blame everyone but the drivers
On the heels of the St. Pete Times attempt to blame the Florida Highway Patrol and the state Division of Forestry for the massive 70 car pileup on I-4, the Tribune also suggests that More Troopers And Better Lights Can Save Lives On Foggy Highways.
I-4 already is scheduled to be equipped with overhead message signs and traffic-monitoring cameras, but these improvements seem inadequate to prevent another zero-visibility smash-up. Streetlights would help, especially in low, fog-prone areas. Urban interstates typically are brightly illuminated. The high volume of traffic between Tampa and Orlando qualifies this highway for similar lighting. And had there been available troopers, they could have set up rolling roadblocks, driving slowly side-by-side to cause an intentional slowdown until brake lights could be seen.
Good grief! They want to spend millions of dollars so troopers can hold drivers’ hands through a typical weather pattern? Where is the personal responsibility? If any condition makes it unsafe to drive, you are supposed to stop the vehicle. But the Tribune makes excuses for all of you:
Imagine driving the highway that morning. Before you could think about stopping, you and other commuters, tourists and truckers were in utter blackness. You couldn’t see your own headlights.
What to do? Slowing down earlier would have made the crashes less violent, but to go slow on the interstate carries a risk of being rear-ended.
Nonsense! When it is too foggy to see in front of you, you pull over - immediately. If you think that you might get rear-ended, you pull FAR off the road. It’s not rocket science. It’s responsibility. But no, people just don’t think for themselves. And on Wednesday, just like any other day, they kept going to their oh, so VERY important appointments. And five of them died.
Every day, people drive unsafely along I-4 (and Hwy. 60, and I-75, and I-275). Minutes after the FHP was on hand at the wreck site, westbound drivers were driving in the fog on the shoulders of the road, and speeding through the fog running into others who had slowed down. Just days after the pileup, FHP had to close the Interstate again - not because of the fog, but because of how commuters were driving in the fog. If the Highway Patrol is to blame for this mess, it’s only because they are not out there every day giving out tickets left and right. Until people re-learn that the road is not theirs to use in whichever manner they choose, we will continue to expect the possibility of a horrible fantastic wreck.
The Tribune and Times need to stop enabling and justifying your carelessness. Hooray for the Lakeland Ledger placing the blame squarely where it belongs - on drivers.
Tags: crash, fog, i-4, news, speed, weather
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January 17th, 2008 at 11:30 am
Umm, what the hell are you talking about, Tommy? How is smoke from a raging nearby wildfire and a mixture of fog a “typical weather pattern”?
I-4 is one of the oldest interstates in the country. How many multi-car pileups have been on that road during the time?
If you answered “1,” you’d be correct.
Even if you tried to pull off the road, as you slowed down, the car behind you in what was probably INSTANT ZERO VISIBILITY would not see you in time to also slow down and would hit you.
Have you ever driven into a zero visibility situation? You really have very little options, and it’s not like they expected it to happen or it happened gradually … it was sudden.
I usually agree with the things I read on Sticks, but in this case, you’re completely off base.
January 17th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
How do you not see a curtain of smoke and fog up ahead? You’re supposed to look eleven seconds ahead on the highway. Eleven seconds is enough to stop your car safely.
What is wrong with this God-damned state that people don’t understand a couple of f*cking basics?
Eyes on the road. At ALL times. Seatbelt on. Cell phone off. Slow traffic keeps right. Use your blinker for all lane changes and turns.
Or, you know, die.
January 17th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Anyone ever notice travel times shown on the traffic alert signs on I-275? The lower part of the posted range during off-peak hours require speeds well above the posted limit.
January 17th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
people tailgate me all the time so i just let go of the accelerator then they change lanes and i accelerate again
January 17th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Rachel* I know that you’re ever so perfect, and that in Rachel*land, that’s the way it works.
But smoke and fog can be sudden … we have all seen fog in the distance, and typically, while we have LIMITED visibility, we don’t expect to have NO visibility.
You want to know what it’s like to suddenly drive into zero visibility? Close your eyes while driving, and have everyone else around you close their eyes, too. See how well you do.
Blame the drivers. You must be kidding me.
January 17th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Oh, great, another stranger who thinks they know me because of the internet.
So your point is that I can’t possibly be even a little bit right because you think I think I’m perfect?
If you see a wall of fog, you pull the f*ck over. The girl who learned to drive in a heavily congested area during the blizzard of ‘96 might know what she’s talking about here, jackass.
