Gravity bends a crank?

[fourfords]

actually SwoopNZ, I haven't been to Berkeley, CA. for a while but in the early 1980's, I would visit my future wife at CAL Berkeley. While driving, I could see my destination but I could not get there directly. I had to drive this-a-way and that-a-way to get there as some of the streets were blocked off. I guess they wanted the streets to wear evenly(Who knows?!). As a young man, I thought it was absolutely the dumbest thing I had EVER seen.