Sort of On topic-- Making turns is super scary when the snow banks are 5ft tall, and you can't see other cars or pedestrians.
Driving by cornfields in August is the same kind of scary, except there's really not much pedestrianism. You can't see the cross traffic and just have to hope everybody slowed down.
In really bad fog I flip back and forth between looking forward and looking in the mirror and do it rally fast and obsessively because I'm more scared of someone ramming me from behind than I am of ramming someone else.
Similar to 3, what makes me feel safest is when I'm in a slow moving line of cars where everyone's giving each other lots of space - I can see the car lights faintly in front of me and faintly in back of me.
Do you not get those huge, blinding dust storms--like, can't see the hood, nevermind the road--in your part of Texas? I had to drive through those a few times in New Mexico and you basically have to say to yourself, if it's my time, it's my time (which doesn't preclude finding them very scary).
Not here. In west Texas, definitely, but we've got Hill country blocking us from that kind of thing.
When you have long lines of cars moving slowly, that's when you get the super 100+ pileups when some truck flies into the back of the line.
1- We're buying a big mirror to mount up on the side of our house to see over the snow banks while backing out of our driveway.
When I lived in California there had been a couple of horrific Tule fog multiple-car accidents where there was an abrupt transition crystal clear air to dense fog. My amateur sociologist attributed the implicit optimism about one's place in the world that causes someone to blithely drive into fog at 70 mph and not slow down as a California thing*. But subsequent similar big fog accidents in Tennessee, England and other places lead to a different and more universal condition of mankind hypothesis.
*People steadily coming over the mountains for 100+ years and immediately looking for someone to hand their life's savings to so as to be allowed to live there will do that to a populace. The intervening 30 years changed some of that.
I had to drive through those
This is me not being a member of driving culture, but all you people sound insane. If you can't see the road, aren't you supposed to pull over to the side and wait? Or ideally, not start driving at all?
But Tule Fog continues as a special ongoing threat.
11.2: You should, but that's boring.
If you can't see the road, the pulling over to the side and waiting is limited protection because the person still moving is as likely to drive off the road as on it. But it is the best thing you can do.
I've certainly been in torrential downpours blinding enough to get me to pull over.
I think people tend to drive through fog because fog doesn't pass over as fast as a heavy rainstorm. If you pull over, you feel as if you could be there for an hour.
This is me not being a member of driving culture, but all you people sound insane. If you can't see the road, aren't you supposed to pull over to the side and wait? Or ideally, not start driving at all?
It feels a bit terrifying to pull over, because maybe some maniac will plow right into you, whereas if you creep along, maybe you'll get out of it, any minute now.
Also 15 is right. I've pulled over in downpours, because surely it's only the worst for 10-15 minutes.
When you have long lines of cars moving slowly, that's when you get the super 100+ pileups when some truck flies into the back of the line.
Just to be extra super clear, this is not what I was describing in 5.
the person still moving is as likely to drive off the road as on it.
You people are talking about driving when the visibility is so bad you can't even see the lines on the road right ahead of you (that is, you're worried that other people will keep driving under those circumstances)? Jesus. I'm on vacation next week, and I'm going to be driving up to VT and back, and it is not reassuring knowing that ordinary Americans are actually suicidal when they're behind the wheel.
I can't see what you're saying, it's too foggy.
19: If it's not a road I know very well, I'd probably pull over! Does that help?
In extremely limited visibility scenarios (most recent have been a few in snowstorms) what I really wish is that there were a way for drivers to have commonly-understood signals that differentiated between: "I am driving way below the speed limit because... well you can see (or actually not see)" and "I am pulled over and stopped on what I assume and hope is the shoulder of the road but I can't really see even that." Confusion between which of those two messages you are receiving can be quite dire.
Ordinary Americans are homicidal when they're behind the wheel. Their own death is merely acceptable collateral damage.
The most terrifying experiences I've had driving is the two times I've been on the highway, when it was raining, and all of a sudden my windshield wipers broke. Like 22, it would also be nice if there was a way to say "oh my fucking god, I can't see whatsoever."
"...even though you all can see because it's only normal-raining."
On the way up the mountain to my Dad's cabin we drove through a heavy fog (could still see the lane lines, though) at sunset. The whole fog turned gold-pink. I doubt I will see light like that again. Then we reached 4500 feet and came out into perfectly clear evening.
I wouldn't pull over to wait out a Tule fog because they can last for days.
21: No! No! No! It's a normal way to react to think that "Well, I can't see the road at all -- I'd stop driving if I didn't know where I was going, but having a vivid memory of where the fixed obstacles are is enough to make continuing to drive plausibly safe"? That's terrifying -- doesn't that make you the 'some maniac' who makes it too scary for everyone else to pull over?
(I know I'm being an overly excitable and frightened non-driving nervous nelly here. But you people really are scaring me.)
Would you like me to post statistics on the number of drivers who are texting while moving at 70 mph?
California really is Paradise, isn't it.
Eh. Accidents under 25mph generally don't kill people. People are pretty slowed down in the fog.
Your first tool should be denial that bad things happen. After that, don't get out of the car on the shoulder.
Obviously, being delayed for your arrival is the worst possible outcome.
