Observations....

[Deplorable, thank you!]

So today I pulled out the Mustang,  I was waiting on parts to arrive so instead of taking the truck I went out in the Mustang and decided I would high tail it over to Hastings to pay my insurance policies......... plus stretch its legs a bit, it has been sorely neglected in the being driven department

So I turn off 42 onto 42 (55 goes straight into town, 42 puts you down under the 61 bridge next to the river... "old downtown")

So as I pass the 2nd curve and get along to the "long" downhill section........ a couple small rolling hills but mostly downhill before you get to town and the hospital etc....

I see a pick up truck (duelly) pulling a trailer and even from as far away as I was I could see it was on/over the centerline, knowing the timing was about going to have us meet past the crest of the next rise I was slowing and had the right wheels pretty much picking up gravel as I was that close to the edge....
 As I crest the hill the guy is coming towards me taking up about half my lane now- I've got my high beams on, I am on the horn and still doing about 30, but off the gas.......Idgit doesn't move
 The slope of the ditch is steep, steep enough if I went full in- I likely would not drive back out....  Mustang has sub 4" of ground clearance and fat tires...... not looking forward to that scenario and then there is that whole......what is hiding in that foot tall grass?

 Well he never did move, so at around 15mph I end up driving 3/4 of the car deep into the grass with only the left 2 wheels on pavement as we pass (and by on the pavement, I think it was only about 1/2 the tires actually on the pavement and half in the gravel shoulder- so car is steeply leaned over to the right), guy is looking right at me as we pass and he still didn't swerve back into his lane, if anything he continued to drift further into my lane, I swear he was taking almost the entire lane now.........FYI mowing grass with the splitter and having the gravel shoulder get abused by the undercarriage is not a sound you really want to hear, ever.....

 So as I pull back up onto the road surface with all 4 wheels and travel about 300 yards to the first driveway I came to, I had thought about whipping a U-ee and running him down, but I had the dash camera running and have his plates....... No need to go confront the idiot jackweed retard, because best case scenario;
  he acknowledges he is an idgit and continues to be one the rest of his life and nothing changes
 Worst case sceanrio someone gets hurt, which means lengthy time dealing with all those legalities....
 (So as I look over the car, grass stains all over the front, grass clumps hanging down under the car and grass and seeds packed in tight to the brake ducts and in between the splitter and bumper and there is some what looks like hard scrape marks all over the aero pan. Hell there was grass hangin down from both rear shock bottoms and the sway bars and I could see the differential was digging gravel)

Anyways- I went and paid for my insurances, and then headed over to the local popo
they knew who the guy was by name as soon as I showed them the video, they now have my memory card and hopefully they exact some justice- idgits like this retard should lose their license and be sent to jail for lengthy stays! (maybe a judge should also access some punitive damages for the 3+ hours I spent cleaning my car......!!! Plus the cost of a new memory card)

 I get home and in order to remove the couple pounds of grass and weed seeds out of the splitter and brake ducts, stuck in the entire undercarriage,  clean out both radiators and even found seeds all over in the air box (cold air intake is in the nose) and under the rear of the hood over the cabin air filter area...... I end up having to pull off the splitter and aero pan, ducts and even the lower intake grill, and to do it all really requires up on a lift...... fun fun when at home with a jack and jackstands

 Oh people are wonderfully stupid and idiotic when driving sometimes and we have all encountered them on occassion........ This time I was able to get away with only having to waste a few hours cleaning the car.......next time it may be different



 Even seeing, observing and acting is not always enough......... Sometimes the actions needed are not the actions chosen

Stay aware and make sure you are always paying attention!!!



~What could I have done differently......... ?? I had about 8 seconds (according to dash cam) from first seeing him til we physically passed each other.....
My car can come to a complete stop in sub 8 seconds from 60ish easily, hell it can do it in sub 4 seconds on dry roads.....

-Should I have jumped all over the brakes and stopped short of ever getting to the hill?, then what? Still a steep ditch on both sides... Am I supposed to sit and wait at that point and hope he doesn't hit me? get out of the car and run?........... I did see there was a driveway/road just short of where I actively was slowing (could have jumped on the brakes and turned off I suppose.....but who thinks some idgit is going to continue on in your lane indefinitely???)- or possibly stopped and had to back into that driveway quickly???

-Should I have floored it and gotten over the hill crest sooner, would have given the idgit retard another couple seconds of staring at high beams to move??? if he was even looking up (probably wasn't)
 I still could have jumped all over the brakes and gotten to sub 20 and driven it into the ditch if need be (likely would have been about the same outcome IMO), but who can predict if the ditch over the hill is the same as before the hill? Where debris is or which is the "safer" choice
I didn't know- I was just thankful the sign post was further ahead than I needed to use and the field access driveway was beyond that, still sucked to have to go into the ditch at all

The bottom of the ditch is about 5' below the road and pretty steep actually....... I was on the gas and the rear of the car was definitely in the ditch as I pulled out, pretty much high centering cresting over the gravel edge


There is todays horror story of stupid idgits encountered......

