Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Calumus on November 21, 2018, 08:30:51 AM
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y9feVp0RZvQ
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Stupid cop for driving like that and for stopping in the tall grass. And the other driver is also an idiot for stopping on the median instead of the shoulder.
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Yeah, I thought passing on the shoulder at 120+ was a bit absurd for a speeding ticket. Plus, I'm not sure when pulling over to the left became a thing. I never saw it until a couple years ago, now it's fairly regular in my area.
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Seems to me he should have pulled forward behind the other car to get away from the burning grass. Too late a minute or two later.
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Plus, I'm not sure when pulling over to the left became a thing. I never saw it until a couple years ago, now it's fairly regular in my area.
I'm seeing it more around here and every time I see it happen the driver is young. I'm guessing that today's driver's education class isn't working too well.
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I'm seeing it more around here and every time I see it happen the driver is young. I'm guessing that today's driver's education class isn't working too well.
If the road is a divided highway and the median is large, I can see it working just fine. In this case, I think the right side was better.
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Once again the phrase "Don't go into the long grass" proves to be sound advice.
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If the road is a divided highway and the median is large, I can see it working just fine. In this case, I think the right side was better.
I see a couple of problems with using the grassy median.
1. It is grass/dirt/mud. Traction is reduced, which affects deceleration as well as acceleration after the stop is finished.
2. Grass/dirt/mud is harder to drive on.
3. The median is often slopped away from the road.
4. Fire hazard as seen in the video.
5. Generally, traffic in the lane closest to the median is travelling faster than the right-hand lane. Makes getting back on the highway harder.
6. Many states have laws that require other drivers to slow and/or move over one lane when passing an emergency vehicle. "Fast lane" traffic moving into the "slow lane" is unusual and may cause problems.
7. If the car needs to be towed after the traffic stop, now the heavy tow truck needs to drive on the soft surface of the median.
8. Most states require a driver to move to the right when an emergency vehicle is behind them. The median is not to the right.
9. The grass might hide obstacles that could damage the car or cause loss of control.
The first time I saw someone move to the grassy median when being pulled over was on I-95 in MA. I think I posted about it here. His actions almost caused a multi-car crash, because he pulled onto the median without slowing down first. He damn near lost control of his car. The state trooper that was following him had to move hard to the right to avoid hitting the idiot, which caused many other cars to have to slow or move in reaction. This happened at busy time of day on a four lane portion of the northbound side of I-95. It would have been a big crashy mess.
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No crap, I thought everyone was aware of this danger since cat converters became common. Don't all "off road" vehicles have guards on the converters nowadays?
I'm not up to snuff on all the modern details, but it sure was a well-publicized danger years ago. I seem to recall a joke about the pollution from the fires being worse than the pollution from the cars.
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Lots of stupid displayed by that trooper, and not just with the grass fire torching his cruiser.
He should be driving a desk permanently.
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The audio of the cop before and as he pulled the speeder over brought to my mind the saying "What he lacked in competence he made up for in confidence."
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... Plus, I'm not sure when pulling over to the left became a thing. I never saw it until a couple years ago, now it's fairly regular in my area.
I've always considered it a form of passive resistance by members of the lower socio-economic groups by trying to make things as difficult as possible for the officer without actually doing anything technically wrong.
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I see a couple of problems with using the grassy median.
1. It is grass/dirt/mud. Traction is reduced, which affects deceleration as well as acceleration after the stop is finished.
2. Grass/dirt/mud is harder to drive on.
3. The median is often slopped away from the road.
4. Fire hazard as seen in the video.
5. Generally, traffic in the lane closest to the median is travelling faster than the right-hand lane. Makes getting back on the highway harder.
6. Many states have laws that require other drivers to slow and/or move over one lane when passing an emergency vehicle. "Fast lane" traffic moving into the "slow lane" is unusual and may cause problems.
7. If the car needs to be towed after the traffic stop, now the heavy tow truck needs to drive on the soft surface of the median.
8. Most states require a driver to move to the right when an emergency vehicle is behind them. The median is not to the right.
9. The grass might hide obstacles that could damage the car or cause loss of control.
The first time I saw someone move to the grassy median when being pulled over was on I-95 in MA. I think I posted about it here. His actions almost caused a multi-car crash, because he pulled onto the median without slowing down first. He damn near lost control of his car. The state trooper that was following him had to move hard to the right to avoid hitting the idiot, which caused many other cars to have to slow or move in reaction. This happened at busy time of day on a four lane portion of the northbound side of I-95. It would have been a big crashy mess.
All good reasons, but I have seen medians on the left all in concrete that were wider than the lanes. Certainly not everywhere.
As far as tall grass, that isn't the best idea no matter where it is.
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If there's room on the left, it could be safer for the officer to enter/exit his vehicle.
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Once again the phrase "Don't go into the long grass" proves to be sound advice.
That's the bottom line. Catalytic converters are HOT. The high speed chase didn't help any, but it also probably didn't make much difference. The converter would have been hot enough to light dry grass anyway.
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A few years ago one of the company installers pulled off the road to check directions to his next service call.
We were in the midst of a Summer drought after a wet spring, lots of dead/dry grass.
He lit off the grass and torched his service rig, a Ford Transit with less than 5K miles on it.
oopsie
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"I'm the only one
in this room on this road professional enough..."
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(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.davidbordwell.net%2Fblog%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2FLost-World-long-grass-500.jpg&hash=ad6a3ab75aea860f7d9b258b9f4b90b0090e5940)
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What is that? Lightning strike?
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The officer did say something about "I don't recommend doing that... but ( I, he ) just did...." as he pulled off the road. ~1:55.
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The officer did say something about "I don't recommend doing that... but ( I, he ) just did...." as he pulled off the road. ~1:55.
I think he was talking about passing on the shoulder at 100+ mph, but he could be talking about the entire episode.