When it’s dark and rainy, cyclists are nearly impossible to see until they’re a few yards away. Traffic around Forest Park Parkway and Skinker is already wild as it is, especially with the lane shifts and changes from Forest Park Parkway to Wydown Boulevard. I’ve been a part of a lot of close calls, and I imagine those close calls would be potentially fatal with drunk drivers or people who aren’t already watching for cyclists.

A court ruling delivered Nov. 6 determined that red-light cameras in Ellisville, Mo., that catch a car running a red light are in violation of state law because the owner of the vehicle is ticketed instead of the driver. A St. Louis city spokeswoman, however, announced the next day that the ruling would have no effect on St. Louis’ red-light cameras.

A few weeks ago, I got two traffic tickets in one night. Though embarrassing at first (no amount of sleep deprivation gives you an excuse for backing into police cars, which I did), my evening of two successive encounters with the Clayton Police Department has become a good story, and it comes as no surprise to anyone who has ever seen me operate a car—the fact of the matter is, I am a terrible, terrible driver.

As I make my morning commute from an off-campus apartment to Wash U, I encounter a lot of frustration – not only at the terribly outdated and inefficient timer-based traffic lights, but also at the complete inability of people to drive.