Mark - it is comments like yours that lead to the formation of huge committes and 'hearings' that lead to absurdly complicated wording and lengthy rules that need lawyers involved to even begin to understand. To say that qualified and experienced are ambigious is stratching things a bit. As I have suggested, the lack of a specific definition allows for some level of judgement on behalf of the club ...

With an excessively defined ruleset, you end up woth people losing the ability to make common sense decisions ... some thing I thought you were wanting to see more of!

Ken - I think that MAAC has safety ver much at the forefront of what they do ... but find it difficult when no one wants to discuss the topic. When they upgrade their safety guidelines in order to improve the safety at the field - the members scream and complain! What I have seen is that the members want 'conveniant' safety or safety they agree with.

The issue of active thoroughfares is held up as an example of bad wording ... and while it isn't defined, I think common sense helps sort this one out.
I think we have probably both flown at the same field where the final approach in a north wind is directly across a grid road, and you basicly need a spotter to tell you there is no traffic coming. I beleive there is another field in that the same zone where the same can be said for south winds, and in that case I have seen inadvertant touch and gos off the grid road.
The common sense interpretation is that if there is a reasonable chance that your airplane coudl com in contact with a vehicle or pedestrian ... you should change the field lay-out ...