Letters to the Editor
Slower traffic needs to stay right on Highway 98

As one who commutes from Gulf Breeze Proper to Navarre five days a week, I would like to make a suggestion which could very possibly ease a considerable amount of the traffic problems on Highway 98. Most people are probably aware of what they should do but may need a friendly reminder. Does "Slower Traffic Keep Right" ring a bell? If people will remember to use the left hand lane for turns and passing only, the traffic flow would be much smoother. My personal favorite is the "lefter" who drives three or more miles per hour below the posted speed limit. There seems to be two trains of thought regarding this particular brand of lefter. Either they are doing us all a favor by ensuring that we do not get a speeding ticket or, as Bubba might say, they are simply IGMOS. Another lefter is the one, who in fact, might be making a left-hand turn...in Panama City! When confronted with lefters, some drivers suffering from road rage ride on their tails to give them a message to move over. Other "ragers" pass the lefter in the right-hand lane at the first opportunity and then cut directly in front of them. Highway 98 is hazardous enough without lefters and ragers. If everyone drove in the proper lane for the proper reason, we would all be a whole lot safer as we go to work, run our errands, or visit our friends.

Betty Watson

Gulf Breeze

Go Dolphins soccer!

Thank you for the great, ongoing soccer coverage. I look forward to watching their progress each and every week and have enjoyed seeing them succeed this year.It's great to see these young people being positive role models for others.

Good luck next year dolphins!

Bill Heaney

Gulf Breeze

Navarre Pass idea defies history and nature

Living here over 30 years has taught me one lesson over and over: bad ideas never die. They resurface every few years, and the idea of a pass at Navarre is one I hoped had gone down for the last time last time. I heard Chuck Pohlman's father speak often and passionately about his dream, but passion alone doesn't make it a good or feasible idea. We have had financial estimates, we've had geomorphology investigations, we've had studies on how an influx of Gulf water with a different salinity would affect flora and fauna, we've had plans for a marina with locks (and a lock fees), and nothing overcomes the ultimate reality that the idea flies in the face of common sense.

Nature doesn't provide support for it. To call a breach in the island caused by a hurricane a pass is stretching even wishful thinking.

And of course, it closed rapidly because of the natural and enormous amount of sand transport and no river system seeking an outlet to maintain an open waterway. To hold that this is just a matter of money and advertising to convince the public to support it with tax dollars, and to fund yet another study is to willfully dismiss the lessons of nature and of history.

Allan Peterson

Gulf Breeze