The one time I'm thinking of most vividly was about a month ago. I was on a big-ish country road, and my turn-off was coming up, onto a much smaller road. I couldn't see the lines, but I could see the gray pavement. So I figured I would see the lines if I got close enough to them, or a stop sign or something before I hit it. I was probably going 5 mph. Halfway down the smaller road, I drove out of it altogether.
I only text when the fog is so thick that I wouldn't be able to see the road anyway.
I figure you pull over, you die, because someone is going to ram you from behind. You drive along at 15 or 20 miles per hour, you might go off the road, you might run into someone, but you're not going to die. Until you hit something and then get rammed from behind.
I see Megan and I are in agreement here. I really belong in California.
I just had one of those experiences in VT, where dry snow was coming down and blowing all over, but the right lane of the interstate was basically clear, because that's where everyone was driving. Then some douchebag in a huge SUV came roaring up in the left lane, kicking up so much snow that I literally could see nothing on the other side of the windshield but the wipers. There was no pulling over, because I had no idea where the lanes were. And that was the moment when I realized how those enormous pileups happen.
Not to scare anyone. The official advice (in that article anyway) is to pull off the road, but no way man.
Do all of you reckless lunatics think there's any kind of culture change that would convince you to pull over when you can't see? I mean, you're saying that the only reason you don't, is that you don't trust other people to. Is this a norm that you all think could be changed?
But, absolutely, if I were in Germany, and the rule was to pull off, I'd pull off.
(On this same trip last year, there was one day with a snowstorm where I found myself driving with literally no traction -- I could keep going forward, but any attempt to speed up above seven miles an hour didn't work, the wheels just spun, and steering only kind of worked. I got off the road into the first parking lot/driveway I could get into, and I still don't understand why everyone else didn't.)
I mean, you're saying that the only reason you don't, is that you don't trust other people to.
And also everyone's probably going pretty safely slow, and it's probably going to warm up into a beautiful day so it doesn't really feel dangerous, and boy I have a lot of stuff to get done at work.
If it's not a road I know very well, I'd probably pull over! Does that help?
Similarly, if I'm only driving a short distance on a road I know well, I don't always bother to scrape the ice of my windshield. My visibility isn't actually any worse than it is when I drive with a clear windshield but no glasses/contacts. I don't like doing either one, but sometimes it's the only alternative to being late.
(I will admit that I've been feeling uncomfortable about this recently, since a few weeks ago I passed right by a pedestrian that I did not see at all. But, the pedestrian saw me, and got out of the way, so everything worked out.)
I still don't understand why everyone else didn't
Because they weren't driving Chargers?
I wasn't ever planning to move out of NY, but I'm cowering in my nice safe subway system a little harder after 45.
I've never driven a Charger, but it really does not look like the kind of thing that does well with snow.
I love how everyone starts off comforting LB, and then by the end of their comment they say "I mean, aside from that quite homicidal/suicidal moment, of course."
I remember many years ago I was with a friend driving through very thick fog somewhere upstate NY and joking about hitting a deer. Then he hit a deer.
This is why real Americans think of New Yorkers as foreigners.
When I was a new lawyer, my firm had a case from that 99 car pile-up in Tennessee. I can't remember if I did some incidental research for it, or just remember talking about incidental issues. That was some awful shit, though.
I don't pull over in the snow, because a plow could come along and whack you.
51 is probably basically right.
35 I feel the same. I'll slow down but stopping is crazy and pulling over is little better.
46: (A) It's a Challenger. Buck gets very testy about the distinction; (B) I was actually in a rental small SUV (the kind that's more like a car than a truck, whatever you call that); (C) everyone else was going under 10 mph and sliding from lane to lane as well, so I don't think the issue was that the conditions were unsafe for me, but safe for everyone else. (Not actually true. Maybe one vehicle in five seemed to have traction -- I don't know, maybe they had chains or something? But most of the cars on the road, and there were plenty, were in the same boat I was.)
55: But what good did it do you when you pulled over? How exactly did you get home without returning to the same exact ice patches?
29: Driving over the mountains on the Turnpike, I was passed on a curve (I was probably going 70-75) by someone texting with both hands. Scary.
45: It is okay to be late. (If it is not okay, make it okay.) That's pretty scary.
56: The plow and sand-truck came. Getting back to the condo a couple of hours later was no thing. (Fortuitously, the parking lot belonged to a nice restaurant. I had been trying to get to a grocery store after a day of skiing to buy food for dinner, but we had a slightly early and very nice restaurant meal instead.)
When I was in college, I almost hit a pedestrian when I was making a left turn on a snowy day with my windows not clear enough. I jammed the brakes, she skittered, and disaster avoided, but man, that was all my fault, and I've always kept side windows and mirrors clear since then.
LB is right this discussion is terrifying.
In any case the correct answer is clearly to pull over onto the shoulder and wait until you can actually see what is in front of you before driving a multi-ton metal vehicle at high speeds. And when you can't see where you're going twenty-five miles an hour is still a pretty high speed.
I mean, if you couldn't see more than eight inches past your nose would you start sprinting down the sidewalk?
