Highway 71 big rig crash

dang i wanted to miss the cow and still hit the cow

i would have to say i might have just hit the cow...trying to miss can cause more of a problem

 

ain't that the truth. big trucks aren't the best at making "evasive maneuvers"

why didn't he just yell out the window "MOOOOOOVE"

 

who didnt see that one coming

 

Wouldn't it bovine if the farmers kept the fences intact??

Well OK, that's a poor attempt!

When I tought my daughter to drive, I tried to pound into her head to NEVER EVER veer out of her travel lane to avoid an animal, just brake as hard as she could to keep control, while holding the wheel tight, going straight on. The roadsides are way more dangerous than hitting the animal, never mind a head-on with another car. I made her read some stupid safety study on it at the time I think! Wow, and from a trucks perspective, trying to maneuver, forget it! Fire up the barbeque and break out the buns!

 

Howdy Cardriver!

I read your instructions about driving that you told your daughter and, where you told her that climbing on the binders is the best solution. I disagree that that's the BEST advice for EVERY situation. Especially for a Big truck truck driver. When WE lock 'er down, ANYthing can happen! Usually the tractor or the trailer will jack-knife. If the Big trailer jacks, it can swing out into the other lanes and take cars out.
Different situations require different reactions.

In my ever so humble opinion, the BEST advice YOU can give your daughter is to gift her by registering her into a DEFENSIVE DRIVING COURSE. In fact, I recommend that course for EVERYbody who drives on the highways.
Defensive driving courses shy away from teaching you what to do when it happens. Instead, the course teaches drivers how to AVOID those situations all together. That's the BEST thing to do.

In 4-wheelers, many crashes have been determined to have been avoidable if only the 4-wheeler had tried to STEER AROUND the incident, rather than a HIT THE BRAKES first reaction.
Anti-lock brakes have helped a bunch, but SOMEtimes, the STEERING wheel is your best friend.

As a Big truck driver, it has been suggested to me by more than a few Big truck drivers, that when an impact with an animal is eminent, hammer down --- to make it as quick and painless as possible for the animal.

It's a tough call to make.
It's said that one never knows what they'll do in an emergency situation until it happens. That's probably true.
So I took a chapter from the Olympic Teams, who envision the course they're just about to run, and try to envision an emergency situation and observe, in my own mind, what I'D do. Would I swerve?
Would I brake hard?
Would I go over the side of a mountain to avoid a car load if kids?

I THINK I know the answer.
But I ain't sure.
And I hope I never have to find out.

WELCOME to the Forums CD!
We're sure glad you found us.


OH!
BTW
Highway 71 is in my back yard.
They crash on that highway ALL the time.
But, then again, what highway in California DON'T they crash on? (ALL the time)
Daily.

And when it rains in California?

O h!
S hip
H igh
I n
T ransit

Driver !!!

Stay home!
Folks in California forget how to drive on slick streets between rain storms.
If not for the heavy, bumper to bumper traffic crawling along at 15 MPH, the crashes would be a LOT worse.

It's twue!
It's twue!

 

Ain't that the truth. California Drivers act like a bunch of sugar cubes.....afraid they're gonna melt unless they drive fast and wreckless to avoid melting in the rain.

I live in a neighborhood off one of those 10 mile long roads with umpteen million sets of lights. Naturally everyone races that quartermile between lights to make the next green one.

Just last night outta nowhere the power goes out!

WTF?

WHO turned out the lights?

Crap......I was chattin with ...........

I was just about to say ............

and *POOF* he's gone!!!!!!

Grrrrrrr I was cranky. I didn't get to say Goodnight!

Conclusion: Another fancy light pole dinted, a badly crashed car, dazed and confused street racers. Thank God nobody was hurt.

I think in all my travels lately I'd have to say that even without the rain Alabama drivers are the worst. They must think it's a God given right to 'run red lights' and to 'make their own lanes'.

 

My Canuck buddy found out the hard way that a moose makes a gawd-awful mess.

The heck with the hammer down stuff. He's prepared now.

​

 

I like everyone's sensible advice here on driving, keep it up. I try to drive as little as possible daily, then make big road trips on vacation for fun. All you guys that see a crazy person jogging with a backpack on - that's me with my office duds and lunch in the pack, I'm goin' to work, and I hope I'm making it a tiny bit easier for the trucks to get thru, because I sure do like to go to the store and buy bananas in the winter! (thank you banana truck drivers!!) I thought this would be a stress-free and safe solution to the work day commute when I intentionally bought the house 2 miles from the office, until I wrecked in Jan of '99 in an ice storm, and broke my ankle, so I guess it's not a total solution! But I did get six weeks off of work, so it wasn't *that* bad I guess.

Fortunately my daughter has outgrown my driving advice (if she ever took it in the first place that is), she's been on the road for over five years now incident free, thank gawd. I can tell from the grind of analyzing accident reports at work that deer are hard to avoid and seldom result in personal injury if the car remains on the pavement. It was deer in the road that I was talking about specifically when I instructed her not to swerve off the road to avoid one. They just pop out of the roadside with little warning, the cows were probably way different - lots of notice to them, I would have tried to avoid them too.

I hate seeing a jack-knifed truck, especially with the cab hanging thru the rail and over a dropoff, scares the crap out of me. Think good thoughts!

 

True story,.......................................

The area around Highway 71 used to be mostly dairy and alfalfa fields, then came the houses and there went the cows. The first homes completed and sold on what used to be dairy land, had to be evacuated as the families were moving in. Seems there was a "gas" problem.
Methane gas, ....................... after a good rain.
The amount of methane was at EXPLOSIVE levels.
But that's not what I was gonna tell y'all.

I used to cut through the dairy lands on the back roads on my way to work in Orange County. The back road ended at Highway 71, which I then took south to Highway 91 west.

The dairy lands were low-lying areas and toolie fog was often present. Pea soup thick fog.
One morning my headlights reflected off the carcass of a dead, gutted dairy cow.
Eewww.
About an eighth mile more, and I saw a very crashed car in the ditch. I figured they met each other at about 45 MPH. Sporty cars might handle the roads well, but they don't handle cows very well at all.

Another time, at a popular "S" curve in the same road --- with a reverse camber, I saw a sporty car up-side-down in the trees along side the road about mid-way through the curve. ON the road was a BIG splatter of cow poop, obviously dropped by one of the many Big trucks hauling cows. The sporty car hit that spot on the driving line entering the turn, spun out, overturned and crashed. That one was a Targa.
Dad-Blasted Big truck drivers!
Why don't they put diapers on them dang cows?!
Oughta be a law!
But,........................

It happens going the other way too.
Imagine that!
Only then, they wind up deep in a corn field, stuck axle deep.
No trees.
Cars like Volkswagon and Porsche with the type of rear suspension they use don't handle reverse cambers very well at all.
Although, I suspect a lot had to do with the vehicle's fasteners, like nuts.
Especially the one behind the (steering) wheel.

Welcome to California.
Land 0' Fruits & Nutz.
I'm in the latter group.