without any incentive in working for the betterment of the broader cross-section of Americans instead of the narrow ideological interests of their party.
The ascension of ideologically extreme positions in our discourse is a symptom of a fundamental flaw — a cancer on our political system. Cure political gerrymandering of congressional districts and a third party won’t be necessary.
PHILIP BROWN, DECATUR
