Hey road warriors!

"if she had not been so focused on one direction?"
It is obvious you have not spent much time driving around where deer like to cross. It ain't like they stand on the shoulder waiting for an opening. No, they hide in the brush or woods, usually mostly out of sight, and wait till they get a message from "somewhere out there" that they should cross now. Irregardlwss of where the approaching driver is looking. Here in Missouri, one of our favorite sources of venison is roadkill. (But only if it's fresh, and not too mangled!)

Deer are amazing creatures. They can run at speeds of up to 40 miles per hour and leap over an 8-foot-tall fence.

Adult female white-tailed deer weigh about 145 pounds, males 170. The heaviest whitetail ever recorded in the United States was a 500-pound Minnesota buck.

this was taken off a website but I would like to add that i've hit one and saw it coming but saying you should have your eye out for something coming out of the tall grass and weeds that is the same color as those plants is wrong. not to mention that you cant reliably judge the trajectory of a deer coming at 30 or 40 mph from the side when you only have a few hundred feet before they are in front of you.

In my case, it was big green trucks with tows. The trucks were the typical military 2-1/2 and 5-ton jobs. The tows were usually the military dolly sets - a two-piece unit that bolted on to either end of an equipment van. It used a pintle-hook towbar with a live (steerable) front axle setup. Some not-really-good pictures to give you the idea.
http://tinyurl.com/nljk8
http://tinyurl.com/qj85y
http://tinyurl.com/mrmvl

Towing this thing was absolutely frustrating. No matter how hard you worked to get the mobilizer sections square on the van, the combination never would track straight. The loose connection between the pintle hook & tow eye meant that every bump changed the position of the towing eye in the pintle. Every time the towing eye changed position, the angle on the steering arms changed. You could drive arrow-straight through 1 inch of snow and look back and see two interlocking sets of snake trails left by the dolly wheels.

My worst experience with this setup was driving back from a deployment in Denmark. We are coming down the autobahn bridge (feels like a couple hundred meters high) over the Kiel Canal and the German trucker passing me honks his horn and motions to the back. I check the mirror and see the back end of the van trying to pass me! I put my foot down as far as I could and had exceeded the maximum authorized speed of the M-35 2-1/2-ton truck (57 MPH) by enough to bury the speedometer before I reach the bottom of the bridge. But that van stayed behind me!

The trailer I really wanted behind me, but was never allowed to tow is this one: http://tinyurl.com/lg4a8. To give you some idea of what just might be in those tanks, the picture was taken in Germany and the red and white stripes are the walls of a Fest tent.

When I'm on the road, I always give the trucks as much room as they need and most of them return the favor. Unfortunately, NB, the quality of driving has fallen off in the last few years. Some of these companies (usually not the majors) are hiring the a$$holes who tailgated us in their 4-wheel redneckmobiles. They now get to tailgate us in 18-wheelers. There is nothing more disconderting than passing a semi doing only 65 on the way up a hill than to realize that all you can see in your rear-view on the way down (at 80) is his front bumper.

Edit: typos

As a field service engineer, I spend many miles and hours on the road between service calls. As a ham radio operator, I had access to calling for help from a car long before cell phones.

One day on I-80 in New Jersey, on a very snow covered road, I watched as a car in front of me spun out of control into the right guardrail. I pulled in front of the car, and noticed "blood" covering the windows of the vehicle as I approached it. Before I got to open the door, the two occupants - man driving and woman passenger - got out of the car, laughing up a storm. They were covered in red. It turned out they had been having a fight in the car (before the accident). The "blood" was pizza!! They had been throwing it at each other!!

I called the State Troopers, and left quickly after they arrived on the scene and I explained what I observed and their explanation. I wonder what kind of a ticket one gets for that!

Having been assigned to Edwards AFB for two years, I've driven in Fresno. The only thing coming out of the undergrowth beside the roads there is...wait, there is no undergrowth beside the roads in Fresno.

Some points:

1. It takes a deer about a second to cross a 15-foot grass shoulder. If she reacted as soon as she saw motion, she did good.

2. Deer are about the dumbest things on four legs. Once they get moving in a direction, only a sharp sound (like a shot) or a perceived threat (like a dog) will change that direction. Cars don't qualify on either account. My little red wagon has a wrinkled front fender from a deer that ran into it while it was [b]stopped[/b] on the highway.

3. As for the rest, NB has already has his say.

Edit: clarify

when I was in junior high, we discovered that both a barber shop and a dentist's office occupied the premises at #69 Beaver St in Albany, NY.

