I need to stop being amazed

when I see how stupid people really are.  The busy street is being repaved, yes, even in the rain, it seems.  It's a good time to do it, since traffic is somewhat less now than it normally is, because of the Covid-19 mess.  So yesterday sometime, orange barrels appeared along the side of the street, in sets of two, waiting to be deployed.

This morning, the barrels were out in the street, two by two, at about half-block intervals, indicating (to me, anyway) that one lane of the two lane street is closed to traffic.  At the starting point of the closure, on the end we walk by on our first walk of the day, there's a barricade with a large sign that says "Road Closed."  Ahead of that, at the side of the street, is a "Detour" sign.

Ok, so I get that, the road is closed, and I, if I'm driving a vehicle, need to turn off and go another way.  Seems pretty self-evident and obvious.

Not to some people. 

While we were walking, a car drove around the barrier, and played dodge-em with the pairs of orange barrels, diving in behind them when something was coming in the opposite direction, on the side of the road that is still open.  By the time we made it home, a few more vehicles were doing the same thing.  I saw several service vehicles - lawn care, plumbers, that sort of thing - coming down the street on the closed side, bopping in and out to get around the barrels and duck when opposing traffic appeared.

Someone misjudged, and booted one of the barrels to the sidewalk.  Hope they made a good dent in their car.

How fucking stupid are people?  Or do they just think they are SO important, no rules apply to them?  Probably both, I know. 

I'd love to have a franchise from the local po-lice dept to hand out tickets to stupid people.  I'll keep 10% of the fines as my commission, thank you. 

They should just close the whole street completely, in both directions.  It would be easier and faster.  But no, can't do that.

And god forbid they should put signs up after the first detour signs, to tell people where to go next. You never get told when it's ok to go back to where you thought you should be going.  But no, that seems to cost too much, or they don't own enough signs, or pick your poor excuse of the day.  The people doing the paving are idiots, too.  But we knew that.