Driving habits of rural folk

[turnkey4099]

In Washington (RCW 46.61.290), and Oregon (ORS 811.346) you can use a 2-way left turn lane as a merge lane when turning left from a driveway, etc.

Bruce

I spent a year in Wash D.C. 1959. I was told that highway US 1 was rated teh most dangerous hiway because it had a continuous center "passing lane". Head on's were common. I don't know if the the rating was true but I do know that using it to pass someone was takeing a big risk.

 

[Sigarms]

One day driving down state NJ-major road- left lane everyone doing about 80- I am in center lane- guy in left lane tailgating.
Cars ahead stop, tailgater can't and ends up spinning out on center median grass. Does not flip and ends up facing the right direction.
He gets back on the highway, a few minutes later passes me on the left, doing 80, and tailgating the car in front of him.

How could he not learn from almost getting killed and spinning out from doing exactly the same thing five minutes earlier :shocked:

I found in MA out in the boondocks, kids would drive fast, older people would drive slow. So pretty much like everywhere else.

I stopped at "One day driving down state NJ-major-road":laughing:

People in Jersey will tell you people in New Jersey don't know how drive

 

[daugen]

I stopped at "One day driving down state NJ-major-road":laughing:

People in Jersey will tell you people in New Jersey don't know how drive

I spent five years driving from one end of NJ to another, calling on every single title agency in the state from Newton down to Cape May. Got me out of the office one day a week, but oh my.
Driving through Camden, Newark, and my favorite, Paterson NJ, it was not unusual for a city dweller to intentionally walk in front of my company car. I was driving a Taurus at the time
and I swore it was like a magnet. Got so I had to watch folks eyes, if they kept them on me, I just slowed way down and watch them stroll in front of me, of course not at an intersection.
It was hard enough to drive up by the tunnels, near Fort Lee and Jersey City, got yelled at by my boss one day to stop leaving so much room in front of me, said you have to crowd the next guy since everyone did it and if you didn't it actually made it worse. Absolutely crazy drivers, just too many people crammed in an area I think makes the whole place nuts.
By the time I got home to PA I was vibrating, eyes stung from the pollution and almost always had a headache.

What a pleasure it is to cross the NC line, and all of a sudden things slow down. Not on I-95. but on most of the other roads.

 

[daugen]

turnkey, that sounds familiar. Only accident I have had in almost 40 years was within six weeks of moving to NC. Came up behind old beater compact Chevy, two tiny little old ladies in front, could hardly see their heads, true blue hairs, and waited for them to make a right on main road after a big truck went by. Absolutely no other traffic on road. My neck is fused, five inches of titanium in it, and it is difficult for me to do left right left very quickly. And boy I wish I had that day. I watched these seniors take off from the stop sign, I stopped of course, looked left, not a car on the road, and the proceeded to enter the road. BAM! Their car was stopped fifteen feet in the middle of the road. Did 2 grand worth of damage to my Avalon, because of stupidly expensive headlight and I ate that bill so my insurance wouldn't go up. Did 400 bucks damage to back of their car which looked like it had been repaired many times.

We pulled off on next side street, and I slowly walked up to their car and gently asked the driver "ma'am why did you stop in the middle of the road?
She sat there for about ten seconds, clearly confused, and answered "I don't know"...Wonderful I got behind a totally senile driver. When her husband came to pick her up, he kept looking down at the ground like he was guilty. Turns out this was the third accident like this she had in the last year, and the officer who stopped knew all about her. He apologized and said because I rearended her, and the fender bender was out on the main street, he had no choice to but to write me a ticket for following too close. I told him not to worry about it and that the accident was entirely my fault.
He looked at me and said it was rare anyone told him the truth, and then proceeded to tell me how to make it go away, pay for her damages and plead a certain way in municipal court and the ticket would disappear. Which it did.

From that day on I knew my next car had to have auto stop braking, would have saved me the embarrassment and an hour in court next to a bench full of drug dealers and low life

 

[Sigarms]

I spent five years driving from one end of NJ to another, calling on every single title agency in the state from Newton down to Cape May. Got me out of the office one day a week, but oh my.
Driving through Camden, Newark, and my favorite, Paterson NJ, it was not unusual for a city dweller to intentionally walk in front of my company car. I was driving a Taurus at the time
and I swore it was like a magnet. Got so I had to watch folks eyes, if they kept them on me, I just slowed way down and watch them stroll in front of me, of course not at an intersection.
It was hard enough to drive up by the tunnels, near Fort Lee and Jersey City, got yelled at by my boss one day to stop leaving so much room in front of me, said you have to crowd the next guy since everyone did it and if you didn't it actually made it worse. Absolutely crazy drivers, just too many people crammed in an area I think makes the whole place nuts.
By the time I got home to PA I was vibrating, eyes stung from the pollution and almost always had a headache.

What a pleasure it is to cross the NC line, and all of a sudden things slow down. Not on I-95. but on most of the other roads.

Had a training class in Jersey on day, headed to the hotel the night before. Took a bridge out of Philly into Camden by mistake (no GPS back then) at around 0100. Thought I was in wore torn Beirut. White boy in Golf VW and one of the few times driving I was scared crapless and there wasn't even any traffic around. Came across a cherry top on the side of the road, pulled up with my window down, looked at the LEO, he looked at me, then pointed the direction for me to get out of there.

Thing is, there are some nice areas in Jersey, just never spent much time at them.

Had to look to see if my memory had gone on me with on how I remember bad Camden looked, even at night. Kind of just the way I remember it...

 

[Sigarms]

Their car was stopped fifteen feet in the middle of the road. Did 2 grand worth of damage to my Avalon

Had to laugh, they're coming for my Avalon tonight as my wife kind of made me donate it after it was determined it wasn't a good "training car" for the boys driving hours. Some minor driving quarks that the boys or my wife don't have figured out yet.

400k on it and it has been a good car. I'm going to miss her.

That said, after finally cleaning out the trunk and finding a pool of water back there, could of been part of the electrical issues:laughing:

 

[Jstpssng]

I spent a year in Wash D.C. 1959. I was told that highway US 1 was rated teh most dangerous hiway because it had a continuous center "passing lane". Head on's were common. I don't know if the the rating was true but I do know that using it to pass someone was takeing a big risk.

What we are referring to is not a passing lane. It's a lane to pull into so that you can make a left hand turn without stopping the entire line of traffic behind you; or wait to pull into traffic when making a left hand turn from a parking lot or driving. Traveling or passing is prohibited as noted in my previous link.

And we all know that nobody would ever think about breaking the law, right?
er...

 

[JethroB]

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but remember, technolgy/communication along with response time with medical care has come a long way which adds to the variables to the survival rate in auto crashes in "todays times".

I can remember in the late 60s the local funeral home providing ambulance service in my hometown area. Owner was also the county coroner and owned the adjacent icehouse. One stop shopping. We have come a long way.

 

[ovrszd]

I can remember in the late 60s the local funeral home providing ambulance service in my hometown area. Owner was also the county coroner and owned the adjacent icehouse. One stop shopping. We have come a long way.

Yep, same here. No ambulance. If you needed hauled to the hospital it was in the hearse.

 

[JethroB]

My employer installed a combination dash and driver cameras in all our big trucks/semi. Certain driver actions initiated recordings for so many seconds prior to and after the event (hard braking, etc.) I made the mistake of watching a head on collision video on my PC one day. It still gives me the willies. Mack vs Ford Ranger.