We laughed about that one for months.

Edit: 'course, we were only 12, after all. :D

Now THAT's funny.

I was stationed at Keesler AFB in Biloxi back when it snowed in the late 80s. They closed the entire Gulf Coast at about 2 in the afternoon. I stayed at work until 5. By then it had pretty much melted off and all I had to do was drive around the wreckage.

But it was ugly. I mean, these are people who don't even know to slow down in the rain!

This is my favorite dumb driver story. Luckily the others around her were alert...

In rush hour traffic, I'm waiting at a double left turn lane for the traffic light to change. Once you turn left there is a merge lane on the right of the road, as well as a gas station exit.

The light changes and we proceed to turn left. The car in the front of the inner turn lane suddenly swerves in front of the SUV in front of me, into the merge lane on the right hand side, and then proceeds to pull a U-Turn out of the RH merge lane, across our 2 lanes of traffic, the 2 lanes of traffic heading the other direction and into the right hand turn lane. She did all of this without once turning her head to look in any direction other than out the front windshield.

they must figure god will look out for them because most of these elderly drivers don't look. I had a budy who was an RCMP officer, yup canadian heh. anywho, we were sopping up some suds one night & he was acting in a very agitated fashion. asked what bugged him. he had been at an accident scene where a mans arm had been sheared off at the shoulder, after being sideswiped. this was on a very busy stretch of highway, 3 lanes both north and south. traffic was begining to get so backed upped by rubberneckers trying to see what happened, he said he finally cracked and grabbed this guys arm and was using it to wave the on lookers on. he was suspended for 2 weeks for that stunt but said if it ever happened again he would do the same thing. why? this highways speed limit is 110 kph, about 70 mph. people usually drove around 80. the rubberneckers slowed down to less than 30 mph. luckily there were no other accidents there that day.

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Don't know about your area but around here, being 3 seconds back at any speed over 5 km/h is about the same as holding up a sign saying cut in front of me. Driving in rain? The same idjits don't seem to notice that they just might need a bit longer to stop. As for snow, when we get our annual couple of days worth of snow, I've taken to taking the time off. Life is too short to spend the hours required to get to the office though there is the amusement factor in watching someone with poor condition summer tires trying to get up or down a hill or the genius in a 4 wheel drive trying to stop suddenly en route. Well, amusement as long as they miss me.

Or I wouldn't be here!!!!! lol

Yes, this one is about my father.... as an example, a typical short 2 mile trip from his cottage to mine in a neighbouring village in SW Scotland

Here in the UK, it is the law that you have to wear seat belts, so my Father does comply.....
But only several seconds AFTER he has started the car and got moving, however there is a 90 degree blind corner, around the house at the end to negotiate first, so he doesn't do it there, oh no, he waits until the narrow single track road down the steep hill (with passing places - areas a car can pull over to let an oncoming vehicle pass). Imagine the situation of him contorting around, groping for the seatbelt behind him, slipping a shoulder under it, and fumbling for the other end to clip it into, with the car swerving around on this narrow road.
And me, in the passenger seat, fuming, trying not to say anything (have tried, it's useless)... hoping that nothing is going to come the other way.

At the bottom of the hill, is a narrow hump backed bridge with low stone walls that crosses the river Nith, famed for its Salmon fishing. It is single lane too, with a bend at the other end, so no way of seeing if anything is coming, you just have to try it and see. In which case, one of the vehicles has to back off the bridge to let the other through.

However, my father is a very keen angler, so he always, I mean ALWAYS, turns his head sideways to look at the river when crossing, to gauge the water level, and hopefully see signs of fish rising (jumping).
JEEZ!!!
I have had stronger words about this though, not afraid to use a few expletives, he looks sheepish, but that doesn't stop him from doing it every time!
Then..... a mile down the road, now 1 lane each way, there are a couple of large manhole/access covers for the Water Board to maintin the supply to the vilage I live in. They weren't levelled/set in properly when the Water Board last renewed them, so there is a very small bump when driving over them. Here is where I wish it were single track road again, as my Father crosses over to the other side of the road to avoid them, even if another car is coming!!!

