January 6, 2017
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Watching Brake Lights
One of the interesting things about driving is that you get to see unusual things. As we were tooling down I75S toward Atlanta I made a couple observations.
1. Tennessee drivers think the left lane is for driving slowly instead of like the rest of the states where is it a passing lane. This leads to a long line of cars desperately trying to pass semi trailers at 55 mph while the trucks are moving at the posted speed limit of 65 mph.
2. Braking results in a 2 mile slowdown in a chain reaction of braking.
3. Accidents mostly happen in threes. The first one is a legitimate accident. The second is due to slowing down to 30 mph to rubber neck the accident and being rear ended. The third is because the ambulance and or police car lights mesmerize the drivers and they just keep going toward the lights - even if that means going into the ditch or crashing into a guard rail!
4. A cardboard box or a plastic garbage bag on the side of the road can result in a backup of traffic while every driver slows down and debates whether to stop to open it to see if it contains something of value or to keep going! This was especially true in Kentucky, Alabama, and Georgia!
As you can see this is quite the traffic back up. The culprit was a cardboard box. This slowdown had us crawling at 15 mph for a half hour. I am glad to live in a city where it doesn't take me a long time to get to work!!
Comments (10)
My middle son and his family just got back from FL. I'll have to ask them what they thought of the traffic. Glad you made it home safely (even if it is Way Too Cold.)
It was so nice to go somewhere warm! Of course the weather was nice but the company was really what made the visit spectacular!
If the box were in one of the lanes, I could see changing lanes to avoid running it over, not knowing if what was inside would pop my tires, but on the side of the road it's just trash.
Here in Floriida we have a mixture of zoomers who tailgate and don't use their blinkers, and the slow people who are in no hurry at all, driving under the limit. I think I prefer the second bunch because when those yellow lines turn to dots I can pass, but I am not afraid of the slow people crashing into me.
Yup. I'd take the slow pokes over the speed demons any day! The box was definitely on the side of the road as was the big trash bag - still people had to slow down and take a look!
I think traffic issues are somewhat regional. Speed is the big issue here -- oh, and the nightly high-speed police pursuits! Litter id illegal and highly enforced, so the box isn't an issue, but there are looky-loos if anything unusual is going on.
Seems it is in human nature to want to see what's going on. Still I'll take the slow pokes over the crazy fast drivers any day. If there were a high speed police chase here it would be the biggest news ever! Glad to say it isn't a nightly or even monthly event... maybe once every 2 or 3 years - maybe. I like it that way!
We tried a different way home this time and had a lot less traffic than I-75 or I-65. I think we'll do it again. Google says it's 10 minutes (?) faster. I think we should try some back roads every time so we can see some new parts of the country.
Glad you had a safe trip.
I'd be interested in having your route to Florida! We were looking for an easy drive. We took some back roads once in the winter through Tennessee that were harrowing! Thought we were going over the edge of the mountain!!
Seeing that many brake lights on the interstate makes my stomach hurt ~ I too well remember being stuck at a dead stop for 4½ hours once ~
Yikes! I guess we got off easy then. We crawled at about 2 - 5 mph for about 45 minutes. It was excruciating.
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