Stay alert and stay alive...


 Someone who shall not remain annonymous rode with idgits Sunday and two of them ended up out in the bean field off A..... You know heading south that first decreasing radius right hander that is 95% of the time littered with gravel/sand
Maybe he will post about his encounter.......

[Elk]

Frustrating how many idiots are out there.

[Deplorable, thank you!]

Just for the topic of discussion......... Imagine if you will, you were riding your motorcycle in the above scenario....

Are you really going to stay on any part of the road with a 6 ton idiot bearing down on you in your lane?


 Because I can think of atleast a half dozen times I have been on group rides where some oncoming idgit in a truck/car/suv etc has;
 come around a curve too fast and the timing has been such we as a group have been right in the path of destruction if they did not navigate successfully, one of those such times we all ended up stopping out in the shoulder---may well have been a bigger risk in doing so?!?
been passing traffic right into the groups path where we have had to brake and move over to the shoulder to keep from becoming hood ornaments
I even experienced 2 idgits on motorcycles passing around a left hand curve (blind to them) in my lane a line of cars where I actually had to drive across the oncoming traffic lane and into the ditch to keep from getting hit head on by those two fucktards...... guess what two letter sticker (pronouncing the idiot club they belonged to) they proudly displayed on their bikes!!!

and of course there have also been times motorcycle riders have been the ones running wide, up on top of the painted stripe or even beyond it, and they (oncoming traffic) did the evasive move to the shoulder or beyond to avoid us on top of the countless times nobody happen to be there, that time..........borrowed time and luck, sooner or later timing and luck will not be on ones side...

[wiemanca]

A young daughter of a friend of mine had a similar thing happen many years ago.  It was on a straight stretch of road during daylight.  She decided to go to the opposite lane as he was getting closer he was actually on her shoulder.  At the last second, he swerved back to his lane.  Hit her head-on and she died.  Her passenger lived to tell story.  The other driver was drunk.  He got off fairly easy, for killing someone, as his lawyer said she should not have been in his lane.

So, don't ever go to the other lane, as you never know if the other driver will wake up and go back to his own lane.  Which is happening more all the time with cell phone distracted drivers, and they finally see they have crossed the center line and pull it back.

I hate those center line rumble strips, but hopefully they are helping to save lives from idiots.

[Mike Duluth]

Over the years I have learned to be more tolerant of other drivers. Most of us make mistakes while driving from time to time, drunk driving and doing something deliberate is beyond a mistake. What do you think most of the population is saying about the way we ride our bikes, and we choose to ride this way. I'm guessing that most of the time when a cop pulls us over it's because someone has called us in, just be thank full that more don't drop a dime on us. Most of us consider ourselves safe and talented riders, a non rider would not see it that way. I try to give everyone I can a break when they make driving mistakes.

This is just my way of looking at it, doesn't mean it's the way you have to see it.

[Elk]

Imagine if you will, you were riding your motorcycle in the above scenario...

I suspect we have all had this experience at some point.  It is one reason I practice threshold braking every time I go out on a bike.  So far, braking hard and turning right onto the shoulder has worked when I am either on a bike or in a car. 

I hate it when someone in our group passes on a blind hill or corner, forcing oncoming traffic to brake and turn on the shoulder.  It endangers everyone, including those of us in the correct lane behind them.  But I have been guilty of some really stupid passes, too. 

[Deplorable, thank you!]

Very late update to this

 The guy did get 3 tickets, in the end 2 were dropped and he ended up paying some fine/court costs (more than $500).......don't remember how much now months later and don't feel like looking it back up (I was notified of the court date, but I just looked it up on court records several days later. I did not attend as I was busy that day and couldn't get out of it, not sure attending would have made any difference- but I would have loved to hear the case)

 So a couple weeks later I went to go get my memory card back and the prosecutor claims to not have it.........
sucks- I really wanted to post up the footage!
 Prosecutor did offer me $10 for the memory card when I bitched a little bit.......... he missed the point!

on a final note........ prosecutor did inform me the guy no longer has his license from another driving offense

[Elk]

Satisfying end result, but for the loss of the card.

[pkpk]

Glad there was consequences.  Personally I would have liked to stood there in person and heard him try to explain why he was over halfway in your lane.  Does it mean anything in your life?  Probably not but it forces him to look you in the eye and admit he f'ed up.