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Now I am playing it safe and waiting until the last car starts to turn and the SUV behind me gets a little impatient and starts to blow their horn. Well low and behold as soon as this guy toots his horn the second car in that line, with their right turn signal blinking, goes straight through the intersection. :sick:
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
My wife had a lady scrape out front bumper because she believe her right turn signal. The lady claimed she couldn't turn into the street because she was slipping (at 35 mph?) because the street was wet so she went on straight. She lied.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Not to accurate since Renault owns a controlling interest in Nissan.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
"you're kidding."
pause
"are you OK?"
His wife had just gotten rear-ended on the turnpike while passing the scene of the major accident that had slowed traffic. The rubbernecker behind her got so mesmerized by the other accident he stopped paying attention to the traffic in front of him.
I don't know what the relative speed of the collision was, but it was enough to make the women hit her head on her steering wheel.
It'd be like putting an anti-German sticker on a Chrysler. Not very sharp.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
It may be that down the road when the official report is released it will have been whitewashed.
BTW, the wife was driving a compact car and for the rental until her car is repaired she wants a Tahoe, well, a tank really, but those are hard to come by.
I always wondered about that, too. One of my friends says that if you get involved in an accident with a cop who does NOT have his sirens on, no matter how the accident is caused, you are automatically at fault and can get ticketed for "interfering with an officer's ability to do his job" or something like that.
But I don't believe everything I hear. Heck, he used to say back in high school that Cherry Coke would help clear up your complexion! :P (okay, I'm exaggerating on that one...I think I heard it on "Mama's Family")
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
And then he goes on to say: Real world example: I brought my car to a stop once from 80 MPH faster than the truck in front of me under "panic" braking conditions.
Redmaxx, you didn't stop your car from 80 mph in 120-130 feet. Maybe from 60, but no way in hell do you stop like that from 80.
The point of following distance is that when the vehicle in front of you slams on the brakes, you need room to get to your brake pedal and be slowing your vehicle down before you run into the vehicle ahead. If you're 10 feet off the other guy's bumper, and he slams on his brakes, how much is that 10-foot gap going to close before you touch your brake pedal? How much more will it close while you're still braking, from a higher speed?!
And FYI, one of the following distance rules-of-thumb I've often heard is 1 car length for every 10 mph. That is basically a one-second rule, and is considered acceptable in some states!
A few years back I remember a local story about a copette who ran a red light and got hit. I don't remember the outcome, but do recall the police trying to cover for her, and the scandal made the news.
Sometimes though you can be found partly at fault even if you have a green light. Ages ago, one of my cousins got hit while driving his mother's Duster. He had the green light, and thought he was going to have it made from the settlement. Unfortunately it was found that he "ran the green", for lack of a better term...basically gunning it and shooting out into the intersection the instant the light turned green, and then getting into an accident. It's actually quite possible that he was the one doing the hitting, smacking a car that was already in the intersection.
Anyway, he still got a settlement, but it ended up being a pittance compared to what he thought he'd get.
Sometimes, where you hit a car has a bearing on whose fault they consider it to be. If a car pulls out in front of you and you hit it ahead of the B-pillar, it's generally considered to be the other driver's fault for pulling out in front of you unsafely. But if you hit it aft of the B-pillar, it can be considered your fault, because the rationale is that you had adequate time to stop. Of course, YMMV. And I wonder what happens if you hit the car right AT the B-pillar? :surprise:
When I was in the service I was a Hospital Corpsman and part of my duties was doing emergency medicine and/or driving the ambulance. Now This was a fairly sizable island (larger than the state of Delaware) but with a small population in really only one town of any sizable population. Since the base was about 10 miles outside of town (with the state run airport right next to it) the base provided fire and ambulance service to the airport and all areas of the island beyond. This amounted to about 80-85% of the populated area with almost half the islands population.
That being said we routinely drove the ambulance off the base around the island and into town (we were only allowed to bring civilians to the base hospital under life treating conditions). One of the first things drivers were told was that the instant you hear crunching metal hit your emergency lights. They said to do this so you could claim you had them on prior to the accident and the other driver would be confused as to if they were on or off prior to the accident.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Not wanting to start up the whole cell phone while driving debate, but talking on a cell phone is not much different than talking to someone in the car (especially if you're using hands free).
But other than that who said she was driving when she called? He said she had just gotten hit, that suggests that she could very well be on the side of the road while the police officer is doing is accident investigation.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
I suspect cops are told to do the same thing....heck, around here they turn on every light and siren even when going to the most minor fender bender, shoplifting call, or cat stuck in a tree etc
I could say it ain't so but it would be bad grammar and a lie. The last week of training for Hospital Corpsman back then was riding with the local fire departments paramedics. They all said the same thing "As soon as you hear crunching medal hit those lights".
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
My three closest calls have been 2 with CA Highway Patrol and one with a local municipality. Two were "uncoded"; no lights, siren, no nada; and one was a full blown code (4 fire trucks and two squad cars) All three would have been held at faultif it had converted to accidents. So just because they roll under color of authority does NOT make it any safer. Indeed to my way of thinking, it is actually MORE dangerous under those conditions. It is only helpful in assigning blame, if and when accidents do happen, when they are involved.