56: But seriously, if nothing had changed? It would have made more sense to me to ask to spend the night in the nearest building than to try to pilot a ton of metal on a surface with no traction.
I think I might have already posted this photo here, but anyway, that was driving through Texas, and well after the worst of it (I felt safe enough at that point to take a picture--totally safe!).
It would have made more sense to me to ask to spend the night in the nearest building than to try to pilot a ton of metal on a surface with no traction.
That's not how heroes think.
60: FWIW, other people said 25 mph, but I said 5 mph.
References to tonnage are the clearest sign of the car hater.
But seriously, when you find yourself in a situation like that (and I try to avoid them, but things like dust storms aren't really predictable) you only have bad choices, and I pick a higher likelihood of a not-too-bad accident (keep driving) over the lower likelihood of a very bad accident (pull over).
Plus, it worked out ok in Days of Thunder.
Also I bet that if you pulled over onto the other shoulder, on the left, and turned on your high beams anyone insane enough to be zooming around without being able to see what was in front of them would have time to panic and swerve out of the way when your lights showed up in front of them.
62: 42 mph seems fast for that visibility!
LB gets it right. You're all lunatics, notwithstanding the fact that with the exception of urple I'm sure you're all more careful drivers than average. People have been flying down our street over the past two days, despite the fact that it is about half the normal width, people are out shoveling in the street everywhere, and there are six+ foot snowbanks lining the travel lane on both sides. I cleared our car/driveway in case we really need it but I am sure as hell not driving unless I absolutely have to.
58: Pulling over and eating at a restaurant is the obvious choice if that is an option. Pulling over onto the shoulder of a busy road is a bit less appealing.
References to tonnage are the clearest sign of the car hater.
F=ma is ideology.
and I pick a higher likelihood of a not-too-bad accident (keep driving) over the lower likelihood of a very bad accident (pull over).
How confident are you of the expected value you're putting on the situation? I mean, what hits me is the categorical imperative issue -- if everyone pulled over, it'd be safe to pull over. But more than that, if you can't count on anyone else to pull over, can you count on them to have the same sense of 'slow' you do? All of you 'slow down to 25' drivers are going to be rearending heebie, even if she keeps driving. Mightn't your odds of no accident at all be better if you got as far off the road as you reasonably could?
People have been flying down our street over the past two days
There are all sorts of crazy driving I have no desire to defend. Like, brah in the SUV, you realize you still only have four small patches of rubber on the road, despite the "X" in your car's model number, right? I hate people who speed in bad conditions. I was just addressing what to do when there's no visibility (move to Germany).
70: Well, the restaurant was luck. I was prepared to sit in a parking lot. But you're right, I did keep driving for half a mile? Maybe less? looking for a place to get off.
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Daycare called. By mistake, they poured out an entire bottle of Rascal's milk. (Pumped milk, not formula.) I'm trying to contain my rage because I get that this is a reasonable accident, but I loathe pumping and my supply is decreasing, and those precious drops out of my body and ARGH DOWN THE DRAIN.
|>
as far off the road as you reasonably could?
If this were a realistic option, I'd take it. Usually it's small shoulder, then ditch (or guardrail).
If NASCAR has taught me anything, it's that if you maintain complete control of your car at all times, you're driving far too conservatively. With optimal driving behavior, you're only going to be in control about 95% of the time; the remaining 5% you've got to hope for the best. Luckily nothing terrible will happen 98% of the times you're not in control, so overall there's only a 0.1% chance of terrible results.
I think that when I've been in near-zero-visibility conditions my solution has also been "go real slow", for what it's worth. Is living someplace where a car is necessary for transportation per se insane? Possible!
they poured out an entire bottle of Rascal's milk. (Pumped milk
Oh my god, my wife would have been in tears if that had ever happened.
76: The shoulder in 62 looks like a full lane-width; admittedly I can't tell if there's a sharp dropoff into a ditch immediately where the paving ends, but there might be.
Oh my god, my wife would have been in tears if that had ever happened.
This actually makes me feel better, or at least in good company.
Lately Rascal hasn't been taking a bottle for them very well. So yesterday when I picked him up, they asked me to try pumping at home and then giving him bottles at home, instead of nursing. I couldn't think of how to respond, partly because Rascal was screaming his head off, but perhaps my expression gave away my emotional state, which was "I WILL TEAR YOUR HEAD OFF FOR SUGGESTING THAT".
80: Texas does have nice broad shoulders.
And the roads tend to have a lot of room to pull over as well. But it is complicated by the fact that the social expectation they serve as a de facto slow car lane on two-lane roads (ogged's picture appears to be from a divided highway).
Yeah, shoulder then ditch. Plus, never stop in Texas.
Sifu is right, driving is a continuing horror that most of us have become inured to. I drive to places like the gym in objectively bad driving weather because i am an idiot enmeshed in a social web of idiots.
I got off the road into the first parking lot/driveway I could get into, and
Isn't this basically how the plot starts in one of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films?
Does 83 include an implicit "until you get where you're going"? I can see reading it either way.
I stop in Texas literally every day.
I'd say that in instances of suddenly diminished visibility, drivers should be taught to just let up on the gas, so that everyone is decelerating at roughly the same rate. That is, I'd say that if most people could be trusted to behave other than idiotically and barbarically behind the wheel.