His excuse (for I could not keep silent over this one either) is that it preserves the suspension of the car. My reply that modern suspension systems are perfectly capable of dealing with such things - these aren't like the days of old, when suspension systems consisted of curved steel bands,
or that having a perfectly good suspension is no good with the rest of the car wrapped around our heads, met with silence (did I score a point there?)
or.... He says that it is to save the wear and tear on the shock absorbers, and that did I realise how expensive it is to replace them? My reply that it wasn't as expensive as repairs to the car following an accident didn't score, but my follow up one that I doubted the insurance would cover him for the bill, if it was clearly his fault, maybe did hit home (he often thinks with his wallet)

Lastly, getting to my cottage.

There is a front door, accessed from the main road, and a back entrance, which I mostly use, as there is a side road allowing off road parking at the back. So what does my father do? Yep, you guessed it, he chooses not to park in the safer place, but on the main road, right opposite my front gate (less distance to walk you see). Which wouldn't be a bad thing, except it is on a bend, and any traffic going back the way we had come, has a devil of a job trying to see past and negotiate this obstacle (not to mention that it is an offence to do just that)

ALL of this, is an example of a 2 mile journey down a rural country road, but is typical of his driving all the time. I won't even begin to tell you what he is like in City or Motorway driving...... and when he is a passenger? (what we call in UK a "back seat driver") he is thoroughly impossible!!!

Great pics btw!!!

I used Google images for "Ice Highway" - with quotes to get some pics, found some good ones, not many, but I am not sure what you you are looking for, have you tried that?

To set up the scene, 21 year old driving a loaded dump truck with trailer during morning rush hour is moving right along -- witnesses watched him switching lanes to pass other vehicles prior to the accident. The driver comes up behind a line of traffic that is pretty much stopped just north of the Massey tunnel, swerves over in the next two lanes smashing into two cars which catch fire, wedging a third car under the front of the truck and continuing on to strike 8 or 9 other vehicles before stopping. Driver is charged with 3 counts of dangerous driving causing death and 2 counts of dangerous driving causing bodily injury.

Sounds like a slam dunk for the prosecution.

Well, back to real life. The case finally gets to court and Gursharan Singh Dhaliwal is acquitted when Judge Moron (aka Ron Fratkin)on the bench rules that the accident was not Dhaliwal's fault. Evidently, approaching an area where 3 lanes funnel down into 1 lane heading into the tunnel (two lanes in two tubes but one lane gets switched to the opposite direction during rush hour) and "momentarily" not paying attention to the traffic in front of you because you were busily checking your rearview mirror collection prior to changing lanes isn't enough to convict. The judge also took into consideration that while there are 14 or so traffic signs in the area, none of them were sufficiently clear in warning that there might be a traffic jam ahead so reducing speed might be a worthwhile thought.

Section 162 of the BC Motor Vehicle Act which reads "A vehicle must be far enough behind the vehicle it is following to be able to stop safely, even in an emergency." seems to have been forgotten by Judge Moron.

Do you mean the I84, Oregon?

NeverBusted said
"I have no idea why they call it Cabbage and no one I've asked knows either"

I found this on Google:

"Cabbage Hill
Locally, this refers to what is actually Emigrant Hill, or I-84. According to McArthur, Cabbage Hill is actually a long spur extending down Emigrant Hill, ending at Table Rock at McKay Creek. The name "Cabbage Hill" comes from a garden containing cabbages on land owned by Mr. Huderman, near the top of the slope. It was named that by G.L. Dunn, of Gibbon, who was herding sheep in the area. The name was adopted and has been used ever since."

Also some good images and lots of cams (for some reason)

I am not trying to flame here, or be controversial, but I don't see what all the fuss is about. The pics I have seen seem milder than some sections of our Motorways here in the UK: The M5 south of Bristol, for example.

Now for some really "hair raising" thrills, try some of our 4-in-1 hills, with hairpins, there are even the 3-in-1 gradients. I have seen some lovely examples of these in North Cornwall, Scotland and many places elsewhere on our tiny, crowded Island.

The south of France and anywhere around the Alps would also be good contenders for a "white hair" experience ;-)

Now that's one baaaaaad driver :-)

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With my download rate, that could take have the bleeding day, and that's when I'm doing nothing else.

I guess the two classics I have seen driving the expressways around Chicago (plenty of nuts) were, first, a guy driving 70 mph holding a cup of coffee in his left hand, which was draped over the top of the steering wheel, with a cell phone tucked between his left shoulder and his ear, and with his right hand he's flipping paqes in a notebook on the seat next to him; the other was a woman using an eyelash curler, connected firmly to her eyelash, looking in the visor mirror, travelling at nearly 70 mph in heavy traffic.

