That's how the line goes, right?
Working with the doors open today when I just heard it: skid, pause, thud, shattering glass.
Looks like the world is less one gray sedan.
All of the roads in our development are 25 mph. Judging by the skid mark and the little I know about car physics, they were moving. The trees stopped them. Hopefully no one's hurt but someone was on the ground. The fire station is down the road, so EMS got there quickly.
And say what you want about HOAs, but I just saw the ground crew heading that way with clean-up gear.
Back to editing.
I have no patience/tolerance for people who drive fast through residential neighborhoods. Totally inexcusable. I hope they weren't hurt, but I do hope they learned a lesson.
I might be in the minority here, but I don't understand why no one (at least here in Florida) drives the speed limit. What makes you so special that the rules don't apply to you? And if it's acceptable to drive over the speed limit, what is the point of limiting the speed?
Alright, I'll get off my soapbox.
Also, I can attest for the stopping abilities of trees from personal experience.
Colin Wood said:
I might be in the minority here, but I don't understand why no one (at least here in Florida) drives the speed limit. What makes you so special that the rules don't apply to you? And if it's acceptable to drive over the speed limit, what is the point of limiting the speed?
Thank you! And it's not just Florida. I feel confident that speeding is the most popular crime. And sure, we all do it, but some of us do it to dangerous excess. Light traffic on the interstate? Keeping up with traffic? Sure. But there is no excuse for speeding 10 or 20 or more mph over the limit in a residential neighborhood or downtown area.
I like driving fast. Sometimes that might be in excess of posted limits.
But not ever in residential areas or other places that put people at undue risk besides myself. The main street in our neighborhood is a cut through for a lot of people, and I'm always glad to see the bears post up and run radar there. They always make quota.
and what's up with school zones? The school zones around here mean nothing. I think I'm the only one that complies, and I don't even have kids. Hell, the SCHOOL BUSSES pass me in the school zones.
Old pilot adage:
Never fly the A model of anything.
Also, this person slid through a crosswalk. WTF, people.
Reminded of the song Plastic Jesus for some weird reason.
"I could go a hundred miles an hour Long as I got the almighty power. Glued up there with my pair of fuzzy dice"
wae
UberDork
3/12/21 11:41 a.m.
In reply to ultraclyde (Forum Supporter) :
Don't forget construction zones. My wife jokes that my superpower is being able to drive at the speed limit in those since apparently no one else in the universe can.
It amazes me the number of people that want to treat the residential surface streets like a runway, though. Our subdivision is a big dead-end affair, so there's no cut-through traffic, but I constantly have people come flying up on me as I putter along at 25mph. And the number of people that blow by the stop sign without even trying to slow down is downright depressing. Every so often someone will whine to the Nextdoor page about it and the most common response is that no other street in the subdivision has a stop sign so it's dumb to have to stop at that one.
My route home from school with the kids takes me up the hill on 75 and down to 275. Because the right two lanes have (or are supposed to have) all the slow-moving trucks, I take the 2nd lane from the left and cruise at 58-62mph in the 55mph zone. Once we're to the top, I slide over to the second lane from the right since the right-most lane becomes exit-to-275W-only and continue to cruise at the same speed. People will fly up behind me, park right on my bumper, and then go around me, often giving me dirty looks. When we get to the part of the road where the speed limit increases to 65, I add 10 mph to my speed and then often wind up having to pass the people that passed me earlier. Or making the guy that was just doing 68 the whole time all ticked off because he slid over to pass me (usually on the right) at the same spot as the speed limit increased and now I'm going faster.
Honestly, I think most people are just oblivious as to what the speed limit is on any given stretch of road.
Or maybe I should have said: "Honestly, I think most people are just oblivious".
A couple of hundred feet up the road from our house is an S-bend through a wooded area. Small drainage gully on one side between the road and a steep hillside, hefty drop off on the other side into the trees. Also happens to be on the main road between one of the local watering holes - think local equivalent of Bob's Country Bunker - and town.
In the two years we've lived here, several of the local wannabe Takumis ran out of talent there and indulged in upside down motoring, including at least one case we know of where the guardian angel also ran out of talent.
It's in a flipping 40 zone with houses all over the place.
In school speed zones and residential streets, I usually run the limit or 5 under because kids will be kids.
Everywhere else, I'm running with traffic regardless of what that speed is. This morning I came down the interstate at 78 in a 60. The people who insist on running the speed limit no matter what, cause more traffic issues and accidents than the guy running a little over. If everyone is running over the limit then the limit is set artificially low.
FLOW OF TRAFFIC
Slower cars move to the right. Lowest common denominator has no business in the left lanes, especially if the flow of traffic is faster. This is why trucks are not allowed in the left lane in some states.
