At What Point Do You Consider an Alternate Route?

"Arrivederci" (arrividerci) 11/21/2016 at 08:10 • Filed to: None

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The quickest and most direct route from my home to my office goes through a sort of industrial area with hoards of those giant dump trucks. For the most part, they’re trundling along just fine, but this morning one of them tried to kill me.

Obviously hyperbole, but I’m trucking along at 45mph in a 40mph zone and one pulls a left out of their hub/location right in front of me. I had to slam on the brakes, ABS engaging, car going a little sideways on the gravel they always lose entering/exiting their place.

If this was the only time something like this has happened, I’d just let it go and keep driving my route, but other times similar things have happened. Other times it can just be an inconvenience if you get behind one that’s going rather slowly, or it can be a risk of a damaged car since some can’t seem to keep their gravel loads in their beds.

Is it worth going a different route that misses this section altogether? One is two short sections of highway with lots of traffic and another is a major thoroughfare with lots of traffic and many stoplights.

R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet > Arrivederci 11/21/2016 at 08:18

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If I see more than 15 cars on my route, that means it’s time to find a new alternate route. Nashville drivers have become as bad as atlanta in the last two years.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Arrivederci 11/21/2016 at 08:18

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I have two routes basically to take to/from work. One route takes about 15 minutes and the other takes 20. On the shorter route, there a couple of traffic lights that I am guaranteed to hit. Even though it still takes less time, I hate stopping at unavoidable lights so I generally take the longer route. But more importantly, one of those unavoidable lights always has an awkard “everybody is stopped while the light is green” experience about 1/10 times going through there. So there is frequent panic braking by people there who arent paying attention. I figure if I take that route every day, eventually I will get hit by someone being careless.

I will avoid traffic at any cost. Even if it adds double the travel time, I will take a route that has less traffic. Driving a manual probably adds to this philosophy but I would do the same thing regardless.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Arrivederci 11/21/2016 at 08:20

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I am fortunate that there are many alternatives for my commute. Waze shows me which one has the lowest traffic load and that’s usually the one I select.

There are a couple of routes I refuse to take because of industrial traffic or I know that the railroad crossing is particularly rough.

Dave the car guy , still here > R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet 11/21/2016 at 08:44

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I have a 11-25 minute drive depending on traffic, trains and construction. On most days 15 cars would make me happy as hell. I see anywhere from 50-200 cars during that short drive. I go through two traffic circles where you contend with 5-50 cars on either depending on weather, time of day or day of the week. No detour takes me around any of it. At least one detour has 3 miles of park roads where some days I only see 1-2 cars other than the cop running radar. Today it was nice, stopped for 4 deer to walk across the road and then saw an 8 point buck about 200 ft more down the road. He was eating grass 20 feet form the shoulder, didn’t even raise his head.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > TheRealBicycleBuck 11/21/2016 at 08:57

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unused railroad crossings are the worst. I am fine with railroads that are commonly used by trains. But the ones with trees growing in the tracks are a major nuissance to drive over every day. It just seems inconsiderate to not at least remove the tracks at the roadway crossings.

R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet > Dave the car guy , still here 11/21/2016 at 09:00

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Too bad powder rifle season has been cancelled in TN due to the fires. People don’t understand traffic circles in Nashville. “All the time you have to leave-a despace.” To the inside car on a two lane turnout traffic circle. There are a couple parts of my routes that are inescapable and I use my alts accordingly.

Arrivederci > R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet 11/21/2016 at 09:01

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That’s why I started using this route - it has very little car traffic and has an added benefit of driving me past an exotic car dealership :). However, all the trucks in the industrial zone are probably why it isn’t as heavily traveled.

Arrivederci > TheRealBicycleBuck 11/21/2016 at 09:02

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Yeah, I think I’m going to start trying my alternates to see how much better/worse they are.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > Arrivederci 11/21/2016 at 09:04

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When I consider that it will be less annoying. For me that means that even if it might be faster to sit in traffic there’s a good chance you’ll find me going the long way. Other things that factor in for me: when I clue in (more likely to sit and suffer if I get caught late), how lazy I’m feeling (again, sit and suffer on the simple route), and whether I’m in the mood to explore (minor traffic may send me through a lengthy detour). Eg:

Primary route when backed up to the red box is at least 6 1/2 minutes. #1 is definitely quicker, not sure how much, but also involves cutting across 3 lanes of traffic between the exit and the left turn. That left turn is also where I got whacked a few weeks ago, so I don’t use it as much now... #2a is a gamble. The lights sometimes back up both ways, so you could be waiting at the lights as the guy that was in front of you goes by. #2b is 6-7 minutes and far less annoying than sitting in traffic. I’ll take it sometimes even if traffic isn’t backed up past the 6-minute mark.

This one, I have no idea. It was far more interesting and less annoying. That s-bend sucks. Every time I go through it I feel like I’m going to get hit. What with so much traffic moving around needing different lanes, some lanes ending, some lanes joining, that curve gets hairy. 10/10 would do again.

