Gary Becker A Beach Bum's View Treasure Island Florida

Gulf Beach News

Countdown to Death!

Treasure Island will begin installing a new pedestrian safety device called a pedestrian crosswalk countdown system. As installed in most parts of the country, the device counts down the seconds a pedestrian has to cross a street before oncoming traffic has the right of way. The amount of time remaining for the pedestrian to cross the street is displayed in a digital readout near the walk- don’t walk lights.

The new system was introduced to the Treasure Island City Commission and the workings of the system were explained in detail to the Commissioners. However, Commissioner Bildz surprised no one when he made it clear to everyone in attendance that he had no idea what was being explained to him. The Commissioner, for some unexplained reason, believed that the countdown was done verbally rather than by visual digital readout.

Taking Commissioner Bildz’s confusion into consideration and believing that there indeed may be another human being or small dog on Treasure Island who is as easily confused as Commissioner Bildz, the City’s engineering department has developed a verbal countdown system that will be installed in crosswalk signals on Sunset Beach.

The verbage to be used by this countdown system was designed to make the maximum impact on Commissioner Bildz and his constituents. T I Beach Bums has been able to obtain a copy of the script to be used to create the phrases the verbal countdown system will use as it advises pedestrians of the amount of time left to cross the street before oncoming traffic has the right of way. Below are the times left to cross the street and the advisory phrases to be spoken by the crosswalk system:

For use on Sunset Beach Only

45 seconds.....”Warning you have only 45 seconds to cross the street. Stop crawling and get up and walk.”

30 seconds.....”Warning, you no longer have time to stop and finish your beer.”

20 seconds.....”Warning, you no long have time to stop and light that joint.”

15 seconds....”Warning, you no longer have time to stagger back and forth. Stay within the white lines and proceed directly to the opposite side of the street.”

10 seconds....”Warning you better get your shit together and cross the street.”

5 seconds....”Warning, you have screwed around long enough. Bend over, put your head between your legs and kiss your....”

0 seconds....”Warning, throw your dope away before the Cops get here to scrape what’s left of you off the bumper of the white Buick that just ran your ass over.”