From what I can recall that, along with "pull over and stop with your hazard lights on if you can't see in front of you", was pretty much what I was taught in Driver's Ed. I don't know what effect that had on the people around me, though. From what I can remember of what we learned in the class they might as well have said "make sure to always go at least 80MPH when you can't see, so that you zoom by anything dangerous before it can get you".
Driving when you can't see is a scary situation. It's natural to want to get out of it as quickly as possible.
Twenty-five mph isn't the suggested speed for driving in fog; it is (mostly) the threshold for fatal accidents. If visibility is that bad, mostly people will be driving much slower than that.
No one is saying that driving in the fog is a good option, but the other options are generally worse (waiting it out could be days, shoulder is at least as dangerous). Maybe people shouldn't leave the house in the first place (the fog is no surprise), but then capitalism would collapse.
I'm on LB's side when it comes to driving when nobody has traction. But in the fog... you can stop. So, just go 10 mph or whatever.
I think maybe one thing that's underappreciated here, at least among people who have to drive all the time, is that twenty-five is only the threshold for fatal accidents for people inside cars. I've been sent to the hospital by a car that was going maybe five mph at best. So if you're anywhere near a place where there might be pedestrians/cyclists/etc.* it's still pretty dangerous.
*So, ok not Texas.
You should have called an ambulance. They go much faster than 5 MPH.
However, SCIENCE (tm) says that a marijuana fog is okay for driving, so.
The ambulance was the one that took me to the hospital - not sent me there. It turns out that once they show up they can be really insistent about not letting you walk (kind of) it off.
But in the fog... you can stop. So, just go 10 mph or whatever.
I will note that if this is your rationale for continuing to drive (that you'll be able to stop in time to avoid an obstacle), you can't also believe that stopping would be unsafe (because other drivers will be able to avoid you). Doesn't mean you're wrong in any given set of conditions, but only one of the two rationales works at any time.
97: I can't remember where I read it (probably a link from here?) but I recall something recent saying that the crucial difference between stoned and drunk is that being stoned doesn't make you delusional about how stoned you are in the same way being drunk does -- a drunk thinks they're driving just fine, while a stoner is vividly aware of how impaired they are, and compensates.
95 is wrong. Pedestrians rarely die when hit by cars going 25 mph. Getting hit by a car going 20 is safe, 30 is a coin flip, 40 is usually deadly.
Proposed new drug classification parameter:
Tendency to induce the Dunning-Kruger effect.
(May be best conditioned on areas of activity. Marijuana Dunning-Krugers up ones sense of profundity, but that is less immediately dangerous to life, limb and property.)
101: This first thing I saw confirms your estimate on fatalities, but come on, surely we can regard merely injuring a pedestrian as a significant harm to be avoided as well.
Apparently the Tule fog is in decline. Good for nuts in cars, bad for nuts on trees.
I don't think this is a New York vs. real America thing so much as human nature. I'm pretty sure I've seen and read about driving habits in other countries that are horrifying for reasons in addition to weather.
It's easy to say that you should pull over when the pulling-over spot is the parking lot of a nice restaurant. If you're five miles from civilization in either direction and even those places are probably closed, though?
Personal example: two years ago or so, driving up to my parent's house in Vermont with Teresa for Thanksgiving. Right around Killington, just as we're going up the mountain in fact, it really, really starts coming down and we're actually stopped in traffic for 20 minutes waiting for a sand truck to go by. But we really don't want to deal with a hotel just 20 miles or so from my parent's house, so we keep going. But our route diverges from where the truck was just a few miles later, and the snow is still really coming down. From there on it's a rural and winding state highway, I'd drive over 40 miles per hour on most of it in good weather, but I'm probably going under 20 now. After that, I had to choose two routes. Route A was 4 miles of winding dirt roads on which I wouldn't go much faster than 30 even in good weather and included two bad corners on hills. Route B was 12 miles, the first 6 of which was as good as what I'd just been on, the last 6 of which was just like Route A but didn't have those bad corners.
If we were rational animals, we would probably have got a hotel in upstate New York, or maybe even near Killington. (Or took the weather report more seriously and started earlier in the day.) In fact, we got there safely on Route A, but I'm not really sure whether I can justify that over Route B.
As a public service, I would like to ask urple from this moment forward to please post when and where he will be driving in a car. And please be specific as to route.
There are certainly circumstances where pulling over is going to be impractical -- where you might freeze to death or die of thirst in the desert before driving conditions improve, or where there really isn't any way to get off the road safely. But wow do you people (am I othering driving-culture Americans? Probably.) sound like you have a high bar for when it's practical to stop -- again, in my story the restaurant was luck, what I was actually pulling off the road for was my first shot at a parking lot.
106: Post real-time updates while driving, please.
106: I picture urple driving the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car, so he should be recognizable from a distance.
92: It's natural to want to get out of it as quickly as possible.
Our stupidest cat (but admittedly survived several years in 3 different places each with traffic hazards) seemed to have an algorithm of "run faster" in every threatening situation. Wasn't there to witness it, but I'm confident his final act was to accelerate into the path of the car that hit him.