Thanks NB!!!!

That was fanstatic, well worth watching.

Ernest? set aside half a day for the d/l ;-) and watch all 6:41 of it. you won't regret it/

:D

miss his turning at the Horse & Groom roundabout in Bracknell, Berkshire, UK.

It is a large roundabout, with 6 intersections, 3 of them dual carriageway, so is a major part of the routing of traffic around the town.

So..... instead of continuing on another circuit and take his exit the next time round, like most sane people would do, he stopped...... then.....
reversed around the snarled up traffic behind him, their horns blaring away, fists raised (and other gestures), until he could get to his desired exit.

EDIT: NBs affliction seems to be infectious ;-)

She was driving erratically; Traffic was fairly heavy so it took me a while to see what she was up to. She was using a laptop at 55mph.

a famous driver Cristian de Matta has been in the hospital for over 5 weeks when his RACECAR hit a deer at racing speed. He was in a coma with brain injuries and only now beginning to get his speech back

Brits drive on the left so that mounted knights can show that their sword (right) hands are empty.

If you're ever in Kingston, NY, drive into town from the south on Route 32. You'll come to a wacky intersection with (? I think) Washington Ave., where it's a divided road and you have to keep [b]LEFT[/b]! No kidding. Throws me every time, so I try to avoid that part of town.

As for traffic circles/roundabouts, has anyone ever seen a clockwise one in the U.S. or anyplace else where you drive on the right? Or vice-versa in left-sider places (the Magic Circle or whatever it's called excepted).

P.S. What part of Oz is "NS"? New South Wales? I've been puzzling over some of your postings, thinking you were in Nova Scotia (Canada), but it turns out you're quite literally at the opposite pole!

[i] That could include those back seat experiences, since they took place "behind" the wheel.[/i]

As in, "children in the back seat cause accidents; accidents in the back seat cause children"? :-)

I was driving to work in an area filled with many trucks. Cam to a stop and looked in the rearview mirror. Saw to my horror a semi approaching at a rate I knew would not allow him to stop in time. I got off the brake and moved up a very significant number of feet. Had to have been a good 15-20. The truck ended up just tapping my rear bumper. No damage but I could only imagine what would have happened if I hadn't scooted up.

driving down a freeway and some idiot in a jag pulls up behind me. I am driving 10 mph OVER speed limit at the time. This a$$clown starts flashing his lights for me to pull over. Now note that traffic is light and he can pass me if he wants. Well I maintain speed. He finally passes me and pulls in front and then slows to 45 mph ON THE FREEWAY. I guess he wan't in that much of a hurry. I pull over to avoid this idiot and he pulls in front to keep me behind. I then move back and forth a number of times and this continues. Finally I pull over to the slow lane and this fool is still in fornt. I wait until the last moment fake to the lane to the left and jump off the freeway. Pretty sweet move if I do say so HOWEVER I then get an earful from my wife about the whole event. How I should have moved over and let him pass, etc. etc. Hell had she not been in the car I would have just remained behind this idiot until a cop pulled him over hehe. Either that or see who valued his car more. Me in my POS or him in his jag and play a quick game of chicken.

Who is Carlos Mencia and what's so interesting about 'Hey! Dee-dee-dee'

and "cool" just doesnt seem to cover it, ya know?

This goes back probably 20 years or more. I was eastbound on I-80, first rain of the season. For those of you who don't live in California, we normally don't get much rain from May to November or December, oil builds up on the pavement, and makes for some serious traction problems with the first real rain of the season. This was around 8:00 p.m., dark, and it was raining. Just about everybody was driving a bit below the speed limit because of the wet, slippery, pavement, when a 48-foot semi goes flying past everybody. A couple of miles on down the road, that semi is jack-knifed, blocking four of the five lanes, and has a car jammed between the tractor and the guard rail. The car is at least 6" narrower on the driver's side. I'm sure the bears had fun with the driver of that rig.

[i]Finally I pull over to the slow lane...[/i]

If you were in the left lane and the right lane was clear, you should have moved right to let him pass. In fact, if the Jag driver had driven almost anywhere outside the US, he was expecting you to pull over before he got there.

The signs say "Slower traffic keep right." It appears that most American drivers don't realize that if somebody wants to pass them, [i]no matter how fast they are driving[/i], they are slower traffic and need to move right.

Based on your closing sentences, I think your wife was right. The driver of the other car was also dealing with an id10t.

