I swear that people are suicidal..

So todays weather was rainy with wind. Lots of Wind. Gusts over 50mph. Heading into work, I am on Route 30/White Horse Pike as usual. Doing the speed limit, I can feel the gusts buffeting my Disco from the crosswinds and the rain is making the wipers really work for a living. The Tide is up from both the lunar tides and the Strong on-shore winds we have been having. On a good day, rt30 has water on both sides, but today it is lapping at the shoulders and getting higher as the tide is still coming in.

The speed limit is 50mph on this 2 lane highway through the marshes. It has almost no shoulder, very few guardrails, and drivers who make it almost impossible to speed or they will run you down. I am not talking 5mph over the limit, but 15 or higher.

So normal people would be keeping to saner speeds on such a crappy day as today. Not on the WHP. I got passed by more than a few people doing 70+ mph, weaving in and out of the traffic that was fighting the wind and rain to stay in their lanes. What makes people speed on a road that on a good day offers little to know margin of error, let alone on such a terrible day.

I hope this comes through.. it's a google street view on a "good day". You can see the water not a car length away from the road with nothing between a vehicle leaving the road and sinking out of sight save for the driver's skill.

Google Street View: White Horse Pike

Just live the rest of your life realizing most of those people with be dead soon.

I just do not want to wind up dead with them. There is a nasty accident on that road weekly, and a minor one daily. I am unsure why that stretch of road does not wind up on the list of NJ's most dangerous roads

mad_machine wrote: So todays weather was rainy with wind. Lots of Wind. Gusts over 50mph. Heading into work, I am on Route 30/White Horse Pike as usual. Doing the speed limit, I can feel the gusts buffeting my Disco from the crosswinds and the rain is making the wipers really work for a living. The Tide is up from both the lunar tides and the Strong on-shore winds we have been having. On a good day, rt30 has water on both sides, but today it is lapping at the shoulders and getting higher as the tide is still coming in. The speed limit is 50mph on this 2 lane highway through the marshes. It has almost no shoulder, very few guardrails, and drivers who make it almost impossible to speed or they will run you down. I am not talking 5mph over the limit, but 15 or higher. So normal people would be keeping to saner speeds on such a crappy day as today. Not on the WHP. I got passed by more than a few people doing 70+ mph, weaving in and out of the traffic that was fighting the wind and rain to stay in their lanes. What makes people speed on a road that on a good day offers little to know margin of error, let alone on such a terrible day. I hope this comes through.. it's a google street view on a "good day". You can see the water not a car length away from the road with nothing between a vehicle leaving the road and sinking out of sight save for the driver's skill. Google Street View: White Horse Pike

with their heads buried in their smart phones, they probably didn't notice that the conditions had deteriorated to this point

Driving an hour each day to and from work exposes me to some of the "best" worst drivers in our area.

I especially love the folks who need in your lane, see a few car lengths of space in front of you and decide they need to commute for position. Nah, there's only several hundred feet behind me you could've safely occupied, please go ahead and try to slide into the space in front of me with your barely maintained 15-year old Escalade on bald low profile tires in the pouring rain.

Makes me want to go all Lemongrab:

I drive 50K-70K a year. I can honestly say, I drive enough in bad weather that I hardly even notice it anymore much less slow down for it. Particularly on a wide road like that one. I don't drive 20 over the speed limit on a perfect day, but on a bad day, there is a good chance I'll be in the left lane and driving faster than the average commuter. I'm sure it drives both of us crazy.

It's all in what you are comfortable with and I actually like driving in the rain. I put 130 miles on the Samurai yesterday, cruising around, enjoying the weather. It was raining nicely, I loved it.

Hydrogen and ignorance are both universal constants. Most humans literally do not have a clue that they are taking risk because they don't know what makes a car move in the fist place.

Cars are like cell phones to most people. I would put the number of people who have ANY clue about the physics of why and how an automobile works at under 2% of the driving public.

My mother explained this to me when I was a teenager and droning on about some aspect of automotive behavior. She said that to her, a car was no different than a magic flying carpet. She got in, twisted the key (probably did a short incantation since they drove Brit cars) and it ran. If she pushed one pedal it moved, if she pushed another it stopped. Round thingy made it turn. This all happened by a scientific phenomena called "Magic". Magic is not to be questioned.

She then told me that the difference between me and her was that if I ever found a real magic carpet, I would immediately unravel it to find out how it worked.

Toyman01 wrote: I drive 50K-70K a year. I can honestly say, I drive enough in bad weather that I hardly even notice it anymore much less slow down for it. Particularly on a wide road like that one. I don't drive 20 over the speed limit on a perfect day, but on a bad day, there is a good chance I'll be in the left lane and driving faster than the average commuter. I'm sure it drives both of us crazy. It's all in what you are comfortable with and I actually like driving in the rain. I put 130 miles on the Samurai yesterday, cruising around, enjoying the weather. It was raining nicely, I loved it.

what I find as a true indictment of us as adult/reasoning humans … the news stations are FULL of PSA reminding people NOT to drive on flooded roadways …

seriously ? SERIOUSLY ? we need to be reminded over and over again every day about this .. maybe we should stop with these PSA and let Darwin take over

I chalk it up to ignorance mostly, if they actually realized what sorts of risks they're taking, they'd slow right down, for the most part.