January 18th, 2008 at 7:29 am
Bottom line is…. we all need to slow down. There were signs out there on each end of the road before going into the fog/smoke. Usually, that means caution ahead, which means to slow down. People are in such a hurry that these signs were ignored and 5 people are dead because of that. Like Tommy said, who should take responsibility? FHP and FDOT because they didn’t close the roads down, thinking that people would read and heed their warnings, or the drivers who blatantly read and disregarded the warnings.
January 18th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Hey MAF - you are part of the problem. You want to look for blame, but never take responsibility.
And just so you know, I’ve had the fog come in on my while driving the Blue Ridge Parkway, so I’m well aware of sudden (not instant) zero visibility.
The wall of fog doesn’t just appear. If you are even slightly aware of your surroundings, you can see the weather changing in front of you or coming from the side. But that takes some paying attention to your surroundings. You are obviously much too busy for that.
And to show just how lazy (i mean busy) you are, if you had just checked the LINK we provided for “typical weather pattern,” you would have seen that this is NOT I-4’s first multi-car pileup.
Since you are too lazy (uh, busy) to look for yourself, here’s the important part:
“Since 1974, at least 11 lives have ended to the sounds of crunching metal and screeching brakes in separate pileups along the same strip of Interstate 4 in Polk County.
The low-lying area east of Polk City can become a death trap in the fog. Long before Wednesday’s record 70-car pileup that left four people dead and 38 injured, fog and smoke caused deadly conditions.
In March 1974, five people were killed about 9 a.m. on I-4 two miles east of Polk City when three tractor-trailer rigs and two automobiles crashed in the fog.
In February 1981, one man was killed in an 18-vehicle pileup on I-4 just west of U.S. 27.
In May 2001, a man was killed while driving through a mix of fog and smoke in a wreck involving seven tractor-trailers and 11 other vehicles on I-4.”
Sounds like several multi-car pileups on I-4 to me…
January 18th, 2008 at 10:23 am
“If you see a wall of fog, you pull the f*ck over.”
“The wall of fog doesn’t just appear. If you are even slightly aware of your surroundings, you can see the weather changing in front of you or coming from the side.”
The wreck happened at night.
January 18th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Yes, Rachel* … me judging your comments on a single post and responding to that means I know you. You’re so famous and all. =P
Seriously, tho … without the name-calling (which I find rather interesting was allowed to stay up … way to only enforce rules when you agree with what people are saying, Tommy) … we see fog ahead of us all the time. We don’t ever anticipate that it will be zero visibility. Fog in the distance with zero visibility look the same as fog in the distance with some visibility.
Being aware of your surroundings are great. It’s night time. There are no street lights or anything else. It’s nothing but your headlines, and maybe the headlights of people around you. It starts to fog up, you slow down. Next thing you know, you can’t see anything at all … what do you do? You hit your brakes. Might not be the smartest thing to do, but that’s what you do.
You talk about driving in blizzards. It was the blizzards of 1995-96 that convinced me to move away from snow in the first place. You drive on roads covered in snow and ice, you have to be careful but you can’t always anticipate extremes, like a completely slippery surface. If you hit an ice patch and you start to slide and spin, anyone’s first reaction is to hit their breaks. That, of course, causes their wheels to lock, and the car to continue spinning. However, the proper way to stop spinning or sliding is to actually partially accelerate. That’s right: you hit the gas pedal.
But even if you know that, even if that trick is drummed in your head, the first reaction when faced with the situation is not to do it on instinct. What does instinct do? It has us hit the brakes.
We can all sit and armchair quarterback this whole thing all we want. The thing is, we weren’t there, and we can’t just simply start blaming (or even removing blame) because of what we feel is the textbook way of handling a situation, and how people should’ve reacted textbook instinctively, not just on pure instincts. We sit at home and watch “Deal or No Deal,” thinking “go for it! Why won’t they go for more!” It’s easy for us to sit back and judge someone else’s decision or instinct, but when we are actually faced with it, what do we do?
As people, we don’t tend to think about extreme situations when doing normal everyday things. Maybe when we do things that are not everyday — like flying (I always fear hijackers or engine problems, although those are extremes and not common). But when I get in the car, I don’t really think about the drunk drivers on the road. I don’t think about whether that patch of fog ahead is going to be so dense I can’t see, because typically the fog will lessen visibility, but not take it away. And if I flew all the time, chances are I am not thinking of extremes like hijacking or engine problems, either, because we have routine. Is that my fault if the plane gets hijacked?
