One of the problems with poles, like streetlight poles and telephone poles, is that eventually somebody's going to drive into them. This happened the other day in the Carson Valley. Someone drove into the stoplight at Stephanie Way, the pole in the center island where the left turn arrows are located. These poles are designed to shear off when they're hit, to reduce the amount of damage to the vehicle. So the damaged pole was dragged off to the side of the road until crews could get out to repair or replace it, and I of course stopped by to take some closeup pictures of the equipment.

The scene of the crime. The orange cone is where the pole used to be. You can barely see the skid marks running from right to left.

The pole sits on the side of the road, severed wires going in every direction.

Red, yellow, green. These are all turn arrows, not just round lights.

All the various equipment that lives on top of the pole.

"Wall-E." The traffic sensing camera that tells the system when somebody is waiting in the turn lane.

The streetlight at the top got smashed when the pole toppled over.

Wednesday they came by to repair the light.