Fredericton — Ask any Fredericton driver and they will tell you that roundabouts are the things of nightmares. It has been about 17 months since the capital city’s first multi-lane roundabout opened and the “drivers’ death circle” is still a major source of anger, confusion, fear and stress.
“All my friends wear camo,” said Mitch Morrison. “Coats, hats, you name it, they got it. With Amazon you can get camo anything these days and no matter how much camo my lads are decked out in, I can still notice them in the Walmart! That roundabout though… there’s some David Camo-field style magic goin’ on in that bastard! I get in’er and I can’t see a damn thing!”
“It’s straight from hell!” hollered Derek Allison. “The book of Revelations says that in the end times, 7 priests will sound 7 trumpets, and the angels will circle the city of Jericho 7 times… Smythe Street is nowhere near Jericho but the circle thing is right on; it’s the devil’s work, I tell you!”
Businesses in close proximity to the roundabout have said that from 8 a.m. till 5 p.m. each day they hear car horns approximately every 4 minutes and 35 seconds.
The city has made many attempts to ease the frustrations of drivers; they tried everything from saying they will distribute pamphlets on proper roundabout usage to straight-up talking to the media about how roundabouts are “safe” and “used around the world,” and how they “think” Fredericton drivers can “get used to it.”
On Monday, a new strategy was employed when CBC News — clearly in cahoots with City Hall — published an article about how some lame place in the United States is the “City of Roundabouts.”
“We just want to really rub it in,” said CBC reporter Jordan Gill. “Rub their noses right into the rainbow puddle of leaking gasoline and passenger blood that makes the roundabout glisten in the sun. It’s not political; I’ll go on record to say that we did not coordinate with the city in any way.
“Here at CBC, we enjoy what we do. New Brunswick drivers are notoriously bad, Fredericton drivers the worst of the worst; any chance we have to point out their stupidity and make them feel even more nervous about the roundabout, we’re gonna do it.”
The Manatee did a survey of the first 100 drivers who had an accident in the Smythe Street roundabout before noon on Wednesday, to see how the average person felt about CBC’s attitude. A whopping 87 percent thought that CBC was being snooty/dickish/trolls by posting the article about the “hipsters in Indiana.” The other 13 percent didn’t respond as they were being loaded into ambulances.