Lane Ranger

This bedeviling road's a boulevard and a drive

They say evil takes many forms, and goes by many names.

Though State Road 60 is no picnic at rush hour, I'll admit "evil" may be too harsh a description. Still, Brandon's busiest thoroughfare does have at least two other names: Adamo Drive and Brandon Boulevard.

One road, three names.

What's the deal?

Geographically, it breaks down like this. The entire stretch of road, from Polk to Pinellas, is State Road 60. From Interstate 75 east to Valrico Road is Brandon Boulevard. From I-75 west to downtown Tampa is Adamo Drive.

If you keep going, you'll be on Kennedy Boulevard, which stretches to the bay, but let's leave Kennedy out of this for a moment and focus on Adamo, Brandon and SR 60.

Years ago, when homes in Brandon began sprouting like toadstools, Hillsborough County decided to recognize the growing population by naming a portion of SR 60 "Brandon Boulevard."

No one saw a problem with the fact that an adjoining segment of the road already was named Adamo Drive, after decorated World War II hero Frank S. Adamo.

I-75 now serves as a convenient little divider between Brandon and Adamo.

"The whole thing is State Road 60," says county spokesman Steve Valdez.

For now.

"There's nothing preventing someone, somehow, someway, from going before the Board of County Commissioners and saying, 'Look, all of State Road 60 from its inception to the county line . . . needs to be named, whatever. Joe Blow Boulevard,' " Valdez says.

That's not a bad suggestion. Let's try it out:

Sorry, honey, but it looks like I'm going to be late. Traffic's a mess on Joe Blow Boulevard.

I wanted to quiz the public on the matter. I stopped at 10 gas stations between Tampa and Brandon -- five on the Adamo Drive side, five on the Brandon Boulevard side -- to ask which road I was on.

My overwhelming response: SR 60. Six of the 10 stations said 60 first, three said Adamo, and only one said Brandon.

Then, as Emeril might say, I kicked it up a notch. I started asking for directions to get a common man's explanation of the road. The conversations mostly went something like this:

"Hi. I seem to be turned around. Can you tell me how to get to Adamo?"

"You're on Adamo. That's it out there."

"No, I was just on Brandon."

"Adamo is Brandon."

"So wait a minute. How far am I from 60?"

To their credit, most of them explained it to me with few hand gestures and only occasional cursing.

Perhaps explaining the road is a snap after actually driving on it all these years.

I GRANT YOU that I am not the world's foremost expert on cows.

But from the limited time I have spent personally interacting with them, I can safely say that they are far less likely to jump out into the road than, say, a dog, or a grain silo.

Yet in two separate instances recently, cows were to blame for crashes in eastern Hillsborough County. Therefore, this week's Axie goes to the bovine family.

On Jan. 20, a car traveling about 45 miles per hour was forced to swerve to miss a cow standing on W Keysville Road, just east of Bloomingdale. The driver slammed into a cable box and tree, but suffered no major injuries.

According to the accident report, the sheriff's deputy observed a hole in the barb wire fence and "fresh manure on the roadway." Whether the car was the cause of the latter, we may never know.

What we do know is that the very next day, another cow was standing on Sydney Washer Road in Dover when it was struck by a Chevy. The driver suffered only a sore elbow and $1,500 worth of auto damage, but the cow -- well, let's just say the cow got the worst of it.

The lesson here: Watch where you steer. And that's no bull.

-- The Lane Ranger is currently stuck in traffic. But he can be reached at 226-3374 or at cridlin@sptimes.com .