City Drivers - at night

[PILOON]

Never mind at night, daytime also.
I'm rural at the end of 12 miles of hilly twisty road.
Dang 'tourists' drive @ 30, slow to 10/15 at every crest or bend in the road.
Making it worst it is all solid white line.
If they can't see the road bed 10 ahead they crawl.
Then when I do get to the few safe passing areas they speed up.

Then at night they forget what dimming is all about.

 

[oosik]

Like most "locals" I will drive 40-45 on the county roads this time of year. Speed limit - 45. It's a lot of the city folks who want to go 60-65 that will create a lot of the problems. Recently - some darn YAHOO driving a really fancy BMW. Passed me in my Taco Wagon - flashing headlights - goes by me like I'm standing still. He was going 65 or more. About three miles down the road - Big fancy BMW is in the ditch. YAHOO is out leaning up against his trunk. I stopped to see if he needed help. No - he had called somebody to get him and get his car out. I thought, but held my tongue - "Well, I see you got where you were going". He probably hasn't learned a darn thing ..............

 

[3930dave]

Situational Awareness..... bad weather or night not needed .

I was bicycling on a 2 lane paved rural road near home a few summers back. Nice summer day, riding through completely flat vegetable fields. Came up to a big line of stopped cars, where they shouldn't be. When I bicycled up the shoulder, I could see a group of nicely dressed folk were standing around a brand new big SUV, sitting upright about 100' off the road in nice deep loam.

At the short S bend, that you can see coming from the last concession and is signed, they had simply continued driving dead-straight and literally plowed the loam. No curb to bounce off, so stuff happens....

Rgds, D

 

[3930dave]

Never mind at night, daytime also.
I'm rural at the end of 12 miles of hilly twisty road.
Dang 'tourists' drive @ 30, slow to 10/15 at every crest or bend in the road.
Making it worst it is all solid white line.
If they can't see the road bed 10 ahead they crawl.
Then when I do get to the few safe passing areas they speed up.

Then at night they forget what dimming is all about.

UnCommon Sense would help. If I'm somewhere where I can't find something I'm looking for, I'll get off the road if traffic is piling up behind me.

I've driven some of those rural Quebec roads like you describe (and in ON, Maine, NB.....); they can be a bit intimidating if you don't know the road, or have limited faith in its road signage accuracy. I ride a street motorcycle..... sight-lines matter to me, a lot.

A video would help put my first post in context........ that mild curve has good visibility of at least a couple of hundred yards both directions, and there was zero rain or snow that day. "Dark" doesn't get easier than that.

Day or Night, I don't tailgate...... that's a rookie mistake......

Rgds, D.

 

[PILOON]

Like most "locals" I will drive 40-45 on the county roads this time of year. Speed limit - 45. It's a lot of the city folks who want to go 60-65 that will create a lot of the problems. Recently - some darn YAHOO driving a really fancy BMW. Passed me in my Taco Wagon - flashing headlights - goes by me like I'm standing still. He was going 65 or more. About three miles down the road - Big fancy BMW is in the ditch. YAHOO is out leaning up against his trunk. I stopped to see if he needed help. No - he had called somebody to get him and get his car out. I thought, but held my tongue - "Well, I see you got where you were going". He probably hasn't learned a darn thing ..............

Buying a BMW 'entitles' you, or did U not know that.

Most often they are found in 'no parking or handicapped' parking places.
Once at a grocery chain a BMW was diagonally parked blocking off 3 handicapped slots.
Another time blocking the truck loading ramps as that was near the door.
At Cosco they zip into that slot I've been patiently waiting for last time then she said I'll only be a minute, yeah.
I once said, 'That's what gets cars 'keyed'.---dumb look!

 

[turnkey4099]

Situational Awareness..... bad weather or night not needed .

I was bicycling on a 2 lane paved rural road near home a few summers back. Nice summer day, riding through completely flat vegetable fields. Came up to a big line of stopped cars, where they shouldn't be. When I bicycled up the shoulder, I could see a group of nicely dressed folk were standing around a brand new big SUV, sitting upright about 100' off the road in nice deep loam.

At the short S bend, that you can see coming from the last concession and is signed, they had simply continued driving dead-straight and literally plowed the loam. No curb to bounce off, so stuff happens....

Rgds, D

Probably asleep. I have had around 8, inlcuding a semi, pile into the ditch in front of my house (2 lane road with good shoulder, guardrails where the creek crosses under the highway. It is in the middle of a 1 mile straight of way. No explanation for it except sleep...or perhaps texting but several them happened before cell phones.

 

[dmccarty]

...

At the short S bend, that you can see coming from the last concession and is signed, they had simply continued driving dead-straight and literally plowed the loam. No curb to bounce off, so stuff happens....

Rgds, D

A major road I drive, not as much since the lock down, is a busy rural road. At some point, sooner rather than later, it will no longer be rural. The road is mostly straight with 15ish miles between stop lights. However, there are some slight turns here and there. I think some of the turns were because houses were prevent the road being made straight. I have seen numerous accidents where people just kept driving straight instead of staying on the road. One tree has caught a couple cars that I have seen. Not sure the drivers survived.

My count of car accidents is somewhere between 20-24 that I have seen on that road. Some of the accidents are driving straight in a curve, most are driving off the road even with the road is straight. I can't tell if this is from dodging deer or if the driver go distracted. Seen one head on collision where someone crossed the line. At least one driver died. :shocked: Another bad accident when someone stopped to turn and an idjot drove into multiple cars that had slowed down.

