See http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/22/us/chattanooga-school-bus-crash.html.
I drove buses for three years plus at Medicine Lake Lines/Ryder. I made every effort to go at the speed limit as determined by conditions, including speed limit signs. If I was in a convoy on a charter, often the other drivers were pulling away from me or complaining I was going go slow.
I don’t understand why drivers would want to speed. After all, if they go slower they’ll get more hours!
Showing posts with label speeding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label speeding. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Disconnect on surveillance?
As I easily stopped for a yellow light this afternoon, a driver in the other lane came whipping by me and went through the light that had already turned red. If there had been a surveillance camera at that intersection, he or she would soon be receiving a ticket.
However, many consider robo-cops a bad idea, an infringement of rights, etc. etc.
My question is, of the people who protest about being caught disobeying a traffic law, how many are all for the excessive NSA surveillance of telephone and internet usage?
In the first case, a person is caught doing something illegal. In the second case, a person may only be thought to be doing something illegal.
Whether one is killed or injured by a terrorist with a bomb or killed or injured by somebody running a red light is rather a moot point. One is just as dead or hurt by either illegal activity.
However, many consider robo-cops a bad idea, an infringement of rights, etc. etc.
My question is, of the people who protest about being caught disobeying a traffic law, how many are all for the excessive NSA surveillance of telephone and internet usage?
In the first case, a person is caught doing something illegal. In the second case, a person may only be thought to be doing something illegal.
Whether one is killed or injured by a terrorist with a bomb or killed or injured by somebody running a red light is rather a moot point. One is just as dead or hurt by either illegal activity.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Driving lessons from a bus driver
When I was trained as a school bus driver long, long ago, a couple of rules I learned hold true for drivers of any type of vehicle.
The first rule is to always drive with your full headlights on. I actually first learned this in Sweden where the police cars had their headlights wired to come on automatically on starting the car. I've tried to remember this ever since. I forget now and then, including at night with a bus in downtown Minneapolis!!!
Your headlights increase your visibility to other drivers, especially if you have a car whose color is close to the background. With lights on, a light car on snow and a dark car on asphalt are much more visible. If your car is more visible, you have less chance of a driver turning into your path. This can also be important in parking garages where many cars almost become invisible without lights. Even if you think you can see very well, always assume others might not see as well.
If your full headlights are on, then your taillights are also on. This can protect you if you are coming from an on ramp that merges in a tunnel. Few drivers will even notice you if your taillights are not on. Have you noticed cars at night without taillights, but if you pass them you see they have headlights? The drivers assumed the daytime running lights also turned on their taillights.
The second rule is that backing vehicles have right-of-way. At the company I worked for, school buses were parked front in. If a driver backs out with a 30+ foot bus on either side, there is no way that driver can see a bus coming down the lane. So, the rule a backing bus has right-of-way.
It also is a good rule in a public parking lot or ramp. With all the SUVs and pickup trucks, can a driver backing out a space have any way of seeing a car coming down the lane at 10+ miles per hour. Yet there are many drivers who think they are the only driver around and will zip right behind a car already partially out. And often these same drivers do not have their lights on in the parking ramp!
The first rule is to always drive with your full headlights on. I actually first learned this in Sweden where the police cars had their headlights wired to come on automatically on starting the car. I've tried to remember this ever since. I forget now and then, including at night with a bus in downtown Minneapolis!!!
Your headlights increase your visibility to other drivers, especially if you have a car whose color is close to the background. With lights on, a light car on snow and a dark car on asphalt are much more visible. If your car is more visible, you have less chance of a driver turning into your path. This can also be important in parking garages where many cars almost become invisible without lights. Even if you think you can see very well, always assume others might not see as well.
If your full headlights are on, then your taillights are also on. This can protect you if you are coming from an on ramp that merges in a tunnel. Few drivers will even notice you if your taillights are not on. Have you noticed cars at night without taillights, but if you pass them you see they have headlights? The drivers assumed the daytime running lights also turned on their taillights.
The second rule is that backing vehicles have right-of-way. At the company I worked for, school buses were parked front in. If a driver backs out with a 30+ foot bus on either side, there is no way that driver can see a bus coming down the lane. So, the rule a backing bus has right-of-way.
It also is a good rule in a public parking lot or ramp. With all the SUVs and pickup trucks, can a driver backing out a space have any way of seeing a car coming down the lane at 10+ miles per hour. Yet there are many drivers who think they are the only driver around and will zip right behind a car already partially out. And often these same drivers do not have their lights on in the parking ramp!
Monday, July 05, 2010
2904 miles and I can't stop driving
Yesterday we returned from a 12-day trip to Niagara-on-the-Lake ON, West Chester PA, and Silver Spring MD with overnight stops at Sault Ste. Marie MI, Richmond IN, and Madison WI. That's almost like driving coast-to-coast. The purpose was a reunion of my wife's sisters and cousins to celebrate our 50th anniversary and that of one of her cousins.
We drank and talked and ate and talked and we walked and we went on a jet boat ride and drank and talked and ate and talked. We took many pictures and movies and we gave impromptu speeches. As part of my speech I sang some song fragments with two duets with my wife. The best part was when my wife's youngest sister, who had had opera training, complimented me on my singing.
We stopped in West Chester to visit a high school and Scout friend and his wife. Although we took a walk in town and went out to a restaurant, we mostly sat in their gazebo, talked, read, and watched TV. It was also a bit of a nostalgia trip in that we haven't been in the area since we lived there in 1974-1977. It is something to drive twisty roads where the trees are right next to the road.