Way back in the dark ages when I took driver's ed, and several times while doing local driving conditions orientation while in the military, I had the modified 3 second rule explained.

1. Under ideal conditions, starting following distance behind any vehicle should be 3 seconds.

2. Distance should be increased by 1 second for every adverse condition encountered.

3. Adverse conditions are as follows:
- darkness
- precipitation (snow, ice, hail, dust, etc.)
- heavy traffic
- slippery road
- condition of car
- condition of driver

4. Add seconds if any particular condition(s) are especially egregious.

So you could literally be driving in the dark, during a snowstorm, in heavy traffic, on a slippery road, in an old rattletrap car, while tired, and having had 2 beers and need a minimum of a 10 second following distance. Of course in my book, anything over a 7 means it's not safe to be out driving and you should stay home (or whereever you are).

Deer are killers, plain and simple. You do NOT want to hit one, especially head on, as a 150+ pound animal is going to cause rapid deacceleration of your vehicle, probably loss of control, and possibly come through your windshield at speed, which is even worse. Brake to a stop if possible. If not possible, slow, and clip it, or drive off the road if possible to keep control of the car. Glancing blow off the guardrails may ruin your car, but still save your life.

Oh, and we don't even want to talk about moose here in the northeast.

It was always one of my ambitions - as a long-time biker - to do that on a Harley. I managed around four miles before trading the Harley for a Kawasaki! I did around 150 miles on-way (and back) on the Kwacker. I have done the full stretch from SF to LA in a car and I just thought that it was a nice, picturesque road and not particularly dangerous.

I suppose I didn't find the PCH particularly bendy because most "normal" roads in the UK still follow the original track between different landowners' holdings and so we have more bends than anyone from a more sane country would believe possible! The only straight roads that we have (until the Motorways came) are those that follow the track of the Roman Roads and those were built two thousand years ago!

Neil :)

I seem to remeber BWM and Meshershmit make really ultra compact cars just after WWII.

The Mesherschmit was little more that a airplane cockpic of three wheels.

The BWM Isetta (sp?) was the one where the whole front end was the entry door.

Both pre-date the mini

There was 1 time in the Desert, We left the port at Dhahran, went north on the road for about 4 hours and turned left, (kept us from getting shot-up.) went west untill just before dark. Made a quick pit stop, gased up, (I let the kid who got stuck ridding with me take a pee, poor kid, I thought he was going to explode, Dumb a$$ young kid had drank too much cola) and took off across the desert. about 2 in the morning we had to stop. We just couldn't go any further, driving in the desert at night does stranges things to your eyes. (and your brain too!) We started doing a good 70mph, but ended up at around 40mph. really hard to tell, when we finally stoped, we asked each other if any-one really knew haow far we had gone, nobody thought to keep track of the miles. We just went to were we needed to be and never thought about just far that might be. But it is a whole lot of map space I know that. I had to go to Riad a couple of times, early to late, had to be at least a 1,000 miles. I know it's not a lot of miles to an over the roader, but those were some hard miles. Over here in Europe, now that they made me retire, it's hard to go very far, one runs out of the country too quickly. -d

he makes fun of fat, stupid, lazy people that blame others for their problems, and is calling them retarted. The "dee dee dee", is the noise he makes when he imatates someone with these "issues".

Politically correctness is not a part of his show, and he is usually right on and gets people to look at the hard truth that you are responsible for the mess your life is or isn't, no one else.

It always amazes me to watch people wait until the very last second to move into an exit-only lane, when they've had hundreds of yards, if not miles, in which to complete the maneuver.

On one occasion, there was someone who was trying to move into the exit lane with a utility truck already there. Both vehicles were slowing, and when the exit lane split from the main roadway, the utility truck claimed the shoulder between the exit and the road, which was a completely legal option for him.

The really stupid act happened next. The driver of the car pulled into the exit lane - not the shoulder - then stopped [i]in the lane[/i], apparently to berate the truck driver. Needless to say, this caused quite a problem for the cars approaching him from behind at 65mph.

that brought back some memories.....

tootling along the Military Road up here, Chollerford area in Pa's beloved Austin 8.

To find that the phrase "Severe Dip" took on a whole new meaning as you were bouncing nose first off the bottom, and the engine straining to get you back up to the top again....

Not a good idea, sitting in the back seat, eating an ice cream cornet....

Ruined my Summer Posh frock, that did.