Some people never learn though. Growing up we had a neighbor who was a crazy reckless driver in the winter that and we saw them crashed in the ditch numerous times on our country road. One time coming home they tried a dangerous pass through an intersection on the 2 lane road, not that we were going slow, and promptly stuffed it in the ditch, hitting a fence post. Thank goodness for karma.

So, the fact that you were in a British engineered slab sided ill handling beast with Lucas wipers, and the people passing you were not, has nothing to do with this story, right?

RX8driver wrote: I chalk it up to ignorance mostly, if they actually realized what sorts of risks they're taking, they'd slow right down, for the most part. Some people never learn though. Growing up we had a neighbor who was a crazy reckless driver in the winter that and we saw them crashed in the ditch numerous times on our country road. One time coming home they tried a dangerous pass through an intersection on the 2 lane road, not that we were going slow, and promptly stuffed it in the ditch, hitting a fence post. Thank goodness for karma.

toot the horn and wave at him as you drive by ?

Streetwiseguy wrote: So, the fact that you were in a British engineered slab sided ill handling beast with Lucas wipers, and the people passing you were not, has nothing to do with this story, right?

if my disco is ill handling.. then most SUVs must handle like sports cars. Remember, mine does not have the air ride, it uses old fashion springs, so it does not wobble all over the road.

As for the lucas wipers.. I know I am damning myself here, but -everything- works on my disco

mad_machine wrote: As for the lucas wipers.. I know I am damning myself here, but -everything- works on my disco

Why would you tempt fate by saying such things??? I can hear it cracking its knuckles and grinning from here!!!

Drive faster = more downforce = more traction for poor road conditions...right?

wbjones wrote: what I find as a true indictment of us as adult/reasoning humans … the news stations are FULL of PSA reminding people NOT to drive on flooded roadways … seriously ? SERIOUSLY ? we need to be reminded over and over again every day about this .. maybe we should stop with these PSA and let Darwin take over

Having seen several cars off in the ditch from trying to fly through flooded areas at speed, the PSAs don't work. Oblivious people are oblivious.

wbjones wrote: toot the horn and wave at him as you drive by ?

Yep, horn and a "special" wave, or something like that, as it was slow enough that no one would have been hurt. The guy drove a Jeep, which he seemed to think made him invincible in the snow, the repeated ditchings didn't seem to change his view.

Toyman01 wrote:

wbjones wrote: what I find as a true indictment of us as adult/reasoning humans … the news stations are FULL of PSA reminding people NOT to drive on flooded roadways … seriously ? SERIOUSLY ? we need to be reminded over and over again every day about this .. maybe we should stop with these PSA and let Darwin take over

Having seen several cars off in the ditch from trying to fly through flooded areas at speed, the PSAs don't work. Oblivious people are oblivious.

Here's a good one in that vein - the NeOhio'ans will probably remember a couple years ago when one of the long time weather-men almost drowned on his way home from work, trying to drive through a flash flood on a highway off ramp. The FD had to use a ladder truck to rescue him and another guy, who ended up in the trees where the water was probably 15-20ft deep at that time.

At about the same time on the opposite side of town, my son and I were helping drag a hydrolocked car out of the 3' deep intersection. A dingbat with a car full of kids drove around parked cars with flashers on, past a neighbor shining a maglight at her face, and into the water. She kept her foot in it, with water going up over the roof like a WW2 sub, until the engine ingested enough water to break a few rods and die.
I told her husband what happened, and that he's lucky there wasn't flowing water or it would have been very, very bad. He wasn't happy, but I'll bet she never even connected the dots.

looks like a fine place to ditch a Veyron that you can't afford..

That reminds me of a nasty snowstorm in northern Wisconsin I saw the aftermath of. Vehicles in the ditch went something like this: car, car, car, Jeep, car, pickup, car, semi, Jeep, car, Jeep, pickup, semi, Jeep, car, semi, Jeep, Jeep...

Apparently it's a Jeep thing and I wouldn't understand.

Left lane is for passing dude.

In reply to Appleseed:

4WD gives the illusion of not needing snow tires, because the car will move on all but the worst tires.

Yep, it'll get you going, but won't help you stop or corner. I like to say that about all it does is get you to the scene of the crash faster, as in your crash, when the lack of braking and cornering catches up to you. Stability control can just make it worse, masking those small slips and slides, so that when you do lose it, there's really no way to save it, especially since the people doing that sort of thing are usually incompetent, clueless drivers.

Gamblers wanted

RX8driver wrote: Yep, it'll get you going, but won't help you stop or corner. I like to say that about all it does is get you to the scene of the crash faster, as in your crash, when the lack of braking and cornering catches up to you. Stability control can just make it worse, masking those small slips and slides, so that when you do lose it, there's really no way to save it, especially since the people doing that sort of thing are usually incompetent, clueless drivers.

4x4 is useful .. depending on where you live .. depending on the terrain .. here, it's very useful … my PU can't get up my drive in the summer (think dry/dusty) without 4x4 …

and all the references to "it just gets you to the crash faster" doesn't take into consideration that some folk actually understand that $x4 doesn't make them invincible

I LOVED my Impreza … snow tires on it, and I was good to go .. the F150 = ok … not as good as the Impreza, though it will tow my CRX

I definitely notice this effect here in the limited snows/ice we have.