Can't see where you're going 'cause of the fog? Just drive faster, that'll fix here!!

The BBQ Pit
1

Wow you sure hoopdied out that monstrously ugly Cadillac Escalade didn’t you? The Pimpin license plate was the crowning touch.

Never mind that you are whiter then Pat Boone, not to mention fatter then William “The Fridge” Perry.

Yes, I’m slowing down far below the posted speed limit.

Why?

Two, no three reasons.

  1. It’s raining so hard that my wipers can’t keep up with the rain on my windshield.

  2. That flashing sign 4 miles back that warned of heavy fog up ahead and also stated that when the sign was flashing, the speed limit was 30 mph, NOT the posted 70.

  3. the fog is so thick that I can just barely make out the hood of my car, to say nothing of what is in lane next to me.

Yet apparently, you seem to have some sort of sonar in your SUV which enables you to see objects through the fog, thus allowing you to travel at speeds in excess of 80+ mph, never mind that you are over the legal speed limit by a good 50+ mph.

Maybe it’s hooked up to the bass in your sound system, which I have no doubts that it could trigger avalanches, rockslides, and even earthquakes.

So go ahead, pass me, you’ve been on my rear bumper, flashing your brights and blaring your horn for the last 5 minutes.

That’s right, blare your horn at me as you blast on by.

Oh, too bad, looks like your sonar didn’t work that well as it failed to tell you of the guardrail that you smashed through or the rockface that you and your SUV smashed into.

And gee, too bad you weren’t wearing a seat belt. I bet it hurt real bad when you went through the windshield face first, but it probably hurt even more when you hit the rockface face first, not to mention breaking both of your legs.

But unfortunately you didn 't get to feel the pain or suffer for more then a few seconds 'cause you were dead.

As were your two passengers, neither of whom wore seat belts either.

But you did have plenty of booze on board.

I’m glad that for once, scum like you died and that you suffered during your last moments, although not nearly as much as you deserved

2

Well, not much sympathy for the driver (though I wonder if he had a family), but the passengers might have been unwilling, indeed terrified victims of his arrogance, eh? Yeh, bad on them for no seat belts, but they weren’t doing the dipshit driving. Not much fun for the rescue workers that have to clean up the carnage, either.

I too have been enraged by that kind of idiotic driving, and wished all manner of evil upon its perpetrators. Too often, though, their just desserts devastate far more than just their rotten selves.

3

I did stop and help out, (former EMT) and yeah, I had a bit of sympathy for the passengers, but finding out they weren’t wearing seatbelts and that they all had apparently been drinking takes much of that sympathy away.

As for the carnage, it was pretty juicy. First time in over 4 years that I’ve seen over 90% of a person’s brain matter splattered outside of it’s rightful place, that being the skull.

4

This is one of the most hateful posts I’ve ever had the displeasure to see on the SD. There’s no disputing the utter wrongness of the driver’s behaviour but three people died, for fuck sake. Was this…

…or this…

…really necessary?

5

This is bad as wishing death on someone.
Glad that somwone is dead is just as bad.

I think his driving was clearly annoying but the outcome was not inline with his actions.

6

Dude, didn’t you learn anything from Malibu’s Most Wanted.

7

Anyone who doesn’t understand the wisdom of driving only as fast as conditions allow should take a look at some of the pictures of I-80 in central PA yesterday. Several MASSIVE pile-ups, a couple of fatalities, and the roads completely shutdown for the rest of the day. All pretty much because people think you can still go 75 during a snow squall where you can barely see 10 feet in front of you.

8

And who, precisely, are you pitting?

The nasty drunken driver who had the temerity to drive badly in your presence? He can’t hear you now
The equally dead passengers of said drunken driver who were also drunk and had no seatbelts on? They can’t hear you either.

Do you know who comes out the worst in all of this?
You.

I have read some crap on here in my time, but your particular brand of self-righteous, wholly self-indulgent, puffed-up pointless crap is hard to beat.

If there was a prize for the biggest waste of space on the SDMB, it would have your name on it by now, and you’ve only got 13 posts.
Awesome, doooooooooooooooooooooooooooood

9

I’ve defended you in a couple of other threads, TartPops, but this OP is pretty inexcusable. Needlessly mean-spirited.

10

You know, you started out with a good rant. But when you said “But unfortunately … you were dead.” I started to think to myself you were a meanspirited fuck, and with “I’m glad that for once, scum like you died …” you lost me completely. I’m sorry, but no matter how badly that moron drove … no I’m not even going to say it.

Maybe, just maybe, you have a justification for this hateful post. Perhaps, as a former EMT, you were upset you couldn’t save someone’s life and lashed out on this forum as a result. If that’s the case, an apology is in order. However, if, after careful consideration, you still feel the same way … eyuck I can’t even imagine it. I just can’t.