:D

GG

Do you remember those lovely spiral bends? Breeze into them, get halfway round and then suddenly find that you were going too fast for the second half of the bend as it tightened up. I lost two good biker friends (and scraped two sets of my own leathers - I was lucky) on spiral bends before the DOT started to straighten them all out.

There was a bend on the A45 where I was brought up where it was very rare that there wasn't a car on its roof at the outside of the bend. No amount of signs will tell you that it's 50mph in and 30mph out!

Neil :D

1. A lady driving at speed on 101 southbound in Marin using both hands to put on eye makeup at 6:45a. Granted, rush hour so no more than 25mph. Could not see what she was using for steering.
2. Same road, and only a week later, a guy eating a bowl of cereal, again using both hands (well, ya need both hands to keep from sloshing milk on yourself, I guess). Using his knees to steer. Again, rush hour so maybe 20mph at that time.
3. A woman, same road, farther north, merging from the on ramp into traffic, with a cell phone clenched between left shoulder and left ear, but torso twisted so she could look at someting in the passenger seat; she had her body twisted out of the seat. Gotta give her credit though, she never lost control of hat cell phone. But, looking at where she was going was right out of mind.
4. Classic: car merging right from number one lane while another car was merging left from number three. Neither checked the area they were moving in to so a moment later we had two cars occupying the same space in the number two lane.
5. Yesterday: a BIG SUV swerving in traffic. Moved over one lane but did it in jerks of left then right then more left (because there was a car in the target lane). Two minutes later the same when moving right. Then another three minutes the same when moving left again. Then the same again as the woman did a three lane to the right as she moved into the exit lane. As I passed her I noticed she had a cell phone held to her left ear by her left hand and was gesturing wildly with the right (granted, I did see her grasp the steering wheel at one point.
Fin: Hmmm, nope, I never did anything stupid.

we still have some great hairpin bends in this neck of the woods!

Cumbria in snow looks beautiful, but driving is hell. You can't distinguish the snow from the road, from the grass, or the sheep.....

oops.

Lamb chops anyone?

Happens regularly. Best bit is the highest pub in Britain at Alston. The truckers loved getting stuck up there - and often did so deliberately. Lovely couple used to have it: kept 20 mattresses in the basement for emergency use. After time was called, they went to bed, leaving the truckers to sort themselves out. Didn't lock the bar, left a pint mug there for honesty payments. Old colleague of mine got stuck there for five days with no money - came back half a stone heavier from all the good cooking and the booze he'd been "forced" to drink. The company sent the cheque for monies owed the day after he got back...... for double the amount requested, in case someone was ever stuck like Pete again; without any cash whatsoever. Wonder if they still have that place??

oh, the good old days, when I worked for private industry.......

Nuff said. Off 'ome....

GG

They seem so much more efficient than stoplights or four ways.

My experiences in teh UK have always been pretty good. They seem generally to be good drivers (other than they frequently drive on the wrong side of the road. That was a little troublesome) ;)

the very first "Magic roundabout" in the UK was built in the centre of the market town, Hemel Hempstead. When it opened in 1973 there was total chaos until they put a policeman at each of the mini roundabouts. During the first year or two, many drivers would get 'lost' and make almost random changes of direction until they eventually got off.

One of the roads is the four-lane main access to Hemel from the M1 motorway (freeway). Shortly after the opening the driver of an articulated lorry (semi, big rig) got so confused that he tried to drive straight across the middle. Unfortunately for him, there is a river in the middle which is not visible from the road. Crunch!

Here's a map.

http://www.sens-giratoire.com/imagesrp/photos_red/magic_roundabout.gif

Neil :D

The Swindon one is good, though, but it doesn't have a river, too.

I was driving east on I-80 very heavy fog at night. The oncoming headlights showed the outline of a dog running across the median. I lost track of the dog once it passed through the oncoming lights so I slowed to avoid the now ivisible dog. Once I felt sure that I'd passed the pooch I started speeding up only to find a deer smack in the middle of my lane, screeching tires appear to have startled the beast into action. If it had not moved we would have met, up close and personal.

Fog will really screw with all of your visual preception.

Great tips, just what I would have said. Most truck drivers cannot handle the sudden slowing of a small vehicle, but a good trucker will.

Counting "one-thousand", "two-thousand" etc. will not give you 1-second approximations. To do that, wait until the vehicle ahead passes the mark, then say "zero one thousand, one one thousand, two one thousand, THREE". If you passed the mark before "three", you're following too close for dry, daylight conditions.