I will note that if this is your rationale for continuing to drive (that you'll be able to stop in time to avoid an obstacle), you can't also believe that stopping would be unsafe (because other drivers will be able to avoid you).
I think the fog is more safe if there are other cars around. In my experience you can see lights (headlights, taillights) at distances when you can see nothing else. So other drivers would be able to avoid me, because they can see the lights of my car while they would not be able to see a normal obstacle.
If there is a fog so thick that a car becomes just another obstacle, lights or no lights, that would be pretty unsafe.
surely we can regard merely injuring a pedestrian as a significant harm to be avoided as well
Yes, we can agree that merely injuring a pedestrian is a harm to be avoided, but avoided at what cost?
LB's link also cites necessary stopping time as one of the most significant factors which indicates that, in fact, being hit by a car going 25MPH is still very, very dangerous. It's just that if you're driving 20 you're more likely to be able to get your car down to, say, 10 than you can if you're going 30. (And probably more likely to be able to get from 30 to 20 as well.) So that data really isn't reassuring at all, especially not when talking about cases where people have trouble seeing what's in front of them. (Their study, and it matches the other ones I've seen, has to do with setting speed limits so the actual speed when someone is hit is beside the point.)
Also I'll note that anyone driving an SUV/Truck/etc. is only going to be able to throw the very tallest pedestrians onto its hood, which means anything but a glancing collision is going to send someone underneath the wheels.* The speed you're going means a lot less at that point.
*The exception to this is when that SUV/Truck/etc. is... going really fast.
And of course, while I'm being all sanctimonious about how cautious my driving decisions are, I both don't have a life that depends on driving at all, and I know I'm an unskilled driver. I'm not terrible -- I don't scare passengers, but my lifetime mileage driven is probably around that of the average twenty-year-old, and I am on high alert every moment I'm behind the wheel, because it's not something I do much. So, while I'm still right about everything, psychologically I'm coming at this from the angle of someone watching people juggling knives, and then saying that it doesn't make an intolerable difference, safety-wise, if they happen to have greasy hands as well. I do recognize this is not a normal reaction to have.
In the Great American West, you can be thirty miles from an exit. Just keep driving. With luck, you won't die in a ball of fire.
107: My point is, though, people are bad about being rational about risk.
In my example, it was kind of a frog-boiling situation - the bad forecast that morning wasn't enough to change our plans; the snow flurries 100 miles away from my parent's house weren't enough to change our plans when we were so close; the heavy snow 20 miles away wasn't enough to change our plans when a hotel there would have cost a ton because we're now in a tourist area; waiting out the snow in a parking lot overnight might technically be safe but would really be miserable, etc. We should probably have changed our plans at some point, but each step seemed reasonable given what we had already done. I don't see this as a driving thing so much as a "people can be stupid" thing. If you want to say it's just me, fine, but I don't think so.
16, cont'd: Well, clearly you don't think it's just me, but my point is I don't think it's just Unfogged people either.
Speaking as a carless urbanite too, I just come from the other background.
116: Oh, that's all fair enough -- I get the frog-boiling, and would very likely act similarly in some types of situations. I'm freaking out at people talking about about their standard practices, rather than 'things they did in the past that were probably, in retrospect, a poor idea.'
Everybody has to die from something, LB.
As I've driven less-and-less over the past 20 years, I have a sense of being more willing to stop and wait out, although I'm sure I did it often enough even in my high-mileage days. I was certainly willing to drive on the highway in heavy snow, so long as there was visibility. There was a freak snow storm in the middle of November in "that town in Iowa," and I drove, cautiously through it. On the other hand, a guy in a pickup pulled out and passed me.
I've gone from a regular, 40+-miles-a-day commuter to someone who only drives a short distance a few times a week. We always had 2 cars, but when the second one broke about 5 years ago we didn't replace it. My wife drives a few miles to work every day but we still come in under 12,000 a year now.
And if you want to have any hope of dying before you get old, cars are really your only option in this country.
22: what I really wish is that there were a way for drivers to have commonly-understood signals that differentiated between: "I am driving way below the speed limit because... well you can see (or actually not see)" and "I am pulled over and stopped on what I assume and hope is the shoulder of the road but I can't really see even that."
I haven't read much of the thread, but this is a really good idea. Around here, I've noticed that in torrential downpours, people drive (at a creeping speed) with their hazard lights on -- which is helpful! and something I'd never encountered before.
It wouldn't be a bad idea for cars to come equipped with two sorts of hazard lights, one for 'I'm driving really slow' and one for 'I'm pulled over.'
Another thing I'd not encountered before: some roads here are equipped, if that's the word, with what are called rumble strips, whereby if you cross the center line or right-hand line of the lane, your tires let you know it via sound. Don't know how well this would work if you were driving really, really slowly in the first place, or if drumming rain were drowning out all sound, or there were snow-pack, but they've certainly worked for me on occasion in other circumstances.
my lifetime mileage driven is probably around that of the average twenty-year-old
It really is depressing when I get policy updates from my insurance company. They always include a line that says "our records show the insured driver on this policy has $BIGNUM years of driving experience".
Rereading the OP, I realize that this is how I live my life... except for the last sentence.
