Though she denies it now, my mother once claimed she avoided all left turns. They are surely a pain in the butt, especially where my parents live. Left turns meaning crossing multiple lanes of oncoming traffic.
Now, as it turns out, she has company. UPS is streamlining their business by following my mom!
In a CIO Sessions interview, United Parcel Service CIO Dave Barnes tells ZDNet editor in chief Dan Farber that his company will save $600 million per year through package flow technologies that include preloading vehicles in the morning, routing drivers according to volume and favoring right-hand turns.
I suppose, when there are enough left turns involved, the savings can be substantial. But isn’t this what people mean when they talk about nit picking?
I heard that they were experimenting with doing this several years ago. I wonder if it’s a more widespread practice now…
I suppose if it saves more than half a BILLION dollars, it cease to be picking nits.
Go to NJ, the home of the jughandle turn!!
UPS started the left-hand turn prohibition a while back. The “routing” software that determines truck routes does it automatically because you waste more fuel waiting for the left hand turn.
Pretty smart.