Insight generally and insight of the day

Barcelona Spain - sewer drain C20080601 017
Originally uploaded by fotoproze

Last week's New Yorker has an article on the process and generation of insightful thinking, "The Eureka Hunt [ABSTRACT]."

My morning insight on my bike ride into town today was about manhole covers for drainage sewers. I ride down North Capitol including under Rhode Island and New York Avenues. The manholes for the drainage sewers are very large of the open grate variety. There are wide holes in the grate to allow water through.

They are dangerous for bicyclists because the width of the channel in many versions are wider than bicycle tires.

The obvious thing would be to make the channels narrower.

Or the insight is to put the grates in with the channels perpindicular rather than parallel to the street. Then the channels would be easily traversable by any and all bicycle tires without any problem.

Maybe I'll submit a proposed rule to the Federal Highway Administration with a copy to the Institute for Traffic Engineers.

(Flickr photo of a drainage sewer covering grate from Barcelona by fotoproze.)