Distracted myself yesterday and hit the ditch, luckily had enough momentum to hit 4x4, thread the needles between two poles and climb back up about 100m down the road.
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Distracted myself yesterday and hit the ditch, luckily had enough momentum to hit 4x4, thread the needles between two poles and climb back up about 100m down the road.
Like a boss.
I am of the opinion that 99% of accidents I see in the winter involving putting a vehicle in the ditch are because of distracted driving.
Most of them are in fwd vehicles on perfectly straight highway. You realllllyyy have to try to hit the ditch with those conditions.
Fuck this city logic, my car got plowed in last night and a Good Samaritan neighbour had to tow me out, why fucking issue a parking ban yet plow the night before
Not extreme, but I usually shovel quite a bit of the street near my house, but I also expect the city to plow my street, even though it's not on any plow route, so I want to wait until I can bust up the windrow.
Cool story bro?
In the winter time, any time I come to a stop I leave plenty of room between me and the car in front and I get ready to move forward, watching the rear view mirror the whole time until the person behind me comes to a stop. It has without a doubt saved me from multiple rear-end accidents over the years which instead ended up being very close calls using my "method", and would have 100% been accidents if I wasn't doing that. If they're just flat out not paying attention and not even slowing down though, not much you can do.
I also do this and theres been quite a few near misses where I can see the person behind me (some punk with shitty winters / all seasons) sliding directly towards my bumper after hitting ice. Luckily for me in those few times they have also turned their wheel and then hit the curb instead of my car.
I remember this from Driver's Ed. Another one is if you're in the intersection waiting to turn left, to keep your wheels pointed straight until you're actually going to turn. Reason being is if you get rear-ended, you go forward rather than across the lanes of oncoming traffic.
Wasn't someone in the pet peeves thread complaining about this recently? Like they couldn't stand when people stopped "too far back" and then crept up. I can't find the post, but I'm sure it happened.
In this day and age with front and rear dash cams, I wonder how insurance would handle that with proof you actually were not following "too close"?
It's always a risk I suppose. If they are going to hit you that hard though it probably doesn't matter what precautions you're taking. I guess you could leave a bus-length of room so you can move up half of that and still get hit without getting pushed into the car in front. It's whatever you're comfortable with. I usually leave at least a good car length if not more, and then I idle up to close the gap to something a little more reasonable once the guy behind me has stopped.
Regardless though you've mitigated the situation because if you leave a big gap in front of you until the person behind you stops, and they do end up hitting you, you still have that gap before you hit the car in front. If you do hit, presumably the accident will be less severe because they would have to push you the 20ft or whatever it is first. If they are coming in hot and you know they aren't going to stop whatsoever, you have the option of not moving to maintain the space left between you and the car in front. It's just an on the spot judgement call I guess.
Just from my own experience anyway I have had really good luck with leaving that extra room because usually people realize they are going to hit you and brake, but sometimes too late, so being above to move up that 5-10ft or whatever avoids the fender bender entirely. If they come screaming in at the speed limit you're fucked either way probably. When I see an old POS car or soccer mom type vehicle coming up behind me in the winter I always get nervous because you know they're on all seasons haha.