I live off of a very dangerous highway. There are deaths every year. I have even seen surveys on the local papers website asking if other people think the highway is dangerous and the results were like 80+% yes!!! Some days are scarier than others but you have to just accept this and move on.
What makes this highway so dangerous? Multiple things.
First it is a 2 lane highway. There are SO many cars that travel this highway it should be 4 lanes but funding has prevented this from happening. They have the engineering work complete. Now it is a matter of just finding the money to build it. It will be built in two phases whenever funding is found. Here is a photo from earlier this week. Now we are on a holiday week so traffic is way less than normal. It is around 7a.m. so not even the full brunt of people have hit the road yet and you can see I am in a line of quite a few cars with multiple cars going the other direction. It is like this or worse for three hours in the morning and three at night.
Second, the road itself. This road is hilly, winding and rough. In the winter the wind blows and makes visibility horrible with a lot of drifting snow and occasional black ice. It is a bear to drive on.
Third - Deer. I know this is a problem on many roads but we have what I would say is constant road kill on this road. We have opossums, raccoon, cats, dogs, and the famous deer. I have hit a raccoon on said road but luckily no damage to vehicle. That could not be said for the raccoon though...
Fourth and by far the most dangerous - other drivers. Now if you are cursed to driving this road every day you accept certain facts. One of these is once you get on this highway you drive what ever the speed of the day happens to be. Now this can vary from 45 - 65, depending on the drivers. You do not pass as it is to dangerous and their are too many other cars in both directions. The trouble starts when you get someone on this highway that does not drive it every day. Add to this, put this person in the traffic during one of the rush hour periods. It is almost like one of those Mayhem commercials waiting to happen. What caused me to write this post was one such event.
I was heading to work earlier this week. I have to pull out onto this highway from a stop sign making a left hand turn. I was behind one car, so after he pulls out I make a quick check and decide to quickly follow. Now the car ahead of me must be running on only 1/2 of its four cylinders as it does not get up to speed very quickly. In the meantime, here comes an F350 diesel barreling up behind me trying to climb onto my bumper. He stays back there for 30 seconds or so then decides to go around both me and the car ahead. I think "oh sh*t" as there are on-coming cars. I look down at my speedometer and we are doing between 60 and 65, which is a good speed for that time of day. He barely makes it around us with the black smoke just rolling out of his exhaust pipe and cuts off the car ahead of me. I am sure the on-coming traffic slowed down as the idiot was passing. The funny thing about this is after all that within 1/2 mile he was in the middle of a line of cars going 55-60!!!
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