Because, of course, the law is above the law.
It went to court, and the judge actually said he admired the motorist for being brave enough to do what he did. The judge even admitted that the records that the police force provided saying that the cop was on a response were most likely fabricated, but there was no way to prove it, so unfortunately, the ticket had to stand.
A couple weeks ago I was on a street, 6-lane divided road with a 45 mph speed limit and cross traffic and traffic lights. There was this cop in a 2nd gen Lumina (I'm surprised the cops haven't torn them all up by now) who came up behind me in the right lane at about 70 mph. I was doing about 50 in the middle lane and going faster than a couple of cars in the right-most lane. Cop cut across behind me dangerously close as he went from the right-most lane to the left-most and then almost out of sight. Until the next traffic light caught him.
I caught up to him, stopped beside him, and when that light turned green he gunned it, causing some hideous noises to emit from that abused 3.1, and took off as fast as the thing would go. Oh, it also had body damage on it from past scrapes and scuffs.
You guessed it, he got caught at the next light, and then gunned it again. This repeated itself a couple of times. I came close to rolling down my window at one intersection and telling him that I've gotten tickets for driving less over the speed limit than what he's doing, so what does he think HIS punishment should be? I think a lecture about treating property that's funded by the tax payers with some respect was in order, too.
But in the end, I thought the better of it. But seriously, when cops do stuff like this, should they really be that shocked when we end up not respecting them or their revenue-generating laws?!
It's high time lots of people carry little digital video cameras around, and document such publicly funded recklessness. But even the most guilty ones would receive paid leave or some similar unjustifiable BS.
It all shows that respect really does have to be earned...and that sooner or later there will be some big pains.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I finally passed him up.
I guess he should have just stayed in one lane.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
You are correct, the 120-130 feet is 60-0 stopping, I never said 80-0 in 120-130 feet.
The point of following distance is that when the vehicle in front of you slams on the brakes, you need room to get to your brake pedal and be slowing your vehicle down before you run into the vehicle ahead. If you're 10 feet off the other guy's bumper, and he slams on his brakes, how much is that 10-foot gap going to close before you touch your brake pedal? How much more will it close while you're still braking, from a higher speed?!
Hmmmm...you must have missed a whole bunch of that discussion. All the while I've been advocating the 2 second rule, not 10 feet off the bumper.
And FYI, one of the following distance rules-of-thumb I've often heard is 1 car length for every 10 mph. That is basically a one-second rule, and is considered acceptable in some states!
That's a bad, bad rule. At higher speeds, such as 70+, it (IIRC) produces following distances of less than one second. Besides, I have never been able to find a definition of "car length". 2 seconds rule for me. :shades:
But in the end, I thought the better of it. But seriously, when cops do stuff like this, should they really be that shocked when we end up not respecting them or their revenue-generating laws?!
I'd have called him in. Then again....maybe not.
That is 10', right? :P :sick:
Because, of course, the law is above the law.
They should be much better drivers, since they are the ones going very high speeds to chase down people. They need better reaction times, better ability to maneuver the car, etc. If they aren't much better than regular drivers, then why can't regular drivers go 100 MPH on the highway?
That's not true. Sometimes the police have to drive without lights or siren, for fear of alerting the criminal to what they are doing.
While true the lack of lights or sirens means that they have to drive even more cautiously since no one knows they are responding. In other words as far as traffic is concerned they are just another vehicle.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
I took off from a light at a pretty decent, but not fast clip. Behind me was a MB SUV. The MB decides it wants to accelerate faster, so it starts passing me. Gets all of about half of the way in front and stops accelerating at 55 MPH, holding right along side me. We go like this for about a 1/2 mile and then it suddenly drops back to about 40 MPH. :confuse:
What really gets me is you see someone approaching a stop light behind a stopped car on a road that has two lanes going in each direction. The car approaching the intersection changes lanes and pulls up next to the other car. The light turns green and the car that changed lanes accelerates really slow so the car that was originally stopped takes off way ahead of them. Then the car that changed lanes just changes back and gets behind the car the pulled up next to to begin with. Thats something I never could figure out.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
But, hey I got something a little more interesting. Another coworker had his car struck by lightning in the company parking lot. It struck the front wind shield on the passenger side. The driver's door window was shattered, but most of the glass ended up on the seat. The rear window was also blown out. The passenger airbag deployed and the windshield buckled and cracked, but did not shatter. The weather striping on the passenger side popped out.
I figure the car is a total loss. The body damage is easy enough to fix, but the electronics are going to be a mess.
She had to have been giving more attention to driving, after all, she didn't rear-end anyone, did she?
