🚀 go-pugleaf

jsl@athena.mit.edu (J. Spencer Love) writes:
>Fans have been *killed* at Balticons trying to cross that [Shawan] road.
>Well,
>I've seen ambulances there at least two years, but there's only one I'm
>sure died.

The only person who has actually been hit crossing the road survived and
apparently suffered no long-term ill effects, although she was in serious
condition.  BSFS gave her a free membership to the next year's con (after
all, she didn't get to see much of the one she paid to get into), which in
fact I handed to her when she arrived to pick it up.

One of the other ambulance episodes was possibly due to the young woman
apparently who took too many (or the wrong kind of) recreational substances,
and who was having what in layman's terms is called "a bad trip".  The Night
Ops people were particularly concerned about her, since they didn't know
who she was (no badge or other ID), if she was actually ill (beyond being
under the not-very-benign effects of and unknown number and mixture of
chemicals), etc.  The paramedics came and took her somewhere safer than
women's room of the hotel.

Which is beside the point.  Like he said...

>Take extreme care.  Maybe drive.  You're safer in traffic with a ton or
>more of metal armor, or the evasive capabilities of a motorcycle.  It's
>a bit of a trek to the crosswalk, so there is a temptation to live
>dangerously -- and on that road I wouldn't want to trust the traffic
>light to stop the cars, anyway.  They move pretty fast.  You can park
>near the hotel in a large but disused parking lot that belongs to an
>office building (and thus it not much used on the weekends).

If memory serves (it frequently doesn't, but hell...), Shawan Road is 5
or 6 lanes wide between the HVM and the other hotels.  Traffic routinely
cruises up and down this section of highway at 50 to 60 miles an hour,
and is moderately heavy, since the ramp down from 83 North empties onto
Shawan less than a quarter-mile from the entrance to the HVM.

As the people from BSFS would tell you, Please Be Careful.  Use the
crosswalk, or drive.  Better yet, stay in the HVM.  They'd love to have
your company.

-- 
Richard L. Butler            rlb@access.digex.com                 301-220-2020
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