zeroptzero

I woke up this morning to an email about someone driving through a heavy duty chain barrier we have installed at one of our properties, well lit and clearly marked with a big orange caution sign. Thankfully the guy did a lot of damage to his vehicle (serves him right) and he claimed that he did not see the chain or caution sign. Our site people sent me over a picture of his driver's license and no surprise by the spelling of his name and ethnicity, one more license obtained from a cracker jack box.

robb

I think if we knew of all the insanity that goes on with trailer trucks none of us would drive on the road. I previously worked at a place where we would occasionally get deliveries and I remember one time during the winter the guy got stuck on an almost flat part of our parking lot that had a very small amount of snow on it. I looked at his tires and they were pretty much garbage. Leaving the place you either go left which is straight downhill with curves or right which is uphill and you will be turning which obviously makes it worse. I asked the guy why he was driving around with tires like that and he said the company won’t spend the money to replace them. He said the previous week he couldn’t get up a mountain road so the company paid for a trailer truck to tow him up the mountain they said it was cheaper than new tires. He said he needs the job to support his family but was trying to find something else.

valentine

I live just off Ocean Highway which is the ONLY highway in or out of our area of the state. Every single day I hear multiple sirens for accidents occurring on or near the highway. I try to do my driving during off-times when most people (especially the tourists) aren't out and about. Fortunately we do not have many transport vehicles using the highway. There are occasional tractor-trailers but not a lot.

jnewtons2k

In my area, it's the red light runners. It's not people scooting through a yellow, but full on red with traffic coming from another direction.

Just this morning on the way to the grocery store, I was making a left turn into the store parking lot (with a green arrow light) when a guy from the opposite direction ran the red light and turned into the lot just in front of me. I blew the horn and he flipped me off...

zeroptzero

Yeah I see many of those trucks driving on bald tires in snow and rain, no surprise when they end up in a ditch. Our ministry of transport often does surprise checks on tractor trailers at weigh stations, and they pull a high percentage of the trucks off the road right on the spot as they find so many brake system violations. They say the trucks they pull off the road often have 50%+ braking potential reductions in their brake systems, all due to maintenance being avoided.

S2KRAY

This is the main reason we don’t drive to Naples, Fl after 16 years, The drive is very stressful all the way there. We have had too many close calls and I know sooner or later our luck is going to run out. We fly down, rent a car and stay close to where we stay. We can walk to most restaurants, etc. We feel much safer and our stress levels are much better.

boltonblue

This dialogue brings back memories of the early 90's when I worked in Lowell, Ma.
If you can remember all of the stories of the post Vietnam war boat people, many settled in the Lowell area.
I think we've all seen the photos from southeast Asia and it's crazy traffic patterns.
Many of them learned to drive in that traffic.
I was always hyper alert when driving to work, you never quite knew what to expect.
Needless to say, I never rode my motorcycle to work.

robb

I was out in the S yesterday and have to say drivers are not improving. I was out on an open 2 lane highway with a speed limit of 50. Came up on a ‘parade’ of cars doing about 37 m.p.h and I noticed and have seen this before when we came into a town where the speed limit drops to 40 and then 30 these idiots all speed up and go through the town at about 15 over the speed limit. The other side was I had a big flatbed truck going by the other way at probably at least 25 over around a left hand corner it looked like his left front wheel was going to come off the ground. Going back I came upon another ‘parade’ so I pulled over and let the road clear and drove at the speed limit and a minivan came right up on me at about 80+ so I moved over and they flew by me.

Heyitsgary

Opposite comments-

Drivers in Nova Scotia had the absolute most road awareness and lane discipline I've ever seen.

Most of the roads are two lanes on the island. Many people would pull over to let you pass if there wasn't a passing zone.
Everyone, when a 3rd lane appeared as a passing zone moved right if they weren't passing people.
Traffic generally moved around 10% above posted limits.

There were very few times during the 10 days (and 1400 miles!) that we felt held up (outside of farm equipment) by anyone on the road and had no issues with drivers anywhere.

jukngene

^That was my experience there, as well.