The ancient quip, everybody complains about the weather but nobody does anything about it, might be well-applied to other situations, today — and that includes roadwork.

Few are the people in Cullman County who don’t welcome a solid infrastructure beneath our vehicle tires, and news that the county is ramping up road spending by nearly $4 million — and all the better that each of those four million dollars is coming from federal American Recovery and Rescue Plan Act funds — in 2023, is welcomed news.

Welcomed, until … everybody in Cullman County who wants that solid infrastructure doesn’t really want to do anything about it — or at least not if it means significant roadwork, traffic delays and the destruction of my curbside appeal for weeks or months on end.

It seems it’s always road construction season in North Alabama, and with the pace of development in Cullman County, that “seems” is actually a reality. It’s also the price we pay for infrastructure that will support and enhance our county’s needs for both today and tomorrow.

Because those needs and ensuing development aren’t going away anytime soon — quite the opposite, according to the Cullman County Commission — we’ll need to live with it. But more than this, we need to live and let live — by taking extra care when road crews are out and about performing the work we’re complaining about.

It’s often not possible to close roadways that crews need to work on when traffic would be active. That means, more and more roadwork in Culllman County is and will be performed on roadways that are open to traffic. Couple this with an ever-increasing traffic congestion — school is back in season, for one thing — it’s no surprise that the leading cause of roadway construction worker injuries and fatalities are contact with construction vehicles, objects and equipment.

Yet by practicing safe driving — eyes on the road, not the phone — and remembering that every work zone is a sign to slow down, we can all move safely down the road. And, when the work is done, we’ll all have one less thing to complain about.