Feeling fortunate about unplugging a few minutes early

[thecloud]

On Saturday, my wife and I headed down to L.A. and stopped to charge at the Tejon Ranch supercharger. The spots under the canopy were taken, but I got a spot across from it where the other stall in the pair wasn't taken. That gave us a quicker charge rate.

Normally we try to get at least 90% charge here, since we often have to do a lot of city driving before the next charging opportunity. But on this day, I felt like it wasn't worth the wait for the much lower kW rate at that SOC, so I unplugged about 5 minutes early.

We left the charger at 2:35 PM, heading south on I-5.

Going up the Grapevine was like ascending into the clouds. There was a fog bank at the top, near Lebec, and the visibility suddenly got dangerously low. I initially thought, "cool, a chance to use my fog lights!" AP was tracking the cars ahead with no problem. Then things got really dicey as the cars ahead jammed on their brakes. We passed 2 cars that had collided near the center divider. Most of the drivers had turned on their hazard flashers, although mind-bogglingly, there were several light-colored cars that didn't have any lights on at all. I remember saying something like, "that's going to cause an accident."

We got through Gorman about 20 minutes later, around 2:55. The fog dissipated quickly, and the sun came out around the time we reached Santa Clarita.

Only later that evening did we find out that we were literally less than 5 minutes ahead of a major 30-car pileup that shut down I-5. Had we lingered any longer at the supercharger, we certainly wouldn't have made it to L.A. for many hours… if at all.

Many Injured, Horse Dead In Multi-Vehicle Pileup On I-5 Near Gorman

This red Model S wasn't as fortunate:

 

[mainecoon]

Yikes that's crazy. Grapevine is treacherous. You are very lucky you left when you did. Glad to hear you guys are alright!

 

[jkoya]

Wow - saw that in the news. Glad to hear you were able to miss the pileup.

 

[israndy]

Wonder if he had AutoPilot on. Still probably hard to avoid an accident when the guys in front and behind you are not paying attention. Poor horse, hope it didn't suffer.

-Randy

 

[bmah]

Wow. Glad to hear you missed it. We took note of this on the news too because we've done the Grapevine a couple times these past few months. Hope that red Model S's driver and passengers are OK...looks like airbags deployed (not too surprising considering the circumstances).

Bruce.

 

[Russell]

Many Injured, Horse Dead In Multi-Vehicle Pileup On I-5 Near Gorman

This red Model S wasn't as fortunate:
View attachment 389989

One car caught on fire, you can see it in the news clip. Since it wasn't a Tesla, they didn't mention the make and model.

 

[israndy]

That is the joke, right? Car fire? Is it a Tesla?

-Randy

 

[SMAlset]

Glad you and your wife avoided all of that. I saw that reported on the news as well but the photo and recounting brings it home. Hadn't realized a Tesla was involved.

I've only been in two really unsettling driving situations that I can recall. One was very dense fog when I lived in Illinois. Thicker than pea soup comes to mind. Suppose it might be called Tule fog (which I know Central Valley near Los Banos gets but haven't experienced). Even with fog lights on it didn't seem to matter. Made me think "is this what it's like to pilot a plane through a cloud bank?". Total white out and eerily quiet too. Fortunately not too wide spread but glad to get out of. The other situation was along I-90 in Wyoming. There was a huge snow storm affecting that section of the country and we were trying to make it to California to close on our home. Could not see much of anything. Snow and ice building up on the car and headlights, you hated to stop to clear off for fear you'd get hit besides you really couldn't see even a place to pull over. Trucks were pulled over on the side of the road being covered up with snow and you couldn't help but wonder if you might hit a car covered in snow that had been abandoned. Oh and off to the right which you couldn't really see was the edge of the road and a mountain slope. Hard to tell if you were even still on the road. Worst driving experiences ever. The Wyoming weather was like this for a number of miles too that passed ever so slowly at a crawling speed. So exhausted when we finally got past it as it was rather nerve-racking. I have heard a number of horror stories on that part of I-5 and feel for regular commuters of that stretch.

 

[thecloud]

Thanks all... we're very glad we avoided anything worse than some white-knuckle moments through the Tejon Pass. I feel bad for those drivers who came after us and couldn't do anything about getting rear-ended, and not as bad for the drivers that insisted on freeway speeds when visibility was only about 20-30 feet ahead.

As for the horse, the vet who was called out to the scene was interviewed (sitting in her truck) by one of the local news stations we watched. Couldn't find that clip online Found the clip online. I had an impression that she might have had to euthanize the horse (not sure why I thought that, possibly from the CHP info in the CalTrans app where it noted they had called for a vet), but she just said the horse died in the crash, so hopefully it didn't suffer.

On a different note, I can confirm @ecarfan 's sightings of many transporter trucks loaded with new (Model 3) Teslas on I-5. We probably passed 9 or 10 of these trucks going southbound, and 2 of them got off at the Tejon Ranch (Laval Road) exit with us, although they kept going on Laval Road and didn't turn right onto Dennis McCarthy Drive (where the supercharger is.) There were also a few trucks carrying random used vehicles... wonder if these were part of the same convoy, maybe cars that were traded in for Teslas?

 

[ecarfan]

@thecloud glad to hear you missed that accident scene. I did notice a new headline about it but didn’t read the report; in the winter Central Valley fog is a well known problem that regularly results in accidents. Wait, let me rephrase; in the winter, inattentive and irresponsible drivers who drive to fast in Central Valley fog are well known problems.

Meaning, it’s not the fog, it’s drivers who for some bizarre reason do not slow down when visibility is reduced. I see this all the time in foggy conditions, including where I live; people who are willing to drive at the speed limit blindly into conditions when they should be reducing their speed by half or more.