Get on the 280 freeway and do the speed limit in the fast lane and you will have half of San Jose stacked up behind you and will be informed of your #1 status.
Some residential streets 25mph is too fast. I have been on roads where 100mph feels slow and others where 25MPH is too fast
Use discretion, safety first, Basic Speed Law, don't drive faster than you can see or stop.
BE CONSIDERATE OF THE PEOPLE YOU SHARE THE ROAD WITH. PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS!
My weakness is I let other folks who blunder in my presence upset me and I may not have the best reaction to their lack of respect for decorum.
BoxheadTim (Forum Supporter) said:
It's in a flipping 40 zone with houses all over the place.
Well then the peeps flipping off the side of the road are just following directions...
I'll see myself out.
bentwrench said:
BE CONSIDERATE OF THE PEOPLE YOU SHARE THE ROAD WITH. PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS!
This too. I always view driving as a communal activity. I can only drive as fast as the slowest person on the road, and if one person is doing a bad job at driving, it ruins it for everyone (looking at you, I-4).
I used to hate speed bumps... used to.
Now I'm tempted to advocate for putting some in in my neighborhood. At least theres a big drainage ditch between the house and the road and I am teaching my kid to not walk past it.
To be fair, David, they did build your neighborhood with chicanes everywhere. I know they probably did it to keep speeds low, but it's only some FIA curbing (and getting rid of all the houses/dogs/pedestrians/kids/cyclists/etc.) away from being a great race track.
On a serious note, that really sucks, but glad EMS showed up quickly. Those giant trees are nothing to mess with.
After the zombies attack, I already have a time trial route planned--we can do side-by-side races.
I just heard from my guitar teacher: I heard there was a roll-over in your neighborhood.
Now that he mentioned it, I could see that the car rolled. I didn't get that close.
But, really, this happened on a very straight part of road. Judging by the skid mark, though, they were pretty close to putting two wheels off before things got super ugly. Also, this happened where I walk my dog.
Friend of mine's yard was right at the apex of a curve in a road. People were missing the curve and ending up on his property. House was set back maybe 100 feet.
So he got tired of these off road excursions (one almost hit his house) and planted about 5 rail road rails, the steel rails, upright across the path he hoped to make forbidden. 10 foot rails with about 6 feet pushed into the ground by a backhoe. After a few mishaps where cars were found mangled on these rails the parish (Louisiana county) authorities made him take them out. He complained so much the highway dept actually bought some vacant land across the road from him and straightened the curve.
Christmas day last year (2019) someone hit the tree on the corner of our lot at about 40. Tree is still there.
There were a couple of shady cars and people slowly prowling that sidewalk area all day the following day looking through the grass for 'something'.
We also have a short section of road we have to walk along to walk our kids to pre-school where there isn't a sidewalk. the preschool is separated from the large elementary school on the same road by about 4 houses, and these 4 houses are where there is no real sidewalk. Just recently they installed a "your speed is" sign that flashes red and blue on the SCHOOL ZONE SPEED LIMIT 20 sign right there.
Frequently someone flies by us staring us down like "what are these lunatics doing walking their kids to school?" and then the reds and blues light up as they slam their brakes going into the school zone at 40+.
Many people can't see or think past the end of their hood ornament.
When we moved in, our neighbor mentioned that we'd hear some crashes. And he was right.
Someone took out our mailbox a few years ago. Again, straight road with a 25mph limit. It was daytime.
Someone hit the tree across the street. We heard the thud. Daytime.
We had someone dump a motorcycle next-door. We heard that one, too: rpm shot up and then the sound of plastic on pavement. That one was evening. There is a slight bend in front of their house.
We had a fatal one around the corner, too. Again, fairly straight road, 25 mph. Judging by the tree damage, they were hauling.
I did just here a wup, wup, so I wonder if police are now running radar. At 5:00, someone will want to go for a W-A-L-K.
FMB42
Reader
3/12/21 3:40 p.m.
The speed limit in our subdivision is posted at 20 mph. However, a while back I was driving along at 20-23 mph only to have yard maintenance guy towing a large trailer full of his equipment pass me on the left at what must been 35- 40 mph. He pulled this lunatic stunt just before a severe dip in the road. I thought that some of his equipment was going bounce out of his trailer directly in front of me. Note this was not a young guy who might not have known any better.
The good thing is that a few weeks ago they installed a "your speed is" sign on a trailer that flashes lights and indicates your speed on this particular street. Not sure if this will do much good, but something is better than nothing.
Wae: In NY, Troopers dress in orange and hard hats and carry speed guns in work zones.
