Almost wrecked the WRX

"TheRealBicycleBuck" (therealbicyclebuck) 09/26/2015 at 08:38 • Filed to: None

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This sad WRX isn’t mine, but I came close to making mine look like it. I was in the right lane of a four lane highway, stuck behind an older fellow who was pacing a minivan in the left lane. There were a few vehicles behind us, including a box truck directly behind me.

Going the other direction was a school bus which had stopped to pick up some kids. In Louisiana, if the highway is divided by either a center median or a center turn lane, traffic is not required to stop for a school bus. It makes sense - other laws make it illegal to require school children to cross a four lane highway to catch a school bus.

By the speed we were traveling, I assumed the people in front of me knew this. I was wrong.

The fellow in front of me had a last-second change of heart and slammed on the brakes just before he got to the bus. I hit the brakes and moved into the left lane to give the box truck some more room to stop. Then the minivan driver changed her mind about the situation and slammed on her brakes too.

I was already on the stoppers, so I pressed a bit more and came to a stop. No problem.

The the box truck came into view on my left. He had followed me from the right lane to the left lane, then took one more step and moved to the center turn lane to avoid squishing me when the minivan stopped. I nearly became the meat in a box truck minivan sandwich.

This just highlights why Louisiana insurance rates are so high. The drivers work so hard to be courteous to the people in front of them that they cause problems for the people behind them. Let me provide some other examples.

When approaching a blinking yellow, be prepared to stop. Many drivers here will stop to let the poor folks stuck at the blinking red into traffic. The drivers at the blinking red assume that the folks at the blinking yellow are going to stop, so they have no qualms about pulling in if they see the slightest gap.

Another form of this happens where side streets intersect two-lane highways. If someone on the highway is planning to turn right, it isn’t unusual for them to come to a complete stop for one of two reasons: either someone is at the cross street and needs to turn right onto the highway; or someone on the highway coming from the other direction needs to turn left onto the cross street.

The situation gets even worse when the cross-street driver needs to turn left. The right-turning highway driver will block highway traffic until someone coming from the other direction does the same thing and the cross-street driver can pull out. Yes, you read that right - these boneheads will block all of the highway traffic so someone can turn left.

Is it any wonder why we have so many wrecks at these intersections? If the people here would just follow the laws, we would have better traffic flow and fewer wrecks.

I’ve lived in four states and driven through most of the test. This is the only place I’ve seen this behavior.

So, Oppo, what's it like where you live?

Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero > TheRealBicycleBuck 09/26/2015 at 08:45

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Same laws here in illinois. And same people who still stop if its a divided highway. Nearly rear ended someone while I was driving the ambulance when they panic stopped due to a bus on the other side of the median

TheRealBicycleBuck > Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero 09/26/2015 at 08:49

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I assume you weren't running with lights, but it wouldn't surprise me if you were. Around here, nobody even tries to get out of the way of the emergency vehicles.

Party-vi > TheRealBicycleBuck 09/26/2015 at 08:51

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Same thing happened to me in my Cherokee, except in my situation my brakes locked up and I hit the “minivan”, which in my case was an ML500.

Sampsonite24-Earth's Least Likeliest Hero > TheRealBicycleBuck 09/26/2015 at 08:53

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Nope, no lights. Just driving. Although I did lay on my airhorn for a bit lol

jkm7680 > TheRealBicycleBuck 09/26/2015 at 08:57

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People drive like this anyways.

But literally nobody in this Country knows how roundabouts work. They either completely make a dead stop, as if it was a stop sign or just blow through like they have the right of way.

Viggen9er3 > TheRealBicycleBuck 09/26/2015 at 09:03

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So, I will just assume there was a median or turn lane, which would make breaking in the wrong? I was not clear on if there was one or not.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Party-vi 09/26/2015 at 09:04

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Ouch. And of course, it was all your fault....

TheRealBicycleBuck > Viggen9er3 09/26/2015 at 09:07

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No need to assume. The box truck used the center turn lane to avoid hitting me. I guess I should have made that more clear.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Viggen9er3 09/26/2015 at 09:13

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This is pretty close to where it happened. I was in the lane at the top of the image. The best s was in the lane at the bottom.

Party-vi > TheRealBicycleBuck 09/26/2015 at 09:16

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I wasn’t ticketed thankfully - it was raining and all wheels locked up (no ABS). The radiator pushed onto the water pump neck and it wouldn’t start, and the driver fender pushed the A pillar up and kinked the roof. Totaled. 4 days later I bought the E46.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Party-vi 09/26/2015 at 09:25

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Was anyone hurt?

Party-vi > TheRealBicycleBuck 09/26/2015 at 09:30

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It was a 40mph crash but no, everyone was fine. The Mercedes did what they do best and the driver was fine. The Cherokee however was a basic bitch about it - both knees through the dash, big seatbelt bruise across my chest for two weeks, etc. I was honestly amazing my seatbelt functioned. I remember saying out loud “well, shit” when I saw the ML in front of me with his brakes still on. After that accident it amazes me that some people don’t drive with their seatbelt on. It will really save your life (along with airbags, but there’s no point in having an explosive aimed at your face if you’re not kept in front of it).