11

Leaving aside the ill-considered nasty tone of the OP, I just thought I’d point out that foggy conditions give people the impression that they are, indeed, moving slower.

Our estimation of rate of travel is based on the false constant of the time between something appearing at the limite of our visible range and our passing it. If visibility is reduced by half, and the person tries to maintain their usual speed while trusting their perception instead of checking the speedometer, they will go twice as fast, since (for example) the time it takes to come up on the next visible streetlight will be maintained, although in absolute terms twice as much ground is being covered.

Most people, (not just drunken idiots,) tend to speed up in foggy conditions, even if they believe they are slowing down.

12

Larry,

When it comes to these things I’m a complete idiot but would that not cause a driver to slow down? The time between an item appearing and it being passed would be reduced if a constant speed was maintained as the distance travelled would be shorter. To maintain the false constant, wouldn’t you have to slow down?

13

I suppose it’s possible that, as a former EMT, TartPops was reliving heart-wrenching memories of dead and maimed people who were the innocent victims of drunken idiot drivers. That could be why the tone of the OP was so vengeful. It’s also damned scary to have a moron like that on your tail in such conditions – I know I’ve been thrown into a frightened rage in like circumstances, and fantasized gruesome comeuppances for the jerk. Maybe seeing one of those fantasies actually come true was…

Hell, I don’t know. Personally, I’d be sickened to see my dark wish come true. At least TartPops did stop to help. Perhaps he wrote the OP while all the emotions were still fresh and churning inside, leading him to be harsher than he would have upon reflection.

14

“Complete idiot?”

That would be me, I guess. Of course you would have to slow down if you wanted to cover a shorter distance in the same period of time. What the hell? I’ve somehow got the idea all muddled up with illusion of the relative speeds of objects of vastly different scales.

When I went digging around for the article that I “remembered” reading this in, I’m stunned as how creatively and perplexingly I misremembered it. Apparantly the illusion has more do do with visual contrast, and the author is careful to point out that the result has not been duplicated in actual driving conditions. Never mind. :smack:

15

Where does it pour down raining so hard your windshield wipers can’t keep up with it and it’s also so foggy you can’t see past the hood of your car? I’ve never seen the two conditions at the same time. Is this a common occurance where the wreck took place?

16

I wanna say that while the original post DID go a little far, I’ve wished death on people driving that way - not genuinely, and if it happened, I’d feel terrible, but at the same time, most drunk drivers kill others - not themselves - and a drunk driver and his drunken passengers (who may not have been the drivers, but they knew the risks of riding in a drunk’s car) aren’t the same loss as, for example, an acquaintance of mine from high school and the one year old kid she was babysitting - and like usual, I think the drunk driver in that case survived.

I’m not gonna waste any tears or pity on drunk drivers who kill themselves. It’s sad, but at least the rest of us are a little safer.

17

The OP stated that there was a sign warning of fog ahead, but that in his current location it was blinding rain. I’ve been in rain so bad (Texas weather, ugh) that I literally gave up and stopped under an overpass until it lightened enough that I could see the well lit freeway once again. I understand his anger.

Also, as excalibre said, this kind of driver endangers others. I think his gladness is that the driver killed himself (and his passengers) rather than people in another car where no one had been drinking. Assholes like that on the road take all our lives in their hands with little consideration because they feel they can “handle it”.

While being glad they are dead seems a bit extreme, it’s not entirely inappropriate. What if, instead of killing himself and his drunk friends, he’d killed some soccer mom and her kids in the backseat? He could have, you know.

18

Being next door in Louisiana, I’ve been through plenty of the same weather.
The OP said it’s raining, as in, right now and the sign warning about fog was 4 miles back. So the conditions were blinding rain and blinding fog and I’m asking if anyone has seen the two together because I never have.

19

I too draw the line at death and massive suffering. I know the OP, like the rest of humanity, is guilty of something as terrible as the original driver did or worse. Are you throwing stones because you are without sin? The man and his friends are dead and you came off as heartless.

20

Now I’ll remember to hit the Preview button before I hit the Submit button.

Yes, I was still very pissed off 12 hours after the incident happened, which is about when I wrote the OP. And looking back and reflecting on it, yeah I was too harsh. Part of it is because my best friend and his fiancee were hit by a drunk driver during a snow storm. He died and she’s a quadraplegic. And in my time as an EMT, I saw all too often the effects of drinking and driving and what pissed me off was that it seemed that more often then not, the drunk dirver would only have minor injuries. But what was the worst was that to a person, they always denied that they had been drinking, or if they had, it wasn’t enough to make them drunk.

Uh-huh. Then how do you explain the open bottle/can of beer/wine/liquor in the car and that you were traveling 30 miles over the speed limit on the wrong side of the divided highway?

So yeah, I was overly harsh in the OP.