Here’s my column from the Sunday paper. If you’ve already read it elsewhere, please skip on down to the comments below. Thanks.

HE’S NOT LOVING THE “HIGHWAY HELPER” RENAMING

Alert reader Mike from Brooklyn Park checked out last week’s column about county roads, and he doesn’t like alphabet soup on highway signs, either:

Pity the poor visitor to our state who tries to figure out what C.S.A.H. 86 even is! Remember, this comes from the same department that took the REALLY user-friendly “Highway Helper” and changed it to — what else — an unintelligible acronym: FIRST. Let’s see, if I remember correctly, I think it stands for something like “Freeway Incident Response Safety Team.” …

Maybe MnDOT should hire a good technical writer to convert all this stuff to plain, easy-to-understand language. (I’m available, by the way.)

Roadguy still catches himself calling it “Highway Helper,” even if the name is reminiscent of a General Mills product that turns ground beef into dinner.

When I did a Google search to see when the name was changed, this Department of Transportation news release from 2003 popped up, and the contact person was none other than Sonia Pitt, MnDOT’s most notorious former employee. (I didn’t call her.)

Another MnDOT Web page says the name was switched because the primary purpose of the program is to keep traffic moving and improve safety.

In other words, those yellow-green trucks are not your personal rescue service; the goal is to get your car off the freeway before you or anyone else can get hurt.

Fortunately, they didn’t try to put all that into the acronym.

MARTHA SAYS TURN ‘EM ON

Alert reader Martha has a question, but it’s more of the rhetorical variety:

What can be said to impress drivers about the importance of using their headlights for safer driving? Dusk, rain, fog all can obscure oncoming traffic and the simple use of headlights can make for safer driving for all.

Martha is right on, says Debbie Prudhomme, owner of Training Wheels driving school. Prudhomme is also a fan of using headlights in the daytime to improve visibility.

Minnesota law says your headlights need to be on in a variety of conditions, including whenever there’s precipitation. But, Prudhomme says, sometimes a bit less light is more: She recommends against high beams in fog, rain or snow, even if there are no oncoming cars. The particles reflect a lot of light back toward the driver, and that’s not where you need it.

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