I see what you’re saying, Tommy. I agree, the drivers may not be entirely free of fault, but I don’t think it should be forgotten that the government shouldn’t have been doing a controlled burn in this current climate conditions in the first place.
January 18th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Maf54 - Single post, huh? Whatever, dude, you are way into me when you should just keep on topic.
You should never, ever, ever need to talk about the fact that I am recognizable, because I don’t ever base my reactions to the topics here on such. Ad hominem is nothing but weak argumentation.
January 19th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Tommy, I agree with what you stated early on about blame trying to be shifted toward FHP and the DOF.
The bottom line is that more officers and additional lighting would not have changed the fact that the fog happened the way that it did.
Drivers have to take some responsibility to understand that if an unsafe situation occurs in which a choice is available (i.e. pulling way off the road until you can see) and they choose a course of action that they could have controlled, then they are at least partially responsible.
I don’t wish that horrible situation on anybody but part of driving responsibly is paying attention to what is going on around you.
January 21st, 2008 at 8:37 am
Obviously there needs to be a frame of reference or some logical thinking here.
You have ZERO visibility. That’s not a little bit of visibility. That’s not a shred of visibility. You could probably see better if your eyes were closed.
Fog can be thick, yes, but the smoke and fog can make a very dangerous combination. Tommy pointed out some minor “pileups,” nothing which even compare to what happened here. I bet a lot of those didn’t happen when it was still dark, either. Of course, I am too “lazy” to look it up.
I don’t understand why some people have to be assholes when they discuss things, while the board moderators operate a double-standard. It’s like, “We want to express our disagreement with things, because that’s free speech … but don’t you DARE disagree with us!” That’s the crap we’re getting in this thread.
When you can’t see ANYTHING AT ALL, you cannot pull over, because you’re not sure if you’re even on the road. You suddenly slow down, pull to the right or left, or what not, you likely will get hit by a car behind you that cannot see you, and probably is slowing down, too — but maybe not as much as you were.
Here’s something to try. Get Tommy, Rachel*, and several members of the DOF to walk down a hallway with blindfolds on. When someone toward the front of the line hits something, or decides to slow down, see if people behind him run into him.
That’s exactly the same concept as what happened on the roads. You couldn’t see the fog ahead because it was NIGHTTIME. Fog isn’t very easy to see AT NIGHT. Smoke is a dark grey, which makes it even more difficult to spot it in the dark.
I don’t know how much more simpler I can make it without breaking out the crayons.
By the way, let’s grow up and stop villifying people simply because they disagree. I came here to politely disagree. I definitely stand corrected as I didn’t complete my whole thought in my first post. I should’ve said “How many multiple car pileups of this magnitude have ever taken place on I-4.” The answer would be correct. Obviously, the way I stated it, I was wrong.
But I hate to say it, while I do feel that drivers should have a minor bit of responsibility (as blame might be absolute, but variables creating a result are not except in math), they were nowhere near the level of responsibility as the six people who decided to start a fire with low humidity, high wind conditions, and in the middle of a drought.
February 1st, 2008 at 12:55 am
I agree with you Maf54 a 100%. You are articulate and you state facts. As for the road signs they had them all the way to the right of the road where the tractor trailers were in those lanes. Cars would not have been able to see these signs. I drive through there on a regular basis and I was unable to see this small sign that they had posted myself and it was still dark outside and the speed limit through this area is 70 miles an hour posted. Also in this area, there are no lights. In addition to this, the night before this fire got out of hand and with the fog and smoke blanketing the area at the same time, IT WAS ZERO VISIBILITY within a few seconds. There was no way to stop or slow down like you say. Because, the people went from full visiblity and they were at 70 miles an hour to no visiblity. The signs were little dinky signs that even during normal hours with the sun up people could not see them. Big lighted signs which were put up later should have been out there that early morning. And the signs did not have lights on them. The two small signs were just orange signs at the start placed on the side of the road. These signs were so small that like I said. Even at normal conditions, with tractor trailers blocking your view, you would be unable to see them. Later after this fatal crash, once they reopened I4 they finally put up big electronic emergency smoke ahead, slow down signs. This was way to late. I feel like Maf54 that if these signs were in place then (LIT UP SO THEY CAN BE SEEN in all three lanes), it would have prevented this major tragedy from occuring. Also, since they knew that the fire was out of control, and fog was due to occur, they should have even closed down that stretch of I4 to prevent this kind of tragedy as well. Eveyone in this situation, including everyone, has some part in this tragedy. Thanks, sugarcookie33890