We stopped in Silver Spring to visit a possible third cousin of mine. Her ancestors were from Baltimore and my great-grandfather gave his father's birthplace as Maryland. Since John C. Magree was a ship's master born in Baltimore and dismissed from the U.S. Navy in 1862, I suspect he is our common ancestor. Now to find the right records. For him they are very sparse: I have found only one transcribed record of his bringing a ship of immigrants from Liverpool to New York. That was in December 1851. Since my great-grandfather was born in Brooklyn in December 1850, could John C. Magree have had two families, one in each U.S. port?
It was something to go from the hills of Appalachia to the Great Plains. In the morning we were going up and down and around and in the afternoon we were driving into the horizon. I took a picture of one gap and the valley behind us, but I never noted what the rest stop was. I suppose I could figure it out with the camera time stamp and a map. As we drove through West Virginia, we certainly understood the feeling of the song, "Country Roads".
I also understood the psychology of "keeping up with traffic". I've divided drivers into lone wolves, the wolf pack, and law-abiding individuals.
The lone wolves are the drivers who drive fifteen or more miles-per-hour over the speed limit. They are also the drivers who will weave in and out of traffic to get to an exit one minute before other drivers. They also arrive in the left lane at about the time another driver is ready to pass a vehicle in the right lane. That driver has the choice of being tailgated by the lone wolf or slowing down to avoid a collision with the slower vehicle in the right lane.
The wolf pack consists of those who drive five to ten miles over the limit. It is amusing to watch them drive. They are in a group of five to ten cars in both lanes. As they come to a slower vehicle they merge into the left lane, getting closer and closer to each other, sometimes less than a car length apart. When they get through the "choke point", the first driver will pull right in front of the lead car in the right lane, often at a distance closer than the following car was in the left lane. Then the second car pulls in front of the first, the third in front of the second, and so on, with a lone wolf bringing up the rear.
The law-abiding drivers are driving within five miles per hour of the posted limit. They rarely see each other because they are spaced some distance apart. This gives them the illusion that they are all alone in driving at the speed limit.
When one of these drivers passes a similar driver, the lone wolves and the wolf packs accuse them of holding up traffic. Isn't it the other way around? The lone wolves and the wolf packs are pushing traffic.
I think I've had enough of driving for a while. The one hour to our cabin is enough, and we may be passed only twice, if at all.
Besides, we have to pay all our credit card bills. Other than all the good visits, the next best thing was that our 2002 Prius got 48.0 miles per gallon in that 2904 miles.
We drank and talked and ate and talked and we walked and we went on a jet boat ride and drank and talked and ate and talked. We took many pictures and movies and we gave impromptu speeches. As part of my speech I sang some song fragments with two duets with my wife. The best part was when my wife's youngest sister, who had had opera training, complimented me on my singing.
We stopped in West Chester to visit a high school and Scout friend and his wife. Although we took a walk in town and went out to a restaurant, we mostly sat in their gazebo, talked, read, and watched TV. It was also a bit of a nostalgia trip in that we haven't been in the area since we lived there in 1974-1977. It is something to drive twisty roads where the trees are right next to the road.
We stopped in Silver Spring to visit a possible third cousin of mine. Her ancestors were from Baltimore and my great-grandfather gave his father's birthplace as Maryland. Since John C. Magree was a ship's master born in Baltimore and dismissed from the U.S. Navy in 1862, I suspect he is our common ancestor. Now to find the right records. For him they are very sparse: I have found only one transcribed record of his bringing a ship of immigrants from Liverpool to New York. That was in December 1851. Since my great-grandfather was born in Brooklyn in December 1850, could John C. Magree have had two families, one in each U.S. port?
It was something to go from the hills of Appalachia to the Great Plains. In the morning we were going up and down and around and in the afternoon we were driving into the horizon. I took a picture of one gap and the valley behind us, but I never noted what the rest stop was. I suppose I could figure it out with the camera time stamp and a map. As we drove through West Virginia, we certainly understood the feeling of the song, "Country Roads".
I also understood the psychology of "keeping up with traffic". I've divided drivers into lone wolves, the wolf pack, and law-abiding individuals.
The lone wolves are the drivers who drive fifteen or more miles-per-hour over the speed limit. They are also the drivers who will weave in and out of traffic to get to an exit one minute before other drivers. They also arrive in the left lane at about the time another driver is ready to pass a vehicle in the right lane. That driver has the choice of being tailgated by the lone wolf or slowing down to avoid a collision with the slower vehicle in the right lane.
The wolf pack consists of those who drive five to ten miles over the limit. It is amusing to watch them drive. They are in a group of five to ten cars in both lanes. As they come to a slower vehicle they merge into the left lane, getting closer and closer to each other, sometimes less than a car length apart. When they get through the "choke point", the first driver will pull right in front of the lead car in the right lane, often at a distance closer than the following car was in the left lane. Then the second car pulls in front of the first, the third in front of the second, and so on, with a lone wolf bringing up the rear.
The law-abiding drivers are driving within five miles per hour of the posted limit. They rarely see each other because they are spaced some distance apart. This gives them the illusion that they are all alone in driving at the speed limit.
When one of these drivers passes a similar driver, the lone wolves and the wolf packs accuse them of holding up traffic. Isn't it the other way around? The lone wolves and the wolf packs are pushing traffic.
I think I've had enough of driving for a while. The one hour to our cabin is enough, and we may be passed only twice, if at all.
Besides, we have to pay all our credit card bills. Other than all the good visits, the next best thing was that our 2002 Prius got 48.0 miles per gallon in that 2904 miles.
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