My first long distance trip since selling my Tesla was in a damn ICE, driving out East Monday afternoon, and driving back Monday night and Tuesday morning. I was witness to a few disorderly situations that night coming back West on Highway 152; one was on Pacheco Pass, when I was going West and the problem was East, on their uphill side of the road before the reservoir. I faintly saw a truck tow truck (one of those big beasts of a tow truck meant for towing large trucks) pulling what looked like in the dark without time to examine (due to me driving) to be a shell of a cab and something behind it like a drive shaft sticking diagonally up in the air for 20 feet. It made no sense.
Then, later, I saw a parade of about 40 ambitious angry-seeming trucks fully utilizing both lanes coming up the hill suddenly and in high numbers; they were going at a good clip. Given the physics there (100% uphill for them all starting from a complete standstill), most of them must have been empty or have had some amazingly strong engines and transmissions to be going as fast as they were, side by side no less. There aren't any hybrid trucks yet, are there? That would help explain that, but since they aren't in use to my knowledge, I can only assume the empty or extreme engine+trans strength explanations.
Then, I saw what seemed to be a parade of heavy and wide loads, stopped in the uphill lanes where no truck should ever be stopped in normal operation, especially a heavy load. My mind started fixating on this for a whole day. What happened: the lead car in the heavy load convoy slowed down, the lead heavy truck honked (unable to leave gear in any sort of normal way), and the lead car had an attitude and stopped, then the lead truck snapped its gear, started rolling backwards, tried to arrest the roll with brakes which didn't work, the next heavy vehicle behind stopped and went into reverse, and smashed the truck behind it causing the shell truck? My mind wandered into all sorts of situations, many of them blaming the lead car for murder. Another possible scenario was an unprofessional fleet manager lying on affidavit of the properness of equipment for a job, and specified trucks that would snap under those load conditions (heavy vehicles pulling overweight loads up hill); I would blame him. Another scenario was a truck driver who wasn't professional enough for carrying overweight loads uphill; I would blame both the driver and the person who dispatched him, since they aren't qualified. The worst combination of that would have been all three situations at once. Or maybe the truck mechanics failed in a nonfatal way, but the driver behind had the problems, or fell asleep, or was trying to text (mostly impossible there due to no signal).
For all I know, in the dark, the tow truck was hauling some regular load that was weird looking in shadows, and all that happened in the heavy convoy was a breakdown, and no one was hurt. But, it was some sort of problem, because law enforcement were coming; at least two -- one stuck in traffic behind the problem (he could have gotten there faster walking), and another coming in hot from the Gilroy side later when I was further down (by all rights, emergency response needed to be from the Los Banos side, since the traffic blocked their rapid approach from the Gilroy side; this way of jurisdictional responding on the side of the mountaintop line with the problem is stupid in these full-lanes-blocked situations). After the accident was maybe a hundred or two trucks lined up stopped waiting in both lanes up the hill. A few cars were scattered into the mix, waiting.
I was dealing with that as contemplation thought, when in the area approaching Gilroy between the swamps and the foothills (past the San Felipe sign somewhere) I saw a rented Enterprise straight truck decide to leave the highway abruptly rightward, and go over what I imagine was a 3 foot drop and a 5 foot hump, bounce his truck around, and end up stopped (but truck standing up) perpendicular to the highway 2 seconds after the abrupt turn, opening his door to the view of a tree where another lane should have been from his regular driving perspective. I wonder if he had some sleep situation, had a flat tire, or reacted to something I didn't see (I don't recall anything in the lanes that would have been a problem, although that doesn't rule out a dashing animal).
My imagination decided that the heat in the Central Valley (near 110º that prior day and week) was enough to keep people in neighborhoods where anybody didn't have air conditioning awake all night (especially with the high temperature of high density housing with all the absorbing heat radiation materials like roads and concrete), and that probably added to a summer of a lot of overtime and industrial traffic plus a few unprofessional drivers who didn't have much time or desire to sleep that week.
I have searched for these accidents on the web at least 3 times since then. There is no mention of them. I saw many articles of dead people on Highway 152, both before and after, including a sad one where 2 died trying to enter the highway down in the flat area of the valley since that night.
It is then that I came across this writing by a truck driver, and I just wanted to share it. While I think following the tail lamps of a vehicle in fog is safer than the same speed without following tail lamps (the lamps let you see what is between you and them by omission (interruption of the lamps, which requires you to stay fixated on them), and also see what is going on ahead by the behavior of those tail lamps, giving you more information with which to drive and allows for a higher speed than having no tail lamps ahead), the rest of his article is apt and appropriate. I think it's a good read for any Highway 152 driver who is somehow forced to ponder the meaning of life and driving on that road. Hopefully it keeps someone awake enough to pull off safely.
One nice thing about rural areas is that it's fairly easy to find a place to safely pull off and take a 27 minute nap (the same cannot be said for urban areas with "rush" hour stop and go traffic on freeways, and I'm still trying to figure that one out). Once pulled off, tell Siri to set an alarm in 27 minutes (someone told me that's what the studies said is optimal) when you pulled over, and konk out; when your iPhone alarms, you'll be ready to get up and go; get up, take a quick walk around if prudent, then focus on how awake you are until the next time you have to pull off, hopefully closer to a bed. If you oversleep the 27 minute alarm, you needed to, and it's OK. If it wakes you up, you'll be good to go for at least another minute or half hour or hour or so, maybe longer.