OPPOsaurus WRX > Party-vi 09/26/2015 at 09:41

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people who drive without a seatbelt are just asking for it. I was talking with a guy whos sister had recent;y gotten into an accident. She hit her head on the windshield and broke her arm. Her hair was stuck in the windshield so she had to sit there with her head against the windshield until the fire fighters could get her out.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Party-vi 09/26/2015 at 09:43

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I learned about seat belts the hard way. I won’t go into details, but I rear-ended a car just a few weeks after I got my license. I was fortunate that it was at low speed. I wasn’t wearing my seat belt and ended up kissing the steering wheel HARD. My teeth cut my lips, but not all the way through. It wasn’t hard enough to knock any teeth out.

I've worn my seat belt ever since.

TheRealBicycleBuck > TheRealBicycleBuck 09/26/2015 at 10:19

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Wow, kinja. I can’t even edit my reply to my own post?

Best s is supposed to be bus. Thanks, iOS!

jariten1781 > TheRealBicycleBuck 09/26/2015 at 11:38

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People turn off their brains for flashing lights. After numerous similar incidents to yours I’ve taken to eat backing off (doubling the difference to the guy in front) anytime I’m around a bus/lit up cruiser/ambulance/even construction vehicles/tow trucks with flashing yellows...that way when the Yahoo in front slams on their brakes I only need minimal pressure and moderate slowdown to avoid them.

TheRealBicycleBuck > jariten1781 09/26/2015 at 11:44

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It’s a good strategy and it’s what I did when I saw the bus turn its lights on.

It was the box truck behind that almost took me out.

jariten1781 > TheRealBicycleBuck 09/26/2015 at 12:42

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Yeah, that’s kind of what I’m saying.

I’ve been rear ended a lot. 9 times (off the top of my head, could be more) in 18 years of driving. That’s way more than the regular odds would suggest. While I’ve never been held legally or financially responsible, because...you know...people should leave enough room to panic stop without hitting me, I had to change something because I was sick and tired of having cars totaled or bumper bars/covers replaced tanking my resale...also my neck is all screwed up from the combo of hits.

So, a couple years ago I stopped getting mad about it and did the mental exercise to see if I could lessen it: why were people hitting me so much more than they hit other folks? What can I do about it?

Why:

For me: I typically drive fairly light cars, this means my ‘safe’ following distance is less. I always drive on summers and winters in the appropriate season (even on boring ass cars like my old Mazda6 wagon) which makes my safe following distance significantly less. I’ve fooled around enough on tracks/autoX/backroads that I know the threshold on my non-ABS and am not afraid of activating ABS on my others again making my distance less. Now, I didn’t typically follow at the smallest gap, usually left plenty of room for me to stop, but I wasn’t afraid to use all my braking if necessary.

Others: Started paying attention to how my coworkers drove when they were shuttling me around. I noticed, even for very conservative drivers, they did not adjust following distance based on what circumstances other than weather (they were pretty good at backing off in the rain/snow, but otherwise were static). Didn’t matter if they were behind an R6 that could instantly stop or if they were behind a rusty fully loaded pickup with 4 drums that would take 2 miles to fully halt...gap was the same. Also had them play around with panic stops and found out people are deathly afraid of heavy braking...rarely could I even get them to activate ABS even after telling them to just hit the brakes as hard as possible and showing them, in their own cars, that it was easy to do-safe-and significantly lessened their stopping distance. Some of them would seriously panic when ABS started cycling and let off the fucking brakes . Terrible behavior, but there’s no way to fix that across the entire driving population.

What to do: So, wrapping that all together I’ve made some changes. First, I adjusted my following distance. No longer do I adjust how close I follow based on the car I’m driving...I just leave the room I would leave if I was in my old Suburban. People behind me will not adjust based on a more capable car being in front of them, and no matter how stupid that is it doesn’t change the fact. Second, I add more gap in front of me based on what’s behind me. I always used to monitor behind me pretty well, but it was more of scanning to make sure I had gaps to switch lanes, not really adjusting otherwise. Now, if there’s some college kid following me in a U-haul with the same gap he’d leave in his TSX I add more gap. Third, I try to progressively slow even when crazy shit is going on in front of me. This feels so wrong to me when I see all the cars in front going ass up in panic braking situations...my natural reaction is punch brakes to scrub speed and evaluate escape routes...but with the extra gap it’s doable even though it’s totally not intuitive. Then, like I said previously, extra gap for flashing lights.

So far so good. I’ve managed to avoid getting rear ended when the car’s in front of me hit each other twice in the last couple years. Previously that would have ended with them hitting each other, me stopping a couple feet short, then the guy behind me hitting me. Get lots of experience in DC traffic haha. Also noticed it removed a bunch of stress by my commute because the extra gap just allows people that are aggressive to flow in front of me and I just engine brake to maintain the gap rather than them cutting in and me having to actually brake to keep a safe distance.

Annnnd...I have no idea why I typed this stream of conciousness tome...hopefully you’ve enjoyed the first chapter of my novel “Stupid Braking”. haha

BKosher84 > TheRealBicycleBuck 09/26/2015 at 12:49

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I get almost ran off the road (highway or otherwise) at least once a week in Northeast Ohio. It’s not just your area.