Fun In The Sun
It would be nice to see the sun, but we’ve had thunderstorms two days out of three for the past two weeks.
Today wet leaves on a nearby branch managed to knock out my Mother’s power.
I had stop in the middle of something I’ve been trying to finish forever to go over and start her generator and run extension cords to things she wanted powered.
While I’m out collecting the heavy duty extension cords, a fool in an SUV decides to go hydroplaning on the road in front of her house, fortunately towards the other side of the road. Happily he bent a rear axle because he attempted to leave the scene. He now owes the town a sign, the phone company a switch box and the church a lot of landscaping.
This is a problem with SUVs and four-wheel drive, they don’t do a thing for you on water or ice. They are fine in sand and snow, but when there’s zero traction it just means you have twice as many wheels spinning. People buy them thinking that they will make up for poor driving skills in bad road conditions, and they won’t.
5 comments
Drivers are crazy. Why is it that when it’s raining hard, or icy, or snowing… and common sense SHOULD be screaming at a driver to be more careful and take it slow and easy… Many fools actually take more risks and go faster? (And usually end up paying for their stupidity). I don’t get it.
There was an 11 car pileup on a freeway here last week. It snowed for the first time anyone could remember! Her excuse was, she thought it was starting to hail, and she hit the brakes (on a freeway in peak hour doing 100km/h) and went sideways and the cars behind her piled into her car (since they had no traction either). I’m amazed it was only 11 cars!
Might be nice to actually teach people to drive properly and check every couple years at least before turning them loose too wreak havoc and become potential killers. IMHO, anyone who hasn’t bothered to lean to drive properly and kills someone, should be up for murder, not reckless driving (or whatever it’s called there) or even manslaughter. Just because it wasn’t planned or premeditated, doesn’t make it any less bad in my book. Of course, if it can be proven to be a genuine accident that couldn’t be avoided, that’s different.
Stupidity and ignorance (and carelessness) should be it’s own reward.
It sounds like it would have been interesting to watch. Get some popcorn and sit back for the show:)
In a decade on the job, starting out in traffic enforcement and then providing investigative assistance in injury accidents I never saw a real accident. I never saw a mechanical failure that led to an accident. The causes were: driver inattention, driver inexperience, too fast for conditions, failure to yield, driving under the influence, but never “brakes failed”, “tire blew out”, etc. I know there are accidents because I read the reports, but I never saw one.
I treat my Wrangler as a 2wd in the wet or snow and drive it the same way I drove my old pickup truck — i.e., as if the slightest little bit could get the back end slipslidin’ around in the slippery and wet. I just do not fathom these morons who think having 4wd (usually not even engaged since they don’t know what the engagement lever is!) will somehow make their vehicle magically better in the wet or snow…
– Badtux the Safety Penguin
There were days on Shemya when the Uke, the aircraft tractor with 4-foot tires and a top speed of 10 mph, couldn’t make it up a 5% grade on its own because of water.
The salesmen tell them it’s safe and they can go anywhere in any kind of weather.
Most of the people who buy SUVs think driving across the grass to drop off a T-ball team is “off-roading”.