Driving in rain or on snow, of course you should not only increase your following distance significantly, you should not be traveling at the speed limit. The speed limit is the fastest you should be safely traveling in optimal conditions. You can be cited for going the speed limit on snow because you would be violating the Basic Rule.

Let me guess. A cross between an idiot and a mental midget?

One of the top 5 I have witnessed was a young guy trying to get ahead of me (I am 40+) so he could drive like an ass next to the girl in the car in front of him. Both cars were driving erratically. Anyway, we were on a city street, two lanes each way. I was in the right lane and the other two cars were in the left lane. I was beside the guy and he wanted in front of me at 40 mph and was giving me all kinds of gang sign BS and in general just looking like a freak. He looked pretty pissed off for whatever reason. ME? I was laughing back at him. I had no where to go as we were in traffic. He's driving along jumpin on the gas and breakin while looking at me. Why else was I laughing? At him of course, but also because the gal in front of him stopped suddenly for traffic and he nailed her going about 35. All I remember is his Honda airbag smacking him in the face while he was looking at me. Happened in all of about 5 seconds of driving to impact. I stopped and did the right thing, but was smiling inside the whole time (no one hurt much beyond pride).

"I don't do the flashy light thing if someones blinding me. My pickup has killer highbeams. I turn 'em on and leave 'em on if someone else is blinding me first."

My mom taught me 2 wrongs don't make a right. I don't use my brights often so occasionally I'll forget they're on until reminded. When some jerk leaves his high-beams on after I've dimmed mine, I stop feeling contrite and just get p1ssed.

But I DON'T put my brights back on. *I'm* not a jerk.

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[i]...they get heavy mists and call it fog, but you can still see 50-100 yards. A true fog makes it difficult for you to see the centerline just off your front fender.[/i]

Something that most drivers don't seem to appreciate (until the last few milliseconds before impact) is that [i]you never, ever, overdrive your visibility[/i]. You gotta slow down at night and in precipitation so that you can stop in time when something comes out of the dark/mist. It's amazing how fast people will go at night and then smack into something in the road that "appeared out of nowhere". Find a deserted stretch of road and try braking hard at different speeds to see if you can stop before you "hit" some non-illuminated/non-reflectorized object by the side of the road. You'll find yourself slowing down quite a bit! As for pea-soup fog, get off the road before some idjit rear-ends you. I've seen oncoming headlights look like parking lights in fog -- and taillights were invisible.

[i]...both drivers were riding the centerline with their heads out the window so they could see the line.[/i]

Now [i]that's[/i] using your head! When I was a young-un, I drove an old VW with no working heater. Once sleety night the windshield iced up and I had to drive (slowly) with my head out the window! I froze my left ear and to this day it aches when exposed to cold.

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I had three when I was a teenager, awesome fun but gas tank was WAY too small for goin ganywhere in Canada. Managed to fab. up a 15 gal that worked well though.

the new Mini by BMW sux big time though, can't stand those things.

When we were all in England, mum had a red one with teh white roof, in true Butterflies fashion, my brother (and I helped) painted the Union Jack on the roof (but of course!).

I remember when dad got his new car from work, an absolute luxury mobile that was simply enourmous! Mum said, "where are you going to drive that great big thing?"

It was a Morris Marina! (for North Americans, about the size of a NEON).LOL!

But roads on the IOW were pretty damn small, as some were still left over from the Romans.

Sorry NeverBusted, I guess my post was a bit snotty wasn't it? Brights are a touchy subject for me. My eyes are so photosensitive that they feel like spikes being driven into my retinas. Makes me cranky.

Somehow I'd rather take my chances with hitting the deer than have the semi in my rear-view run over the top of me. I don't know by what standard anyone would think it's right to slam on the brakes with a semi on your bumper. It might be his responsibility but the driver he runs over ends up being just as dead.

I take a 30 minute on-road driving test every six months. Once The inspector and I comiserated about frustrating automotive misbehavior. When the subject turned to rolling stops at signs and right turns on red, he spoke of failing about a dozen potential drivers every week for these misdemeanors.
The capper was the youth that rolled every single one of them, even after he mentioned it; then proceeded to stop on an interstate highway on ramp.
He took early retirement. Can't say I blame him.

when I leave a nice gap the dodgers can change lanes without stopping traffic. I rarely need to touch the brakes.
This occasionally has the effect of getting others to do the same.
Imagine what would happen if everyone did it.

Idjits make better stories but the majority of drivers, including truckers, are fairly normal.

They just aren't as much fun to talk about. @8~)

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Deal!

