I thought the Lombard street curvy segment was now closed to autos but apparently not. They limit the number thru resulting in long backups of people wanting to try it. There’s talk of having a reservation system.
Or you can just drive some other part of Lombard and tell people “Yeah, I drove on Lombard the last time I was in SF.”
Had a “weird road” encounter yesterday while driving home from western North Carolina.
Google Gertie suggested a travel plan that began with Route 129 heading north. Well OK, not exactly a major highway but we’d be picking up interstates later on so no biggie. The first stretch of road to the Tennessee border was…interesting, winding through forest with a lot of sharp curves keeping speed down below 40 mph.
Then it got worse.
For the next 30 miles or so, there was an unending succession of ascents and dives through extreme and S-curves, occasional emerging from the forest primeval through brief commercial stretches which seemed almost entirely devoted to motorcycles and their riders (lots of parked cycles and occasional riders to be seen but little traffic on the road). We twice encountered minitents pitched at the roadsides with someone inside snapping photos of oncoming cars, including us. After about two hours of nausea-inducing twists and turns we finally emerged onto something more resembling a road intended for use by human beings.
Only later did I discover that we’d been on a notorious road given names like “The Dragon” and Tail of the Dragon", a mecca for motorcyclists and sports car drivers, featuring “318 curves in 11 miles” on one stretch. There’s an “extreme sports” website devoted to selling memorabilia and photos of the drivers/victims that they’re constantly snapping pictures of from their little tents.
Once on that road was enough for a lifetime.
Dope thread on The Dragon from several years ago.
If you’re taking the southbound 110 from Pasadena towards DTLA you know to move out of the fast lane if you don’t want to end up in Chinatown.
“Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”
This didn’t happen to me but to someone I knew. He was from farm in the far NE of Norway, near a town called Kirkenes. He was a student in Oslo and would drive home on a one lane highway with passing places that snaked in and out of Sweden with no border control. So he was often unsure which country he was in. Sweden still had left side driving. Then he would see headlights coming towards him. Ah here’s a passing place. Which way to go?
** nods **
On my first-ever trip to Scotland, after landing at the airport I had the taxi driver take me to the car rental. The plan was for me to then take the car onwards to our hotel. That hotel was on the other side of this rotary:
This being my first-ever trip to Scotland, it was also my first-ever experience driving on the left, with the driver’s seat on the right side of the car.
It’s one thing to drive on the left on a single road with a dividing line painted down the middle. It’s another experience to go peeling across the asphalt with vehicles coming in and out at all angles, aiming at the place way over yonder where the road you need continues.
Wisconsin state highway 42 gets bizarrely serpentine as it approaches its northern terminus at Northport.
Its designer, Jens Jensen designed what he called the Ideal Highway, a thoroughfare that would slow traffic, keep nature always in view, and include a separate pedestrian path.
The infamous “Dave Thomas Circle” in Washington, DC. It’s one of the most idiotic intersections I’ve ever seen. (it’s finally getting fixed)
Cutting across Nevada to get to northern California. We passed through Golconda and Winnemucca, but then route 80 makes a huge bend south to pass through Reno. It would add hours to our trip. So we cut across the Black Rock Desert on a side road which the map promised would get us to California. After we passed a ghost town called Sulfur, the road simply faded out of existence. We continued west across the trackless desert in bewilderment. Eventually we came to Gerlach, where a lonely county road led to California. As soon as we crossed the state line, it went from desert to green.
Que??
Hey, I just realized, that’s the Magic Roundabout in Swindon - I’ve driven it. My only real memory of it is that it provided an example of perfect teamwork. Mrs T looked only at the signs, as she was too terrified to look at the road; I looked only at the road because I was too terrified to look up at the signs.
There’s no particular warning about what’s about to happen to you until you arrive at the junction - we don’t know Swindon at all and it took us completely by surprise*. In fact, if you did it very slowly, it’s actually pretty logical. The problem is, all the locals using it know how it works and tackle it at breathtaking speed; so you end up trying to take it on far too fast, and with traffic bearing down on you from all angles.
j
* - we weren’t even supposed to be in Swindon - we were on a trip to see friends one December, and an hour in I realized I had forgotten my coat. So we just piled into the nearest town to buy one.
