Seatbelts Dammit!

[Ed Pawlowski]

Some people just cant be bothered. Bet it would have made a difference here.

[rbowman]

Maybe. Were either ejected from their vehicles? Whatever the 'unknown reason' was, not driving the wrong way on a four lane highway would have helped. Heading for the median when you see someone coming at you at a high rate of speed would have helped.

All the air bags and seatbelts in the world can't keep people safe from their own choices.

[Ed Pawlowski]

I've often wonder about these head on collisions. They don't give a time but this one seems like daylight, most are night. If you see headlight coming at you, I'd think it would be smart to go off to the side to be sure. This section of road was very wide with a lot of center median and shoulder.

[gfretwell]

I used to encounter wrong way drivers a couple times a year working nights. I always assumed they were just drunk. I pull to the right and they always passed me driver side to driver side like we were on a 2 lane blacktop. I always wondered if they figured out something was wrong or just forgot they were on the beltway.

[trader_4]

On what looks like a straight highway on a clear and sunny day too. I can understand how one car somehow gets going in the wrong direction, but you'd think people going the right way on road like this would see them coming and move over way out of the way and stop.

An old guy my father knew did this. He was like 90 and went visiting someone in the hospital. Somehow he got on a highway near the hospital going the wrong way and did the same thing. He survived though.

[rbowman]

Unless it took them a long time to respond it looked light daylight, no visibility problems, and plenty of room to get off the road. Even without going off road, it has two lanes like any other undivided highway.

I start making plans when I see an oncoming driver coming my way even if it's a perfectly legitimate move into a center turning lane.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Both were young drivers so they probably did not think to think ahead.

In other news today, nearby a storm blew over a tree taking power lines down. A 17 year old driver hit the lines and somehow a fire started on the driver's side so she got out on the passenger side. Stepped on a line and was electrocuted.

[gfretwell]

More likely her car was energized and she completed the circuit when her foot hit the ground. Jump!

[Ed Pawlowski]

That sounds more like it. Should have jumped. Normally is is dumb to get out but with a fire, first instinct is to get out. Most young people have no idea about completing a circuit.

[rbowman]

Natural selection at work. I don't want to get into a women drivers thing but I've noticed young women don't seem to have a working acquaintance with the laws of physics. There are several 90 degree turns around here and I've seen them take them at speeds that were on the edge of the vehicle's abilities, but I don't think they even realize it.

A house on the outside of one of the corners started with a nice white fence like a Kentucky horse farm. That slowly escalated to railroad ties with a hardware store's worth of reflectors. Somebody went through it again this winter so maybe Jersey barriers will be next.

[rbowman]

Jumping out of most modern cars would be a good trick. Apropos of nothing I passed a guy in a '51 Chevy going the other way today. It wasn't visible but I could smell the burning oil. Sort of nostalgic. Every now and then I'll get a whiff of my car's exhaust and it's kind of an acetic acid chemical aroma. I'm sure it's environmentally sound but it sure stinks.

[gfretwell]

I know better and I still might forget in the heat of the moment. A lot depends on if the car was energized by a 120/240 secondary or the medium voltage primary. You might live through getting a little careless with 120v but 13kv would make you a crispy critter in a millisecond or so.

[gfretwell]

One of my buddies up in Md (a DC Cop at the time) got tired of people taking out his mailbox every weekend so he had me weld him up one using 8" steel square tube/beam. He had 5' in the ground and 3 feet sticking up. (A USPS legit mailbox bolted in the top tube). A Corvette got him that night but it didn't drive away like the others. The Corvette guy wasn't hurt that bad but he started talking about suing. That's when my buddy called the county mountie The DUI he got took a lot of that lawsuit stuff away. I don't think he ever heard another word about it. I know the mailbox was still there when he moved to Florida, It was scared up a might but it was still working.

[gfretwell]

I actually tried it once in my Prelude, just for a drill. If you turn around and get in the door paratrooper style, squat, both feet on the jamb and holding on to the roof with your hands then do a frog leap, you can be clear when you hit the ground. Just bear in mind at 13.6kv the safe working distance is about 3 feet so land away from the door, keep your head down and roll away.

My 86 LeBaron was burning a quart of oil to a tank of gas when I traded it for the Prelude but it didn't smoke and it wasn't bleeding from the belly. That computer was just adjusting the mix so that oil burned clean. There wasn't even a black stain on the bumper. It did have just the hint of that good old "bad valve guide" oil burn smell tho.

[Dean Hoffman]

The news this morning had a passenger vehicle rear ending a farm tractor. The vehicle driver was killed, the passenger treated and released at the nearest hospital. The tractor driver was ok. This happened about 9:30 Sunday morning in central Nebraska.

[trader_4]

Unless it was impossible to move the car, my first choice would have been to quickly drive it out of the wires, fire or no fire.

[invalid unparseable]

I cannot google up any follow up articles except crash happened at 7 am which corresponds with sunrise in Tampa.

[TimR]

If you see one wrong way driver and are paying attention ! big if ! then you can usually avoid it.

when you see 100 wrong way drivers, you have to realize you have a bigger problem.

[gfretwell]

If you can, that is probably the best idea but if you took down the pole, you car probably won't go.

[rbowman]

The bridge was rebuilt last year and the entrance can be a little confusing. However, Russell St and Broadway, the street it intersects, are 35 mph streets. 11:15 PM, no headlights, and highway speeds don't leave much room for interpretation. At least the right people died.