Our cars radar of course works as well in dense fog as it does on a clear day, but that doesn’t prevent us from being hit in the rear. Someday all cars on the road will have forward radar and accidents due to fog will be greatly reduced, but people will still ignore alerts in the car and drive too fast in fog. We will have to mandate 100% autonomous driving and take the dumb humans out of the equation to solve the problem. Which I think will happen in about 20 years.

 

[jjchan]

I remember the perilous fog in the Valley from when I was living in Fresno. It wasn't at all uncommon to see nothing at ground level when the ground fog rolled in! I've been curious about how the EAP performs in such circumstances. Does the car still able to follow the vehicle in front of it at the preset distance? Stays in lane?

 

[ecarfan]

I remember the perilous fog in the Valley from when I was living in Fresno. It wasn't at all uncommon to see nothing at ground level when the ground fog rolled in! I've been curious about how the EAP performs in such circumstances. Does the car still able to follow the vehicle in front of it at the preset distance? Stays in lane?

The forward facing radar can track cars in front of it regardless of fog or rain or snow. It will maintain distance when on TACC. Maintaining lane position when on Auto Steer is a different issue, since that is done with the cameras. Auto Steer may not work in extremely low visibility conditions, and Auto Pilot may not be available, you won’t be able to engage it.

 

[jjchan]

Makes sense, thanks.

 

[thecloud]

If lane markings aren't visible for the camera to follow, but you're behind another car, AP will lock onto the car ahead and follow it. I should mention that I was only using TACC and not Auto Steer at this point in the trip. TACC had no trouble "seeing" the cars ahead with its radar. Never had any worries about running into the car ahead... the concern was getting rear-ended by another driver.

 

[mociaf9]

The forward facing radar can track cars in front of it regardless of fog or rain or snow. It will maintain distance when on TACC. Maintaining lane position when on Auto Steer is a different issue, since that is done with the cameras. Auto Steer may not work in extremely low visibility conditions, and Auto Pilot may not be available, you won’t be able to engage it.

Though it's wise to remember that just because the car can "see" the one you're following and maintain distance, that doesn't mean that the car in front is setting a safe speed for the conditions. I.e. don't disengage your brain just because you think there's limited danger of rear-ending the car ahead. They may go plowing into another car or unexpectedly off the shoulder leaving you without enough time to avoid the same problem if you're moving too fast for the conditions.

 

[maximizese]

Many folks comment that California folks don't know how to drive in the rain, the truth is we collectively are worse in the fog. For the life of me, I have no idea why folks drive so close to the vehicle in front. I like to follow a lead car to scout the road ahead, but leave enough headway to react. Folks often drive so close thinking they have enough time to brake when they see the lead car brake, but that idea complete falls apart when the car in front comes to a dead stop from a collision (I've seen this happen too many times). It's like the blind leading the blind sometimes.

If I have to drive slowly in the truck lanes to go slow enough to maintain a safe speed I will do it. Driving faster slows everyone down when you're part of an accident.

 

[bmah]

If I have to drive slowly in the truck lanes to go slow enough to maintain a safe speed I will do it. Driving faster slows everyone down when you're part of an accident.

Once or twice I've said "the heck with this" and just gotten off the freeway at an off-ramp and sat it out until the fog got better.

I've had some experience with tule fog (grew up in Fresno), although the worst I can remember was actually in town, when my dad came to an intersection and we literally could not see from one side to the other (and had no idea what color the traffic lights were). So we rolled down all the windows to listen for other traffic, and then rolled very carefully across to the other side.

Bruce.

 

[israndy]

I have gotten caught in fog on the drive up to go skiing and there is a LOT of pressure to go faster if you are in the lead. If you do have to stop quickly it would be good if the cars behind you will not clobber you. But they are keeping an eye on your tail to know where the road goes and when to slow. If you lose sight of you that benefit goes away. So they are climbing up your ass, causing you to drive faster and fret about those behind you. And THAT'S when you see the thing that causes you to brake quickly.

It would be smart to always be thinking about the cars behind you. I know they are responsible if they hit you but if the AutoPilot software and the Human Pilot take care to watch those behind you when you are braking quickly, like perhaps go onto the shoulder. No accident is always better than an accident you are not responsible for.

-Randy

 

[ecarfan]

TACC had no trouble "seeing" the cars ahead with its radar. Never had any worries about running into the car ahead

Except there are known recent cases of drivers on TACC and AP hitting a stopped vehicle in their lane. The driver wasn’t looking.

If lane markings aren't visible for the camera to follow, but you're behind another car, AP will lock onto the car ahead and follow it.

And that situation would concern me since I would not trust the driver in front to be making good decisions. They can’t see any better than I can.

To me the bottom line is that autonomous driving is no good in extremely dense fog. I would just get off the road.

 

[thecloud]

Except there are known recent cases of drivers on TACC and AP hitting a stopped vehicle in their lane. The driver wasn’t looking.

While that's an excellent point, I definitely appreciated having TACC to help me out in this situation, making me less anxious about hitting a vehicle that braked suddenly ahead of me. Unlike the cases you cited, this driver was paying extreme attention to the road.

And that situation would concern me since I would not trust the driver in front to be making good decisions. They can’t see any better than I can.

As long as I can see that I'm still in my lane, then I don't really need to see ahead of the driver in front or rely on their decisions; I just need to not rear-end them, and that's where having TACC helps. The real concern is someone else coming up too fast from behind.

To me the bottom line is that autonomous driving is no good in extremely dense fog. I would just get off the road.

Pulling off the road onto the shoulder is also dangerous, because you become a stationary target. If you can get completely off the highway at an exit, then sure, but that section of I-5 really doesn't have many options.