Red dog is a type of gravel found in western Pennsylvania. I consider it a step down from gravel. Used on back-roads.
The world’s scariest roundabout is the one around the Arc de Triomphe, especially when you’re on the back of a motorbike being driven quite recklessly through ten thousand circular, converging lanes. Not into hugging my driver, so, holding on, behind, to the tiny bar above the back of the seat while buddy dipped and swerved by cars careening in on us as my body wildy listed from one side to the other, I thought - I am so freaking run over if I lose grip and fall off this damned thing.
I’ve not driven this, but I have seen video.
I will argue for the second scariest road is literally anywhere in Indonesia, particulary in the steep volcanic mountains, but the relatively flat Jakarta is also insane. @CairoCarol can confirm.
I’ve driven in India, that too was an exciting experience. My friend, when in Thailand a few years ago was told “do not look back, look forward” because traffic behind can look after themselves.
Driving in Asia (or at least the parts I have been to) is insane. My ex’s parents, stationed in Bogor, Indonesia hired a driver. He was much, much more relaxed with the traffic than they would be.
As for the weirdest road, during my teenage years my friends and I were in the eastern part of Zimbabwe, and we found a road that… just stopped at the border to Mozambique. There was a river to cross, but we could do it on foot. Instead of a border crossing, there was a bar. We made good use of that.
I’ve seen quite a few access roads, but none where you have to go onto the freeway itself in order to turn around. Actually all the access roads I remember that have businesses on them are two way, so the weirdest thing about them is that the left turn to the on-ramp will sometimes, but not always, have the right of way. Whenever I make a left onto a freeway from a two-way access road, it always feels weird since even if no other traffic is coming, it feels like I should be slowing down more than I do before crossing the traffic lane, (except that the turn is so shallow that I don’t need to slow down, and indeed, on short and straight on-ramps, it’s probably wise to enter them at speed.)
The weirdest access road issue I’ve come across was an off ramp that funneled you right to an entrance to a Buc-ee’s. For a block or so, it became an additional lane on the surface road, but you couldn’t merge into the main road because there was a concrete barrier between the lanes. There was a light at the end of the block, though, and the concrete barrier ended, so local patrons could use that if they wanted to go to the Buc-ee’s, or if interstate drivers wanted to turn around.
Two-way access roads sound mighty weird to me.
I’m not denying your experience. But “access road” and “two-way” just don’t go together IME/IMO. I certainly haven’t lived everywhere and maybe have never been in your part of the country where such things are commonplace.
I’ve been told to avoid most streets in Phnom Pneh - apparently violent chaos, essentially.
“It’s like out of a movie. Totally heads up. Out of control. You’ll get in an accident. You let a native take you around everywhere.”
True, although not uniquely so. Egypt and South Africa have some crazy scary roads too.
While in New Zealand, had to cross a river on a one lane bridge that also had railroad tracks on it. Needless to say, trains always have the right of way. I was looking for a picture of the bridge and found a new bridge for cars only was built next to the old bridge. No more playing chicken with trains. The Taramakau road rail bridge, New Zealand, which is shared by the railway line and the road users Stock Photo - Alamy
Quoted for truth. Holy shit, what a shit-show that is. There are 12 roads feeding into the circle, and a corresponding 12 lanes circling the monument. It’s absolute mayhem, as cars entering the circle have the right-of-way and nobody yields willingly. Horns blaring, people swerving across lanes without warning, fender-benders happening, French men having slap fights in the middle of all the traffic, and traffic cops just standing and watching the whole thing.
I had a colleague who was posted to Paris who had an accident in the Circle on the way to work one morning. Being an American, he got out of his car to exchange information, but that’s not how things work in Paris. The Parisian got out of his car and immediately slapped my colleague, all 6’1" 230 pounds of him. Being an American, Jim punched the guy, then picked him up by the shirt front and began slamming him against his car. That’s when the cop got involved. Meanwhile, traffic continued to circle like a huge flock of vultures, horns blaring.
One way access roads sound mighty weird to me, after living all over the midwest and also in Maryland. Not that I’ve never seen them, but when I have, they’ve been notable.