"Super dense fog sure is scary to [live] in. Not today, but twice it's been so bad on my way to work that I couldn't see any lines on the road [of life], and was at a loss for what to do."
I've spent my life inching along, but never managed to get out of the worst of it. Must be why I'm so late to this thread.
If you're driving in conditions of poor visibility, find a safe place to pull over and attach a cow catcher to the front of your car.
what are called rumble strips
PennDOT* calls (or called) these SNAP: Sonic Noise Alert Pattern. Yes, I know it's redundant. I don't know whether they did.
*was once dealing with a really annoying lawyer, one of whose annoying tendencies was to insist on referring to the agency as PADOT. And I don't mean just in legal docs that had to be precise about terminology. I was just, could you try to be human a little bit, jackass?
Another thing I'd not encountered before: some roads here are equipped, if that's the word, with what are called rumble strips, whereby if you cross the center line or right-hand line of the lane, your tires let you know it via sound.
There are places in the US that don't have rumble strips? Maybe my lifetime of making fun of Pennsylvania's highways was in error.
Where I've driven, they're not uncommon but far from universal.
They're not universal of course, but they should be on all the roads with speed limit 45 mph or more, I think.
Apropos of blinding snow, this Canadian train engineer doesn't give a fuck.
Lots of places don't have money rumble strips.
I couldn't see any lines on the road
I was taught to drive with the door open, following the median line adjacent to the car. I've never been in fog so thick that I had to do that.
Oh look, and here's a semi blasting a following car with blinding snow.
Plenty of the city streets here don't have reflective paint or have really old reflective paint. I can be hard to see the white line between lines during a rain when it is dark. Everybody who knows where the lane dividers are, drives like they can see them. Everybody who doesn't, drives in the middle.
I guess different highway departments have different priorities. Pennsylvania prioritizes rumble strips, at the expense of making entrance ramps so short that people have to stop at the yield sign, and having almost no stretches of road with more than four lanes.
I was taught to drive with the door open
Is this a joke? I might have to get off the California train if not. It brings to mind a story I read (I can't even remember if it was supposed to be true) of two guys in England? Ireland? Maine? who were driving in fog with their heads out their windows and collided head-on, as it were. Both killed, as I also don't recall.
PennDOT* calls (or called) these SNAP: Sonic Noise Alert Pattern. Yes, I know it's redundant.
I am almost certain, having lived in PA, that they did this because they wanted to avoid the inevitable mockery that would have come with using only one of those two. "PennDOT says they're putting a bunch of SAPs out on the roads today!" "PennDOT to increase number of NAPs on Pennsylvania roads!", etc.
Not joking. That is what I was taught to do. Seems like it would be better to have the passenger do that, if possible.
Seems like the open door would give enough clearance to avoid beheadings.
But like I said, it hasn't come up in real life.
Are you sure the person who taught you this wasn't joking or trying to kill you?
133: Lots of places don't have money rumble strips.
The rumble strips I've encountered aren't actually separate, distinct doohickeys installed into the roadway: they're sort of chop-marks every, I don't know, 4 inches apart? hatched into the asphalt. Chop chop chop chop chop. It doesn't seem like that would add *that* much more to the road making process.
140: if you have your passenger open their door so they can see the median markings, you are driving on the wrong side of the road.
I think you're right, that they're not expensive to install, but you can't do it except when you're repaving the road. So the expense is of repaving all the relevant stretches of road. (I don't know if they're a standard addition on repaving high-speed roads nationwide, but it does seem as if they should be.)
Let me backup Megan on the central California Tule fog experience, though it's been much less bad over the last 20 years. The worst are farm roads through wet fields...
My Dad told stories of riding on the hood and directing the driver to keep it in lane, but it's never been that bad in my driving. (Of course, most of my driving was in city limits until the last 5 years, while my Dad traveled out to country schools and between towns much more.)
140: But like I said, it hasn't come up in real life.
Really, all it takes to make a person more cautious about these things is to go through an incident.
Way back in high school, I was driving to school in winter-time in my (awesome) '64 Mustang, and its defrost system crapped out. A freezing rain/sleet was coming down and windshield wipers weren't enough to cope, so I could not see at all after about 5 minutes. Part of the drive involved hopping over the highway from one exit to the next, and upon the highway I couldn't see, so I began to pull over to what we call in New England the breakdown lane, and YO. There was an 18-wheeler already pulled over there. I scraped the entire side of my car along the side of the 18-wheeler.
Um, very frightening, and easily could have been a rear-end smash into an 18-wheeler.
This message is to you, Urple.
I thought you can selectively grind the pavement to install them on existing roads. Indeed, my google win for the day is the first result for "install rumble strip machine."
I have had a passenger do the door open thing on a very back National Forest almost-a-road in fog and dark. In the interests of advancing general life goal of "Don't Drive Off the Mountain." But only for a very short distance at about 5 mph. Was almost at the one person gets out of the car and walks as a guide, which some friends reported doing on a trip to Seneca Rocks.
Or is that a front-end smash? My front, its rear.
I've only ever stopped once, western MA in a snowstorm we barely got up a hill on the highway. Pulled off and stayed at a hotel with our first kid, then 3 months old, and our dog. We had no dog food so we fed him a Big Mac from the neighboring McDonald's. It was probably the greatest trip of his life.