These days with vehicles ranging in size from itty-bitty to escapees from a demolition derby, even lows can be too high.

Try riding down a mountain in a tour bus that is equipped with hydralic "somethings" used to "bump" around tight corners. I don't understand how they worked; the bus would be pumped up and then dropped several times to get the front far enough around the curve without going off the edge. I swear though, you could NOT see ground out of the bus window!

2 lane,45mph.Came around a corner nitwit coming head on trying to pass a semi. Pulls into my breakdown lane next to guard rail. He didn't try too hard to stop. When the railing ended, he spun into the grass, gathered it up, continued down the breakdown lane, then turned into a side street.
Same day heading other direction a rocket scientist tried to pass 5 or six of us at once before nailing the oncoming traffic head on. I was leading the pack and hit the brakes. He missed me by about 3 feet, the oncoming car by maybe 50 feet.
5 miles down the road he was at a stop light when I pulled up behind him.

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told me a little poem.

Here Lies Mr Grey,
He drove about all day,
By law he had right of way,
Hut, he's dead anyway.

Another we had, was

Crinckle, crinkle little car,
How I wonder what you are,
Down below the cliff so high,
Like a squished up applie pie,
Twas your speed made you go so far.

I agree, I'd rather tangle with the deer than a multi tonne, truck, better to avoid both.

Anyone who drives in France will find the roundabouts are normal, with give way to the left rules.

However a few years ago the French did not have many roundabouts because they had a basic driving rule of giving way to the right. This Rule was part of the culture - if you were bombing down a road and a car appeared from a lane on your right you had to stop and let it in front of you. This kept the brakes in constant use.

The problem came on the few roundabouts that existed (usually based around statues etc in the middle of towns). You had to give way to the cars approaching the roundabout. If the traffic was busy the inevitable happened, more and more cars entered the roundabout until it was totally jammed and nobody could get out.

Maybe her one direction focus was on the grillwork of the semi that was filling her rear view mirror, and when she was startled by the deer in her path, instinct was a split second faster than reason.

On the four lane highway - picture the lanes as your left pinky and three fingers. The index finger lane is totally open. We are driving in the middle finger lane. There is a car about thirty feet ahead of us in the pinky finger lane, and another car that much further ahead of that car in the ring finger lane. Everyone's going around 70.
A little VW bug comes zooming up at what must have topped 100, in the pinky finger lane. Instead of slowing down, he swerves into the ring finger lane - and realizes he is going to be flanked and now can not slow down quickly enough. Well, maybe he doesn't realize that, because he swerves back to the left, slams on his brakes, hits the pinky-side barrier in front of the car on that side, ricochets in front of it across the ring finger lane and into ours, but the force of his momentum keeps him going in a very speedy circle right back in front of us and over to bounce into the barrier again *behind* the pinky lane car, ending facing backward about 100 feet behind all of us.

Same trip, on the way home, we saw someone take an exit at about 80, and pinball back and forth between both side barriers all the way up the ramp.

To hit something that large does involve a major risk to your own life too

In this case, we do not have passing lanes, since speedsters always remain in that lane.

Of course, quite often, I have people expecting me to get over when the lane to my right has no gaps.

For these cases you mentioned, let's have an emergency lane.

There are just too many cars in the U.S. to have these 'passing lanes'. As far as I know, the passing lanes were courtesy, not law.
The only law that is in the books that I am aware of is 'do not pass on the right' laws. You can also get a ticket for blocking traffic. Totally ignored.

I used to work for Motor Vehicles in the department where we revoked drunk drivers' licenses. We also had to put holds on licenses where the owner hadn't shown proof of insurance to the police at the time of an accident. All the time we got people who said they didn't have to show proof of insurance because "it wasn't an accident." Our normal response got to be "so it was on purpose?"

Because they are larger and taller than everyone else, they seem to think "I dare you to hit me" and are happy to run into or over anything in their path. But still, the small car drivers have their moments too - the SUV's are the ones pulled across traffic and stopping it when they want to turn. The minis are the ones who can't wait to cross the intersection, so get into the middle of it when there is no room yet on the other side, then sit there in the intersection as the light changes against them.

All the Californians and Texans moved in. Everyone complains about how bad a driver everyone else is because their driving styles simply don't mesh - now we have 1/3 dawdlers, 1/3 cross-four-lanes-in-two-seconds, and 1/3 people-in-front-of-me-are-there-to-be-run-over. Bad combo.