Douglasville Police: Block The Box, Get A Ticket

DOUGLASVILLE, GA - In Facebook posts over the holiday weekend the Douglasville Police Department said they are, "well aware of the traffic congestions in the area of Arbor Place and WalMart on Hwy 5," but "it is illegal to block the box, aka the intersection."

"We are well aware of the traffic congestion in the area of Arbor Place and Wal Mart on Hwy 5," reads the Facebook post on Dec. 22. "A traffic engineer hired by the city is adjusting the traffic signals in real time to alleviate the backup as much as possible. Unfortunately we cannot override the signals any more than the traffic engineer is able to because of the proximity of the intersections to the interstate. Doing so would cause traffic to backup onto the interstate travel lanes which is likely to cause serious accidents. Please use patience, try not to block intersections between cycles, and move any vehicles involved in an accident off the roadway unless there are injuries involved."

On Dec. 23, the language got tougher.

"This is Hwy 5 at Concourse Pkwy," reads the Douglasville Police Facebook post regarding the photo with this article. "It is illegal to enter an intersection, aka: The Box, unless you can clear the intersection completely. YOU are responsible for watching the traffic on the other side of the intersection to see if you will have room to cross without having to stop in the intersection. We will be writing tickets today to people who Block the Box. You have been warned. Feel free to share this with anyone you know who may be driving through this intersection today so they don't get one of our driving awards."

"We write tickets for blocking intersections year round," said J.R. Davidson, Douglasville Police. "In the days leading up to Christmas we had extra personnel working the retail areas so we were able to do some extra enforcement."

The second post was shared 1,748 times and received 280 comments. Here are a few of the comments:

Ricky Strickland commented, "So, if you block the box you get a ticket. If you don't block the box, the person behind you sits on their horn, yells, curses, gestures, etc.. Just imagine how much better it will be when we get the buses."

Ronny Pierce wrote, "Ok here we go again. Why doesn’t someone fix the problem instead of placing a bandage on it. The real problem is the engineers can’t get the lights sequenced to allow the traffic to flow so everyone starts to turn into the intersection and the lights down 5 turn red and it causes congestion at this intersection. Get the engineers out there and do there job so Hwy 5 is not such a disaster. Douglas County needs to go to Newnan and see what they have done and how that place has grown and the traffic albeit congested it flows way better then here in Douglasville."

Donnie Brown commented, "Why just today? This goes on 364 other days of the year as well at two other intersections. Douglas Blvd and Hwy 5 and at Douglas Blvd and Chapel Hill Road. You could sit at these 3 intersections and write tickets all day long. Also, when you write the tickets give them a GA driver license test book for all the other simple laws they break."