California’s "Haunted" Highway | SkepticReport
Then, later, I saw a parade of about 40 ambitious angry-seeming trucks fully utilizing both lanes coming up the hill suddenly and in high numbers; they were going at a good clip. Given the physics there (100% uphill for them all starting from a complete standstill), most of them must have been empty or have had some amazingly strong engines and transmissions to be going as fast as they were, side by side no less. There aren't any hybrid trucks yet, are there? That would help explain that, but since they aren't in use to my knowledge, I can only assume the empty or extreme engine+trans strength explanations.
Then, I saw what seemed to be a parade of heavy and wide loads, stopped in the uphill lanes where no truck should ever be stopped in normal operation, especially a heavy load. My mind started fixating on this for a whole day. What happened: the lead car in the heavy load convoy slowed down, the lead heavy truck honked (unable to leave gear in any sort of normal way), and the lead car had an attitude and stopped, then the lead truck snapped its gear, started rolling backwards, tried to arrest the roll with brakes which didn't work, the next heavy vehicle behind stopped and went into reverse, and smashed the truck behind it causing the shell truck? My mind wandered into all sorts of situations, many of them blaming the lead car for murder. Another possible scenario was an unprofessional fleet manager lying on affidavit of the properness of equipment for a job, and specified trucks that would snap under those load conditions (heavy vehicles pulling overweight loads up hill); I would blame him. Another scenario was a truck driver who wasn't professional enough for carrying overweight loads uphill; I would blame both the driver and the person who dispatched him, since they aren't qualified. The worst combination of that would have been all three situations at once. Or maybe the truck mechanics failed in a nonfatal way, but the driver behind had the problems, or fell asleep, or was trying to text (mostly impossible there due to no signal).
For all I know, in the dark, the tow truck was hauling some regular load that was weird looking in shadows, and all that happened in the heavy convoy was a breakdown, and no one was hurt. But, it was some sort of problem, because law enforcement were coming; at least two -- one stuck in traffic behind the problem (he could have gotten there faster walking), and another coming in hot from the Gilroy side later when I was further down (by all rights, emergency response needed to be from the Los Banos side, since the traffic blocked their rapid approach from the Gilroy side; this way of jurisdictional responding on the side of the mountaintop line with the problem is stupid in these full-lanes-blocked situations). After the accident was maybe a hundred or two trucks lined up stopped waiting in both lanes up the hill. A few cars were scattered into the mix, waiting.
I was dealing with that as contemplation thought, when in the area approaching Gilroy between the swamps and the foothills (past the San Felipe sign somewhere) I saw a rented Enterprise straight truck decide to leave the highway abruptly rightward, and go over what I imagine was a 3 foot drop and a 5 foot hump, bounce his truck around, and end up stopped (but truck standing up) perpendicular to the highway 2 seconds after the abrupt turn, opening his door to the view of a tree where another lane should have been from his regular driving perspective. I wonder if he had some sleep situation, had a flat tire, or reacted to something I didn't see (I don't recall anything in the lanes that would have been a problem, although that doesn't rule out a dashing animal).
My imagination decided that the heat in the Central Valley (near 110º that prior day and week) was enough to keep people in neighborhoods where anybody didn't have air conditioning awake all night (especially with the high temperature of high density housing with all the absorbing heat radiation materials like roads and concrete), and that probably added to a summer of a lot of overtime and industrial traffic plus a few unprofessional drivers who didn't have much time or desire to sleep that week.
I have searched for these accidents on the web at least 3 times since then. There is no mention of them. I saw many articles of dead people on Highway 152, both before and after, including a sad one where 2 died trying to enter the highway down in the flat area of the valley since that night.
It is then that I came across this writing by a truck driver, and I just wanted to share it. While I think following the tail lamps of a vehicle in fog is safer than the same speed without following tail lamps (the lamps let you see what is between you and them by omission (interruption of the lamps, which requires you to stay fixated on them), and also see what is going on ahead by the behavior of those tail lamps, giving you more information with which to drive and allows for a higher speed than having no tail lamps ahead), the rest of his article is apt and appropriate. I think it's a good read for any Highway 152 driver who is somehow forced to ponder the meaning of life and driving on that road. Hopefully it keeps someone awake enough to pull off safely.
One nice thing about rural areas is that it's fairly easy to find a place to safely pull off and take a 27 minute nap (the same cannot be said for urban areas with "rush" hour stop and go traffic on freeways, and I'm still trying to figure that one out). Once pulled off, tell Siri to set an alarm in 27 minutes (someone told me that's what the studies said is optimal) when you pulled over, and konk out; when your iPhone alarms, you'll be ready to get up and go; get up, take a quick walk around if prudent, then focus on how awake you are until the next time you have to pull off, hopefully closer to a bed. If you oversleep the 27 minute alarm, you needed to, and it's OK. If it wakes you up, you'll be good to go for at least another minute or half hour or hour or so, maybe longer.
California’s "Haunted" Highway | SkepticReport
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