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No problem, wrong solution

Editor, Index-Tribune:

The proposed roundabout at Arnold Drive and Agua Caliente Road is a $1.5million, taxpayer-paid "solution" to a problem that does not exist.
I know that intersection very well and can testify that it is infinitely safer now that it's a four-way stop. Maybe, during one or two times of the day, the traffic backs up to as many as six cars. What's the problem? You have to wait 45 seconds to get through the intersection?
 

I want to know exactly how many accidents have occurred since it became a four-way stop and what were the circumstances: drunk driving or what? Some accidents cannot be prevented no matter the traffic controls in place.
 

Who drives that road? Employees coming to and from work at the Sonoma Developmental Center, parents taking their kids to and from Altimira, county buses, an occasional fire truck, ambulance or hay truck, the UPS truck (driving like a bat out of hell), beer, ice and food delivery trucks (some are really way too long to be on Arnold) and, during the fall, truckload after truckload of grapes.
 

In addition to these regular users, add wine-tasting visitors, our elderly citizens and people on various medications that warn them not to drive. Those of you on your way to and from work, or taking your kids to school every day, do you want to try to merge with this, while the people behind you are pressing you to enter the circle and you're trying to find a safe gap?
 

If I were a lawyer I'd set up a table at the intersection and, instead of selling strawberries, I'd collect customers. This roundabout is going to open up whole new business opportunities for the legal profession and auto body shops.
 

What is the problem? Let's see all the solutions – and the cost-benefit analysis of each one.
 

Karla Noyes
 

Glen Ellen