Date: Thu, 1 Feb 2007 09:14:56 -0800
Reply-To: Michael Elliott <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Michael Elliott <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Another safety point of a Vanagon re: road monsters,
was Re: California law (smog)
In-Reply-To: <00d601c745ff$005a1870$657ba8c0@MAIN>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Hi Robert,
Your recent "adventure" is another one of those reminders that we need
to alway pay attention. I receive those messages every few months when I
do something boneheaded, like look down to change the radio station
while driving on the freeway. When I look up I'm greeted by a wall of
brake lights.
SoCal freeway drivers are quite aggressive, and go real fast. I live
between San Diego and LA, and have to drive into/through both
sprawl-tropoli on occasion. I grew up in a simpler time, in
less-congested areas with slower and more thoughtful driving practices
and it's simply amazing to me how few accidents there are per driver per
unit time on these freeways. I've watched little old ladies take a
sudden flush of tail lights six car lengths ahead while driving 75 mph
with aplomb. I see folks blowing down the I-5 from LA into SD pushing 95
mph, weaving in and out of tight traffic without raising anyone's
eyebrows. It's a matter of acclimatization, of being used to how it's
done, and staying in practice. Expect anything. Trust no one. Without
any background in this style of driving, country mouse will be
completely overwhelmed on city mouse's freeways here.
Me? I just poke along, never exceeding 65 mph in the Wonderbus because
of the warm to hot climate and the limited cooling that an aircooled
engine has. Doesn't bother me that folks need to change lanes to get
around me, I stay out of the fast lanes anyway. Mellow Yellow's
speedometer reads 12% high at all speeds, so when it says I'm doing 80 I
allow myself to be blissfully unaware that I'm really doing closer to
68. I haven't reached the point where I drive at 55 in the #1 lane
(leftmost lane, the "passing lane" in many states, the "fast lane"
hereabouts) with my right turn blinker on . . . but I'm getting there,
I'm getting there.
My wife is a more aggressive driver than I. When we need to get
somewhere promptly, like to catch a flight, she drives. We take her
Volvo sedan, she takes it up to 75 or 80 to go with the flow of traffic.
Even so, a percentage of faster vehicles will be filtering up from
behind to push ahead of the pack: semi-witted kids with wraparound
sunglasses and caps turned backwards routinely tailgate in "extreme"
jacked up pickups before passing; over-caffeinated soccer moms making
Pilates appointments on their cell phones rumble by in their bulky SUVs;
and self-important men in high-end Japanese and European sedans, as well
as younger men driving lowered ricers, rocket past on both sides.
If we run into a clot on the freeway where traffic comes to an abrupt
halt, 90% of the time it's due to congestion* rather than an accident.
The remaining 10% of traffic problems are more likely than not to be due
to someone's car having suffered a mechanical failure causing them to
slow down and park in the breakdown lane, or debris on the road, and not
an accident. The ripple effect of the cars needing to brake when that
happens can persist for over an hour if the traffic density is high enough.
You know what you did wrong, and it was nothing you didn't already know:
leave yourself an escape route. By "parking" next to the truck, you
didn't have a place to go when that moron decided to occupy your lane.
I'm presently teaching my 16 year-old daughter to drive. Lemme tell you,
when she becomes acclimated to our freeways, she'll be able to handle
just about any place.
*The solution around here to the problem of overcrowded freeways caused
by too many cars on the road is to add lanes to the freeways rather than
slow down the rate at which housing developments are allowed to build.
Kind of like buying a larger belt every time your old one is too tight
instead of cutting back on the doughnuts.
--
Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
71 Type 2: the Wonderbus
84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
74 Utility Trailer. Ladybug Trailer, Inc., San Juan Capistrano
KG6RCR
Robert Fisher typed:
> I'd actually had it on all the way down from the 14 and hadn't had any particular reason trafficwise up to that point to turn it off- the traffic really was thin. I have a difficult enough time shoehorning myself into some of these damn cars- it doesn't help you to maneuver any if your foot is cramped up or asleep, so the cruise helps some with that. Having said that, I think in the future I'll be sure to kick it off before the transition to the 5.
> Come to think of it, we wound up renting a Ford 500 last month (what an unbelievable POS that thing is- no wonder they're going down the tubes) to take my daughter to a doctor at USC and I hardly used the cruise at all, however the traffic for whatever reason was heavier then as well, all the way up and down- in fact it took us 7 hours to get home from L.A. I never in my life wanted a GPS until that evening.
> We once took the Vgon ('87 GL/auto) down to LAX to pick up my in-laws. Since its top reasonable cruising speed is about 70 I felt like a sitting duck the whole time we were in the L.A. area. I wonder how you folks that live down there deal with that day in and day out.
>
> Cya,
> Robert
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Old Volks Home
> To: Robert Fisher
> Cc: vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com ; vanagon@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 10:32 PM
> Subject: Re: Another safety point of a Vanagon re: road monsters, was Re: California law (smog)
>
>
> What in heaven's name are you doing running CRUISE CONTROL on the I-405 (much less any other freeway in LA)?! Sparse traffic on the San Diego Freeway is sporadic at best, non-existant most of the time, but in all cases will come to a dead stop (or worse) any time of the day or night.
>
> That's just askin' for trouble..........
> --
> Jim Thompson (An LA Native)
> 84 GL 1.9 "Gloria"
> 84 Westfalia 2.1 "Ole Putt"
> 73 K Ghia Coupe "Denise"
> 72 411 Station Wagon "Pug"
> oldvolkshome@gmail.com
> http://www.oldvolkshome.com
> ***********************************
> On 1/31/07, Robert Fisher <refisher@mchsi.com> wrote:
> So there I was on the 405 testing the speakers, as it were, and rolling
> along in the second to left lane on cruise control when I decided the fairly
> sparse traffic was thickening up and I needed to go back to manual.
> <SNIP>
> I'm about to tap my brake to kill the cruise (this car had a
> buttload of steering wheel controls but instead of looking down and trying
> to find the right button I just decided to do it the old-fashioned way)
> Cya,
> Robert
>
>
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