144: They can be retrofitted on pavement in decent condition (basically the asphalt (or, less often, concrete) is in solid enough condition that the milling won't create/enlarge potholes), and I believe PennDOT has been doing this, as well as incorporating it into all new projects.
Ah, I see I've been mostly pwned. Oh well.
My uncle talked to doing the "get out and walk as a guide" thing during a blizzard somewhere on the way to Ohio. They got to an exit and a hotel, but several people on that same road froze to death or got CO poisoning.
Is the story in 146 meant to be another illustration of why you should just keep driving instead of trying to pull over to the side of the road in heavy fog? Because I'm already on board with that message.
The one that freaks me out is totally iced roads where you just slide around no matter what. I've only ever been in that situation once on a bridge. The signs that say bridge freezes before roadway? True! There were some insane videos from the metro NY area a few weeks ago.
Fog or sleet or icy windows or whatever it is that prevents you from seeing what's in front of you, I mean.
151: When I was working at a McDonald's, a circus came through town after the grocery stores had closed. They bought Quarter Pounders (hold everything, including the bun) for the big cats.
I just remembered that BOGF and I once stopped at a motel maybe 1/4 of the way from her folks' house in eastern PA to Pgh. This must have been in college, because I think I called my dad to ask if he'd cover the cost of the room (was I really that broke? I probably didn't want to use up a big chunk of my spending money on a thing like that). Anyway, I assume this was for ice reasons, because I feel as if I'd remember if it was so snowy that we couldn't persist (yet not so snowy that we wouldn't have known before we left).
Fog or sleet or icy windows or whatever it is that prevents you from seeing what's in front of you
I don't know why this came to mind, but Newt was super unimpressed when the mail wasn't delivered in last week's snowstorm I came home to the question "Hey Mom, what's the Postal Service's motto?" "Neither rain nor snow... guess they're going to have change that one."
Relevant to the potential job mentioned in the previous thread, my commute would change from 3.6 miles to 9.4 miles. Which is doable but much more of the ride is on bike-hostile suburban roads where drivers will kill you and drive off without noticing. This is one of the major reasons I might not pursue the offer. I've seriously thought about asking if they'll just pay for a taxi every day.
Urple. Urple urple. You should not drive when blind. The vast majority of the time, if you pull over, there will not be an 18-wheeler there. It's okay to be late to work.
161: That would be very close to a deal breaker for me as well.
I stopped for gas once, driving across 80 east to west, and when I went to get back on the road it was closed because of multiple accidents. It had rained so briefly that I only needed to flick my wipers on and off but that bit of rain froze the second it hit the ground and everybody wiped the fuck out. I ended up twisting around and up and down on dinkster iced over roads, multiple cars flipped over on the sides of the road, multiple further dinkster road closings. I burst into tears when a fireman told me that the bridge I was about to cross was closed because his firetruck, responding to one of the many, many accidents, had jackknifed on it. I drove around passing more accidents and ambulances and detours, no hotels in sight, until I somehow ended up back on 80, further along, which was closed again for more accidents. I sat there for about an hour until we got moving again, and drove about 40mph the rest of the across the state. Wafer is lucky he didn't live there yet, because I would have shown up on his doorstep (it was in those parts).
Huh, they're building a bike trail that will reduce my death road portion to just over a mile.
157 - Were those 'for here' or 'to go'? You should have absolutely insisted on the former.
I've had a few very scary Tule fog moments* but far scarier was the time I drove the southern part of the Jersey turnpike late at night in November, and it seemed like every 2-3 minutes a new deer would jump out of nowhere and run across the freeway at top speed.
*once, running to make a court hearing in the Central Valley, where the choices seemed to be between dying and getting fired.
Driving at dusk or dawn is a very good way to hit a deer.
the choices seemed to be between dying and getting fired.
Only place to pull over was a bakery?
168. A deer jumped into the road in front of my car last night, over the five foot high wall of snow on both sides. We stared at each other for a moment then he ran up the road and I followed in hot pursuit. Eventually it jumped another five foot snow pile and disappeared, but I think I scared the daylights out of it.
I hate deer. Yes, I am a bad person.
I hate deer. Yes, I am a bad person.
You are indeed. To overcome this, try hanging them not too long, then marinating them overnight in a rich red wine with a few herbs of your choice and pot roasting them with a mirepoix or similar until the meat can be cut with a spoon, and the sauce blended to serve. I'm sure you'll change your mind.
I don't think you're supposed to eat the part that gets crushed by the car.
Is hanging meat still a thing over there? As in just outside on a string and not in fancy dry aging locker.
No, unless you're a chef who's trying to get noticed in the Guardian, you get the butcher to do it for you.
The butcher has a fancy dry aging locker?
If you're paying the sort of money you need to get properly aged meat, he does. If you've got a big enough house I suppose you can install one at home, but I don't move in such circles.
I was just wondering because the climate in England for much of the year is basically the same as the inside of a refrigerator. When I was at Lancaster, students would hang perishable foods on a bag outside the window to keep them chilled. That wouldn't work so well nearly any place I've lived in America because the weather is usually either too hot or too cold.
