🚀 go-pugleaf

John Gilmer wrote:

> >
> > The average following distance on a road like the Beltway
> > represents the consensus of what is safe under given
> > conditions. (I happen to think that it requires too much
> > hitting the brake pedal to keep it safe, and so I prefer a
> > longer distance, but that's more a matter of taste.) The
> > extraordinary number of accidents along the East coast when
> > the storm hit means, most likely, that the conditions
> > deteriorated faster than most people had ever experienced,
>
> Most people will NEVER be involved in a 100 care pile up.   The reason we
> have driving rules (including speed limits) is to have people do the correct
> thing even when they don't know the reason.    At the speed limit on I-95
> most cars can STOP in less than 200 feet.    Even most of the trucks could
> stop in a little more than the length of a football field.    If everyone
> were doing the limit and was not following too closely and had enough common
> sense then everyone would have slowed to a crawl when the white out hit.
>
> MAYBE a few folks would have fender bender type taps and when the white out
> ended, they could have driven away.    The ice and snow should have caused a
> general speed reduction to the point where the stopping distances could have
> been maintained but NOOOO....
>
> > especially given the series of mild winters in the area up to
> > now. It was a matter of lack of flexibility, not of being
> > stupid or having dangerous intentions.
>
> Or, perhaps, STUPID INFLEXIBILTY!

I'd like to see the effectiveness of intelligent flexibility when you suddenly
hit a patch of ice.