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Another big pile up on I35

cytyler said:
That, and following way too close. Tons of people follow way too close even in dry conditions.
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True that...just drove through Florida on I-75 @ 80+ mph (to keep from getting run over). Felt a lot like a NASCAR race looks, with cars tailgating and drafting each other. Was tempted to crack open my sunroof and start toss’n up unopened cans of diet Dew to get ‘em off my bumper!
 
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In aviation there are a couple of terms for bad decision making that I think are quite applicable in these situations.

1. Get-There-Itis Which is the drive to get where you are going that makes you look past or downplay potential problems often leading to bad results.
2. The Swiss Cheese Model which is the idea that one or two bad decisions, problems or mistakes (holes in the cheese) may not be a problem by themselves but when you start to stack them up they can become catastrophic.
 
Is there still a large section of test pavement north of Ankeny? I worked in Ankeny for a couple years while I was at ISU in the early 00’s. Whenever it snowed that section was about 10x worse than the regular pavement. That, combined with an infallible belief in 4 wheel drive and Iowan’s predilection for meandering in the left hand lane always made that stretch particularly treacherous.
 
isufbcurt said:
Those barriers prevent cars from sliding through the median and ending up in the other lane.

Now I would argue that moving the barriers to the center of the median instead of just off the shoulder would probably be better.
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We call those things "shredders!" I think they must have been sponsored by the body shop industry! Seriously, put them in the middle of the median, not right along the edge of the lanes. I know a guy in the DOT who was involved with making this decisions. Must give him some crap this week.
 
HighOnCy said:
Before any roadside safety device is implemented, tens of millions of dollars is spent on real world crash testing and analysis. This includes identifying the ideal location within the median to protect both bounds of traffic. Cost benefit analysis are run against the severity of potential accidents (fatalities, for example) versus increased number of property damage only incidents. Over 90% of the crash testing done on roadside safety devices are tested at UNL.
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The fact that you see such a wide variety of placement of the shredders suggests that the "science" is not so determinative. I think there is quite a bit of arbitrary decision-making.
 
I'm in Mumbai, India right now. Just about everyone from Iowa would freak out about the traffic here as being "out of control." But do you know how many accidents I have seen here in the last 10 days? Zero!

Of course, there are lots of factors, such as slower speeds and no ice, but the fact is that in the midst of what seems to be chaos is a pervasive sense of how to drive without getting in accidents. Tons of what seem like "close calls," but no accidents.

So, who are the "out of control" drivers? They would seem to be in Iowa!
 
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We used to live in SE Iowa, our friends live near Cedar Rapids, so our path to games in Ames was 80, 380, 30. Those folks driving 380 daily are nuts. Weaving in and out, following too closely and filling ditches with cars summer or winter. I thought 380 was the worst in the State. 35 is trying to beat that reputation, but in individual multi-car accidents.

I’m not fond of the “shedders”, but why are there sections of that cable and posts installed where they’ve had to drill through paving rather than putting it in the grass in the median? It’s just too damn close to the driving lane. Can’t imagine snowplow drivers appreciate that either.
 
This lady is here to give us a lecture on it.

http://whotv.com/2018/02/17/it-happened-again-police-say-around-70-vehicles-involved-in-i-35-pileup/

"“I was just coming down and I had, like, three car lengths of space :eek: in front of me and this other guy because it wasn't slick o_O, but it could have been o_O. I saw a white SUV do a 'U' right in front of him, and I was like, 'oh crap, I better slow down,’ but it was already too late because there were already three cars that had gone off the road. So I tried to curve my car to the other side of the road and I scrapped half the car and then spun back into everybody else,” said Erika DeSmidt.

DeSmidt says she was lucky to be uninjured, though her car isn't as lucky.

“It's totaled, I've got a wheel that's, like, sideways, my whole front end's missing...I had to kick my way out of my door,” she said :eek:.

DeSmidt hoped drivers had learned their lesson from the pileup nearly two weeks ago, but says apparently that wasn’t the case :rolleyes:.""
 
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I don't think there's any doubt that the median cables contribute to more cars becoming involved in pileups like these since cars can't just run into the ditch instead, but it seems like usually there aren't fatalities involved because cars are slowing down before impact. I realize there was one fatality in the incident a couple of weeks ago.

However, the cables seem to do very well at keeping cars and trucks from crossing the median/ditch and going head on into oncoming traffic at speed. Those situations increase the odds of having fatalities quite a bit. I'd rather deal with the property damage and expense that comes with these pileups due to the cable barriers than the consequences of high speed head on impacts.
 
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Cyclonepride said:
This lady is here to give us a lecture on it.

http://whotv.com/2018/02/17/it-happened-again-police-say-around-70-vehicles-involved-in-i-35-pileup/

"“I was just coming down and I had, like, three car lengths of space :eek: in front of me and this other guy because it wasn't slick o_O, but it could have been o_O. I saw a white SUV do a 'U' right in front of him, and I was like, 'oh crap, I better slow down,’ but it was already too late because there were already three cars that had gone off the road. So I tried to curve my car to the other side of the road and I scrapped half the car and then spun back into everybody else,” said Erika DeSmidt.

DeSmidt says she was lucky to be uninjured, though her car isn't as lucky.

“It's totaled, I've got a wheel that's, like, sideways, my whole front end's missing...I had to kick my way out of my door,” she said :eek:.

DeSmidt hoped drivers had learned their lesson from the pileup nearly two weeks ago, but says apparently that wasn’t the case :rolleyes:.""
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Wow. Three car lengths of space. Completely inadequate. I don't know what speed the traffic was at but when driving on snow/slush at any speed you should have much more space than that.
 
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Reactions: barometriclow and Cyclonepride
Could get interesting again with Freezing Rain expected Monday/Tuesday.
 
Cycsk said:
I'm in Mumbai, India right now. Just about everyone from Iowa would freak out about the traffic here as being "out of control." But do you know how many accidents I have seen here in the last 10 days? Zero!

Of course, there are lots of factors, such as slower speeds and no ice, but the fact is that in the midst of what seems to be chaos is a pervasive sense of how to drive without getting in accidents. Tons of what seem like "close calls," but no accidents.

So, who are the "out of control" drivers? They would seem to be in Iowa!
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There have been studies that show a complete lack of any road signs actually makes driving safer. People realize that they actually have to pay attention and drive.
 
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