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
They were both stopped at the stop sign at National Road, US 40, and the Jeep blew its horn as the other drive made a left turn into the 4 lanes of traffic. The jeep turned right as if it was on its way to a call at the fire station.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I was coming home one night from my evening job, on the highway. I was in my '67 Catalina convertible. There was a pack of traffic ahead that was creating a bit of a bottleneck. Suddenly a Toyota Land Cruiser comes up on us at about 90 mph, and decides that the road should magically clear for him. He put on his high beams and tried to make everybody move out of the way. My first reaction when someone blinds me is to slow down, which I did. So he bullies his way into the right lane to try and pass me, but that lane suddenly slows down so he has no choice but to get back over behind me.
Eventually we did get through that pack of traffic and I punched it. Before I knew it, the Catalina's needle was pushing 115. Now I dunno if a Land Cruiser can go that fast or not if its driver really wanted to, but I walked him like a dog. He was mad and started flashing his high beams on and off at me.
He did finally catch me once my turn came up and we were on a road with traffic lights. Kept riding my butt and flashing me. Finally he decided to blow past me and I decided to let him swallow some of what he had been trying to cram down my throat. So I tailed him, although I didn't flash him.
Anyway, we came up to a traffic light at about 80 mph (55 mph speed limit on this road). It turned yellow and the Land Cruiser gunned it to go through. I was about to, until I saw the cop in the left turn lane. So I hit the brakes. My left rear brake would lock up prematurely sometimes in heavy braking. I could still control it, but it made a horrible shrieking noise. All this time I was praying "please don't lock up" while I was slowing, hoping that I wouldn't draw TOO much attention to myself. It finally did lock up and screech just a little, before the car came to a stop. I was right beside the cop. I didn't even look over, because I could just tell he was looking at me!
I'm guessing he was off-duty, which is why he didn't bother to do anything. Another possibility is that the county line was just a quarter mile away, and this was a county cop. So he never could've caught that Land Cruiser. Heck, if I had wanted to run that light, I could've probably been in the clear too.
Anyway, a few nights later, I was taking the same way home from my part time job, but I was in my Dart. Well, lo and behold, that Land Cruiser must have been on the same schedule as me because I saw him again. Same tricks, trying to bully people out of the way, blinding people with his high beams, etc. I felt like being a jerk, so I followed him home. Watched him turn down the cul de sac on which he lived, and noticed which driveway he turned into. Turns out he only lived about a mile from me!
Well, a few nights later as luck would have it, I was in the Catalina again, and came upon the same guy. Or rather he came upon me. I'm sure he recognized me, as there are only so many pale yellow '67 Catalina convertibles to go around. He tried messing with me again, riding my bumper, occasionally flashing his brights, etc. Until I drove up into his community with him right behind me, turned down his cul de sac, and slowly turned around in front of his house!
I would've loved to have seen the look on his face...I'm sure it would've been priceless! If I had thought about it, I would've dropped off a package of Depends the next day with a note saying "I know I made you mess yourself last night. Hopefully these will help if the situation arises again." :shades:
Very dangerous driver. Reminds me of driver in Olds compact (I think) back in 90's. Wife and I drove separately to work and came home within about one hour of the other at the time. Each of us at would sometimes encounter the Olds on a US route 2-lane driving recklessly and sometimes passing in double-yellow zones (curves, hills). One day he passed me in a double-yellow and I memorized the license plate. Within a few minutes of the incident I passed the house of a state trooper (master sargent) in our neighborhood and noticed he was out cutting grass. I stopped to tell him of the most recent incident and the previous incidents that I and wife encountered. He then told me to wait by my car. He then went to his patrol car and apparently got on radio and/or phone. He came back a little later and said that offender lived in next town and that everything is taken care of. We never noticed that driver/car again on the road passing in double-yellow.
I know what you mean about those 25 mph speed limits. They're overused here also -- while they are appropriate for the central business area where congestion is heaviest, they're not okay for outlying streets where 30 or 35 would be perfectly reasonable.
The irony is that in New York City, of all places (even in Manhattan), the speed limit is 30.
The irony is that in New York City, of all places (even in Manhattan), the speed limit is 30.
That's actually one of the good things about the San Francisco Bay area -- speed limits tend to be a bit more reasonable in the long tracts of suburban "cities" surrounding the bay, albeit less so in the bigger cities (San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose) themselves.
They have to be more reasonable. Everything is so damned spread out, it would take forever to get anywhere if you had to go 25 or 30. Fortunately 35 is common, 40 isn't rare, and even 45 isn't unheard of, all through districts with housing and strip malls. Then you hit the expressways that are up to 50.
I complain a lot about driving in the bay area, but at least this part is done right!
Oh the gall of all those people not speeding.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Thebigal - is it The Big Al or The Bi Gal? Nothing wrong with it either way, I just had to ask.
Dopey little towns? I resemble that
That is actually quite refreshing to find people driving at 25 or less in no apparent hurry and with nothing to prove. The 2 little towns nearest to me have 30 mph on their main road. Driving through these "dopey" towns is easier and less stressful than when I have to drive on the busy/competitive 4 and 6 lane roads in the suburbia areas.
I find it far more likely to find inconsiderate/angry/hostile/competitive drivers in suburbs than in dopey little towns.