179. Yes, you can do that for milk and cheese, but is it dry enough and cold enough at the same time anywhere in Britain to hang meat?
173 says 'crushed, but I say tenderized!
When people complain about deer I often wonder: what would the equivalent amount of venison cost compared to the cost of the car repairs? In a lot of cases I think people shouldn't think "fucking deer!" and should think "awesome sale!"
again, in my story the restaurant was luck, what I was actually pulling off the road for was my first shot at a parking lot.
I feel like LB is imagining a very different driving scenario than many of these -- if I am creeping along in the fog, it's probably because I'm on a road where the only pulling-over option is the shoulder (which is easily mistaken for the road by people behind me), not some glorious paradise of a parking lot. Your first shot at a parking lot might be quite a stretch of creeping along away.
181: I very much doubt you kill a deer for less than $2,000 damage to the car.
182: The non-urban street roads I'm most familiar with (the North Fork of Long Island), it seems like most places there's the shoulder, but then there's also a grass verge, and you could get way off the pavement reasonably most places -- that's the kind of thing I'm thinking about when I think "pull off the road". From the way people are talking, this may be a much rare layout nationwide than I realized.
Nebraska is like that. Pennsylvania, not so much.
I was in a town in Colorado with a little bit of grass in an intersection. There was a big wood sign saying, "No Pets". There were about 20 deer hanging out. This was a rural area but inside a proper town.
183: That depends on how vain you are about your car, though.
Not really. Most people I know who have hit a deer have not had a drivable car after the collision.
181,183: Also factor in the cost of a butcher, assuming you don't want to do all that yourself.
Plus, if you always drive around with enough plastic sheeting to keep the deer blood out of your trunk, people will talk.
In Washington roadkill game isn't the property of the driver anyway. I'm told the State Patrol takes it to the nearest prison or other big institution.
Keeping it probably costs less than keeping a bald eagle feather or whale vertebra. (Many cars cost less.)
Interesting - looks to be similar in CA. "Nothing in this section authorizes a person to possess any [animal] accidentally taken by collision with a motor vehicle as provided in this subdivision. However, accidental takes on the road or highway may be removed by the state or local agency having jurisdiction over the road or highway."
I remember a few months ago, but can't find now, an article on all the details of what the police or highway patrol do in deer crashes. In that rural location, the driver had first dibs, culturally at least. After that there were various people who identified themselves to the police as up for taking roadkill if available; the police said they tried to allocate to the neediest. I think that was somewhere east of the Mississippi.
A local low-end Chinese restaurant got a health department suspension after the remainder of a roadkill deer was found in the kitchen. Apparently serving roadkill is not illegal but selling it can be, especially if venison isn't a menu item.
If only there were somebody dedicated to making sure Asian restaurants had accurate menus.
I think this may be my second-favorite Unfogged conversation. The hay conversation will always be the best, of course, but fog and deer is right behind.
I know. But nobody else will talk about hay. I've tried.
Our lege passed a roadkill bill last session, to national amusement. The yoga pants ban is the big story this year, despite having failed yesterday.
(One of our local breweries is running a special today -- free pint to anyone wearing yoga pants. It's not actually a pint, of course.)
197.last: Wow. That bill is crazy, though I have to say I don't see how it would have extended to yoga pants. (I guess this guy thinks yoga pants "simulate" genitals?) Visible merkins and the batman costume from the one with George Clooney, if worn by a woman, would clearly be banned though.
Hay Moby, do you know about hay box cooking?
There was a great poem from (I think) either the NYRB or The New Yorker a few years ago that was written from the perspective of a deer about to run across a highway. IIRC, it ended, "Now." I wanted to link to it for this thread but can't find it; anyone else recall it?
200 -- The bill is crazy, and I'm sure you're right, but it's Rep Moore's contemporaneous statements that yoga pants should be banned that is responsible for everyone making the leap. That and a high school elsewhere in the state that tried to ban yoga pants.
You also get a free beer if you wear a speedo. No word on whether tight jeans would qualify: maybe we should send a prof from the business school down there to find out.
The bill definitely would cover guys tubing down the river wearing bathing suits but no shirt. I guess the brewery can't offer free beer to the shirtless.
This is definitely the best poem about roadkill I know of.
This is what I was thinking of. In Wisconsin! Kind of interesting.
My sister's boyfriend swam in college. He is very comfortable (and good looking) in speedos. To him they are just the appropriate athletic wear. He has started running and loves running in the shortest Dolphin running shorts he can find. He is fully aware of people with rolling eyes and enjoys their reactions.
Wow - under current Montana law a third conviction of indecent exposure can theoretically get life imprisonment?!
209: You haven't heard of "Three Strips and You're Out"?
Locally sourced raccoon. Can't believe the man is trying to keep good meat eating down.
The editors of Vox are doing an AMA at reddit. Anybody want to go troll them? bob?
210: Actually, when I first looked at the bill I initially misread it that way and thought that this guy was mainly worried about garments that might rub against people's naughty bits. Which would have been slightly (but only slightly) crazier than what he does in fact appear to be worried about.
214: Talk about unenforceable, though, right?