When I first started driving in this county, some of the rural roads, even major ones, were VERY narrow. You really had to pay attention. What made the narrow roads so dangerous was that the shoulder could be well below the pavement and if you over corrected it was easy to have an accident. A teenager driving to school one day died because of this. She was not driving too fast either or playing on the phone. She simply went off the road because of on coming traffic and over corrected. One of her teachers was behind the kid and saw the accident. :shocked:

After enough accidents, injuries and deaths, the state required the shoulder of the road to be built up to the level of the pavement when the road is resurfaced. About da...d time. Too many people have gotten hurt and killed because of a lack of gravel.

As an aside, I drive with my high beams on to give me more time to dodge the deer. To drive around here at night with low beams on is asking to have a meeting with Mr. Deer.

Later,
Dan

 

[Alien]

Easy to tell city drivers out for a Sunday drive here. Their cars are clean and shiny and they slow down and move right over when they see you coming towards them. I dont wave to shiny cars, only dirty ones... they are the locals.

 

[Deere Dude]

A major road I drive, not as much since the lock down, is a busy rural road. At some point, sooner rather than later, it will no longer be rural. The road is mostly straight with 15ish miles between stop lights. However, there are some slight turns here and there. I think some of the turns were because houses were prevent the road being made straight. I have seen numerous accidents where people just kept driving straight instead of staying on the road. One tree has caught a couple cars that I have seen. Not sure the drivers survived.

My count of car accidents is somewhere between 20-24 that I have seen on that road. Some of the accidents are driving straight in a curve, most are driving off the road even with the road is straight. I can't tell if this is from dodging deer or if the driver go distracted. Seen one head on collision where someone crossed the line. At least one driver died. :shocked: Another bad accident when someone stopped to turn and an idjot drove into multiple cars that had slowed down.

When I first started driving in this county, some of the rural roads, even major ones, were VERY narrow. You really had to pay attention. What made the narrow roads so dangerous was that the shoulder could be well below the pavement and if you over corrected it was easy to have an accident. A teenager driving to school one day died because of this. She was not driving too fast either or playing on the phone. She simply went off the road because of on coming traffic and over corrected. One of her teachers was behind the kid and saw the accident. :shocked:

After enough accidents, injuries and deaths, the state required the shoulder of the road to be built up to the level of the pavement when the road is resurfaced. About da...d time. Too many people have gotten hurt and killed because of a lack of gravel.

As an aside, I drive with my high beams on to give me more time to dodge the deer. To drive around here at night with low beams on is asking to have a meeting with Mr. Deer.

Later,
Dan

I know what you mean about narrow roads. The engineer must have went to school here. Backroads in out county are all tree lined and narrow. Trees can be 3' off the road more likely than not. One state near me is very curvy, narrow but has lines. But in many places the outside lines are 1/2 broken off and a 3' drop at the line. And trees 4' from edge. No exaggeration. There is no way to recover from edges like that.

Getting older I avoid those roads like the plague, if possible. Especially when raining and at night.

 

[3930dave]

Drive-straight-thru-curve....... I've seen more than a few country properties that have "decorated" their frontage with large granite boulders, because of that problem.

Doesn't need to be country though.... friend of mine at the city highschool I went to had a idiot (racing on long straight, didn't make the curve on a street near school) plow through their front and side hedge with enough speed to smash up 2 vehicles in the driveway next door.

Curves..... really complex math involved..... .apparently.......

Rgds, D.

 

[cqaigy2]

Just because a drive is unfamiliar with a section of road, doesn't mean they are from the city. I probably live more remote than most TBNers, i tell people visiting for the first time, 'if you think you've gone too far into the sticks, you're half way here', so not exactly a "city" person. Not surprisingly, i'll sometimes end up on a secondary road, i've never driven before and proceed with caution, especially at night. Now the roads around where it live, i bet most of you would driving the speed limit, of 35MPH or less. It's winding narrow, dips up and down, rock on one side and a nice drop off on the other and if it's been raining, water across the road. The people that live in the area, myself included, usually drive much faster.

 

[PILOON]

On the country road I've been describing there is a quite hilly stretch that has multiple turns.
At the top of that hill the owner has 'planted' HD posts to protect his property.*
Couple years back a car literally flew up that hill, took off missing the posts and landed into the owner's garage that was set back about 15 ft or so.
That car punched a large hole into the side wall and weakened the roof structure.
To have soared as far as he did he must have exceeded 100mph.

* I know that owner and gather that he's had more than a dozen of those unwanted visitors over time.

The problem with this nice rural area is that we are but 1 hour north of Montreal and folks wanting the rural life style all while enjoying the big city income advantages are always in a hurry to get there and back B4 they have left.
The stretch of rural road I've described actually has some 8-9 small lakes making the area highly desirable.
During this COVID period every property listing, some 15-20, sell within 10 days or so and prices have gone wild.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Having been born and raised in country, and learned to drive in the country, it seems to me that (a) locals who know the roads will drive a lot faster than visitors; I saw it in my area, and when we visited N.E. Oklahoma, where the roads are curvy, narrow and quite rocky, I drove very cautiously, only to be blown off the road by the locals.