Arrivederci > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) 11/21/2016 at 09:04

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I agree - when I used to live further away from my office, I could use backroads for part of my trip. Now, I’m close enough that any route goes straight through city streets, or forces me on the interstate.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) 11/21/2016 at 09:21

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The thing that bugs me the most about tracks is other people’s reactions to them. Specifically, the idea most people seem to have that tracks mean BRAKE HARD SO WE HIT THEM SLOWER. Eg:

There’s a crossing where the red line is. It’s hard to see from the picture, but the road reaches a peak at the tracks and falls away to either side. I have proved myself, and having got others to do it have received confirmation from them, that going fast is far better than going slow. It just makes sense. The faster you go, especially on a peaked crossing, the less your wheels will drop into the ruts before reaching the other side of the ruts. If you slow down, your wheels will drop in more and it will be both more uncomfortable and harder on the car. And if you hit them under braking as so many seem to, you’re actually pushing the front wheels far deeper than they’d fall on their own.

Rule of thumb: Peaked—Gas pedal. Level—As you are, but don’t let off the gas. Valley—Brake. Ain’t nothing gonna help you here but going slow. You’ve already got a bad angle on the ruts, going fast is just more likely to break something.

And then we have multiple track crossings... I don’t think anything helps or hurts on those. (barring specific local knowledge, this is just general) Under those circumstances I’d rather just maintain my speed.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) 11/21/2016 at 09:22

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The tracks I have to cross are all in use, but some have been smoothed so well they are hardly noticeable. Others look like they have had fresh pavement in 50 years. Those are the ones that cause traffic congestion by forcing cars to slow to a crawl.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > TheRealBicycleBuck 11/21/2016 at 09:25

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Plus the school buses that are required by law to stop at all tracks. I often get stuck behind a huge line of traffic due to a school bus stopping for completely unused and overgrown tracks. Such a silly concept to me.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > TheRealBicycleBuck 11/21/2016 at 09:29

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Force, my ass. (OK maybe a bit strong as I don’t know your local crossings, but still...)

http://oppositelock.kinja.com/the-thing-that-bugs-me-the-most-about-tracks-is-other-p-1789212488

The thing is, on quite a few crossings, people slow down when they should be speeding up. After that is horribly uncomfortable, they go even slower next time. Eventually they reach a speed that isn’t boneshattering and they stick to that, never realizing that they just did it wrong. Depending on the design of the crossing... well you can read my comment. But I’ll add this: that crossing I used as an example has two ways to go over it in reasonable comfort. <20km/h or >75km/h. Anything in the middle sucks.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 11/21/2016 at 09:29

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Non-level crossings are the worst. I have definitely resorted to glacially slow speeds just to keep from bottoming out. And my car is not even lowered much! I dont have too many bad tracks nearby home but when I was temporarily located in Norfolk, there were quite a few. Those were heavily used by trains at least though. I definitely found it was best to either continue at normal speed or go so slow that I am not creating any suspension movement.

TysMagic > Arrivederci 11/21/2016 at 09:33

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I, like many others it seems, am a fan of flow. I’ll take a slightly longer route just to keep moving. As mentioned though, as a manual car driver this may contribute to that desire. I have a multitude of routes I can take to work that all funnel in to the same final few streets. For the most part, no matter what I do - they’re all about the same in the end.
So if you can avoid rock slinging lumbering dump trucks, I say go for it!

TheRealBicycleBuck > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 11/21/2016 at 09:43

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Force. Yeah. Force.

I hit most of the crossings at speed, but there are several that are impossible to hit at speed without tearing out the suspension or imitating the Dukes of Hazzard. Here’s a good example.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > TheRealBicycleBuck 11/21/2016 at 09:51

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Yeah, YMMV. I know a couple locally that are that way too, though as I said they are the type that dips down so you have a bad angle anyway. I can’t tell what the heck that is. It looks level on lower left, dipping upper left, steep peak on the far right, but of course I have no idea just looking at pictures. All in all it does look like a monstrosity. Here’s one of my locals... It drops of sharp just before the tracks. You’re screwed unless you’re going slow. I imagine speed could help here, but you’d have to be going well in excess of 100km/h to do it. In other words... BRAKES

R Saldana [|Oo|======|oO|] - BTC/ETH/LTC Prophet > Arrivederci 11/21/2016 at 09:52

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i avoid traffic and stoplights

TheRealBicycleBuck > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 11/21/2016 at 10:04

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It’s hard to tell, but the grade goes up about a foot to make the crossing. The top isn’t too rough, but anything over 20 mph will get you into the air.

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > TheRealBicycleBuck 11/21/2016 at 10:10

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OK, new category. Extreme and rapid elevation change regardless of up or down requires brakes. I’ll agree to that.

wiffleballtony > Arrivederci 11/21/2016 at 10:15

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I normally take the route with less traffic. But, damage to the car might change my mind.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer 11/21/2016 at 11:59

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I was out and about, so I thought I’d provide a little more perspective.

This isn’t the biggest elevation change and the crossing here is pretty smooth, but you certainly want to slow down for this one!

Smallbear wants a modern Syclone, local Maple Leafs spammer > TheRealBicycleBuck 11/21/2016 at 12:33

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Double on a crest... yeah. Actually double anywhere. Makes it like the second one is in a dip instead of a crest, so brakes are the only wise choice.

pip bip - choose Corrour > Arrivederci 11/22/2016 at 02:31

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i don’t really have an option, but it doesn’t matter to me as i walk to work.