4 ms·
I was going at 30-40mph in the right lane on a 4-lane all empty highway, when a gentleman flies at 60-70mph and hits us right behind, goes 360 turn with us and
by bg24 7y ago
I was going at 30-40mph in the right lane on a 4-lane all empty highway, when a gentleman flies at 60-70mph and hits us right behind, goes 360 turn with us and we hit the wall. Everyone survived without any medical incident (other than that I do panic and respectfully avoid those fliers now-a-days). Relevant because:
- I hope my sprinter (size of mini truck, with upfittings) had an autopilot in the front/rear to speed up or divert to save an accident.
- +1 to your parking angle. The other driver survived because he hit us at an angle and skidded full circle to minimize the impact. Of course, that helped our life as well.
- gbrown 7y agoThe other driver was clearly 100% totally at fault, but I'm just curious: why were you going 30-40 on a four lane highway? Where I live that's at least 25 below the speed limit. Here it's mostly tractors and other farm equipment driving at those speeds.
- dahfizz 7y agoYeah, that seems dangerous. There is usually a hard 45mph minimum on the highways near me.
- saalweachter 7y agoI'm never going to to discourage people from driving slow, because our monkey brains have shit reaction times and perception, and KE increases with the square of velocity, but if you're traveling well below the normal speed of travel, put your flashers on. In many places this is mandated for a certain amount under the limit.
- cardiffspaceman 7y agoIn my view the wreck isn’t made worse so much by absolute magnitude of one momentum vector as by the magnitude of the difference in momentum vectors.
- dahfizz 7y agoYou have to consider that after a wreck, both cars have to come to a stop one way or the other. Imagine being rear ended while you are stopped at a stop sign. The difference in momentum is small and there is no significant damage. Now imagine going 80mph down the highway and someone going 81mph hits the back of your car. Still a very small difference in momentum, but your car is very likely to lose control and roll or hit other cars. It's not always the initial impact that does all the damage.
- saalweachter 7y agoTo put it another way, every collision you are in is also a collision with the Earth, which masses a lot more than you and wins every exchange of momentum. Conveniently, your delta-v with this massive body you don't want to run into is also the one conventionally reported for your speed.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoMaybe going up a hill? They did mention they were driving a truck, it’s easy to have vastly different climbing speeds in that case. Also, I would often go less than 20 down a pass during the winter because I didn’t have snow tires or chains, and was passed by plenty of locals doing 60+ because they were equipped for it.
- gnicholas 7y agoIn some parts of the US, the word "highway" is used to refer to roads (sometimes quite wide) that have stop lights and with speed limits around 40 MPH. I grew up in northern California, and we call roads without stop lights "freeways" and roads with stop lights "highways". There are various other terms, of course (e.g. "expressways"), but these are the most common generic descriptors. I wouldn't assume that the driver going slowly was much under the speed limit, if at all.
- michaelt 7y agoWhich is understandable when you consider there were "highwaymen" in the 1600s when the highways had nothing faster than a horse.
- gbrown 7y agoMakes sense, the usage is colloquially different in the Midwest.
- bg24 7y agoI should have clarified. 4-lane expressway, signals were about 0.5-1.0 mile apart. All lanes clear. Mid night. It was NOT a freeway.
- smogcutter 7y agoThis... sounds like it’s on you. If this is in the US, the “flier” is going the normal speed of the road, and you’re driving dangerously slowly. It’s hard to tell that something directly in front of you is approaching. It’s just not something our brains are good at, compared to detecting lateral movement. Especially when it’s so unexpected. One of the first things they tell you in motorcycle safety class is that “constant bearing, decreasing range” situations are extremely dangerous.
- FireBeyond 7y agoHe mentions being in a truck, but it's a Sprinter, which unless it's dangerously overloaded, should be able to manage more than 30mph up a freeway hill. Australian driving law/principles state that "drivers should drive at the _maximum_ possible speed that is: within the speed limit, and safe for the conditions". Notably absent in this is "within your ability" as if you're not capable of safely driving on all roads, the balance of probabilities says you probably shouldn't be driving on _any_ roads.
- gnicholas 7y agoGP said "highway", not "freeway". In some parts of the country/world, these refer to different types of roads.
- tom_ 7y agoThere is no such thing as dangerously slowly - the fault lies with people that aren’t leaving enough room to take evasive action given their speed.
- bkor 7y agoYou'll be fined in The Netherlands for going too slow. They're not waiting for dangerously slow, way slower than any other traffic is enough. Example (Dutch, use Google Translate): https://www.rijnmond.nl/nieuws/124541/Flinke-boete-voor-te-langzaam-rijden-op-de-snelweg https://www.rijnmond.nl/nieuws/124541/Flinke-boete-voor-te-l... A truck got a fine of 1500 EUR. The example was dangerously slow (eventually 40km/h), not just slow.