From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: If you're driving in Florida
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2008 06:46:28 -0400
Message-ID: <n4bs54dddb20dg6nihti6ujlr2cioc766e@4ax.com>

On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:39:23 -0400, katie@snow.com wrote:

>
>> > Also you must move out of the lane closest to that emergency vehicle
>> > when you are passing it.
>> >
>> > Hunter
>>
>> Good luck to 'em on that on the Interstates.
>
>It's a law here in Ga.  I've seen it almost cause some accidents
>when people follow the "letter of the law" without using their
>common sense.

The "letter of the law" in most states, as we were taught in our truck driving
legal refresher course, is that you must move over only when it is safe to do
so.  Whether one is required to slow varies by state.  I almost always did in
the big rig.

I suspect that this ill-conceived law is going to rank right up there at the
top of the list of laws with severe unintended consequences.  Like you, I've
seen more near-misses than I can count and a few actual impacts.

John

From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: If you're driving in Florida
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2008 07:02:52 -0400
Message-ID: <ljbs54pirad6keflcmfnm3mo7g4qod5gov@4ax.com>

On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 23:11:25 -0500, nada <@nope.not> wrote:


>In theory or whatever it is a good law.
>A Cruiser on the side of the road is now no different than an obstacle
>in a lane. Drivers, in the right lane are forced to slow from 70 tot
>more likely 80 to 50 to even lower, in traffic. The lanes are most
>frequently full.There might be a slot for one or two cars to merge into
>the left lanes. The net effect is that it creates a traffic jam,
>frequently a massive traffic jam. All of sudden there is a massive
>slowing in the right lane and a lot of left signal light with people
>trying to merge left. Whatever you feel drivers should do could do is
>irrelevant to what is the actuality, most apparently.
>  If it is out in the country and not much traffic the impact is
>probably closer to what you think.

The closest I ever came to hitting a car in my big rig was in one of these
situation.  I was topping a curving blind rise when I spotted a cop on the
side.  I know that fee grabbers LOVE to pick on commercial vehicles because
the fines are so much higher so I strictly follow the law.  I rapidly signaled
after scanning my mirrors and started to move over.  I have a habit of
watching my left side fender mirror AS I change lanes.  Good thing.  The
change in angle of my tractor let me catch just the tiniest glimpse of the
idiot that had been sitting in my blind spot.  There's a reason why it's
called a blind spot, idiot!

I ended up passing the cop mostly straddling the while line with the idiot
STILL almost completely in my blind spot but running half way on the shoulder.
I've wondered since if he had some sort of suicide wish.

The idiocy extended to the cop too, of course.  He should have gotten on his
PA and told the driver to pull on down the highway and away from the blind
rise.

It's going to be interesting to see how the accident rate behaves in the
aftermath of this law.  I predict that it will go UP, way up.

John

From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: If you're driving in Florida
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2008 07:35:09 -0400
Message-ID: <cads54lg90idc1dsietgbdqmqhef8gqvok@4ax.com>

On Sat, 21 Jun 2008 18:42:49 -0400, bill horne <redydog@rye.net> wrote:

>
>> As I recall it, the law in Florida stemmed from the serious injury or
>> death of a female highway patrolperson who had stopped at a breakdown
>> in rush-hour commuter traffic  on the Interstate bridge across Tampa
>> Bay (no shoulder, not much more than a bike lane for a breakdown lane)
>> four or five years ago.  She didn't have much choice about where to
>> pull over.
>
>And for that particular situation - for which the dumbass law may have
>even been written - how would the dumbass law have prevented it if it
>had been written earlier?

It wouldn't, of course, but then, nobody ever accused lawmakers of actually
thinking.  Or cops for that matter.

I spent a LOT of time in my semi on I-10 between Jacksonville and various
points in Texas.  Time and time again I saw a knucklehead break-down pulled
over against the right sound barrier wall with its left wheels touching the
white line just on the other side of a blind rise - and a cop car sitting
right behind it.  Of course, this always happens in one of those "trucks in
right two lanes only" areas which guarantees a large concentration of semis in
that right lane.

The first idiot was the car driver.  Nothing short of the wheels falling off
justifies stopping at a place like that.  Coast on down the road a bit before
braking.

Second idiot was the cop.  He/she/it was OBVIOUSLY in CHARGE, the BOSS and
therefore even Mother Nature cowered before the flashing blues and would never
let anything bad happen.  Right.....  They put push bars on those cruisers for
a reason.  One of the best reasons is to push the knuckleheaded motorist on
down to a safer area.

John

From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: If you're driving in Florida
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2008 07:57:31 -0400
Message-ID: <0res54hlmebessh35bfmh1qanqet3ugv8i@4ax.com>

On Sat, 21 Jun 2008 14:13:57 -0400, Frank Tabor <ftabor@geemail.com> wrote:


>Try to keep up, dickhead.  Most states have a huge fucking sign
>stating pull over or slow down for emergency vehicles.  On the state
>line.  Right behind the sign welcoming you to the state.

Well, let's see.  I cross over into Texas, drop a load in Houston, pick up
another and do my 10 hours down.  I drive up to El Paso which is a 2 day trip,
drop a load and pick up one headed back to Houston, do my 10 down, then spend
2 more days on the road.  I run into my first blue light special on the
outskirts of Houston after I've been in the state for a week or more.  Yaaaaa,
I'm going to remember every single one of those signs on the border that I
passed a week or more ago.  I've made that very run at least a dozen times and
I STILL can't recall the contents of a single Texas border sign other than
"Welcome to..."

Good one, Frank.  Such fine language too.

This morass of state move-over laws would be like a stop sign being a triangle
in one state and a hexagon in another, a "do not cross" line being yellow in
one state and white in another.

If they're going to pass these do-nothing, feel-good laws, at least make 'em
uniform across the states.

John

From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: If you're driving in Florida
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:36:10 -0400
Message-ID: <sf9u54pgl3nev384lhg53ta8nd4ms59ku3@4ax.com>

On Sun, 22 Jun 2008 15:31:34 -0400, Frank Tabor <ftabor@geemail.com> wrote:

>
>On Sun, 22 Jun 2008 07:57:31 -0400, Neon John <no@never.com> wrote:
>
>>I've made that very run at least a dozen times and
>>I STILL can't recall the contents of a single Texas border sign other than
>>"Welcome to..."
>
>Ignorance of the law is not an excuse.  Neither is just plain being
>ignorant.  It's your responsibility to know and obey the laws of the
>stat you are in as they apply to you.  No excuses or exceptions.

So Frank, how does your little speech apply to you?  Do YOU know all the
traffic laws of all the states you drive in?  Or are you like the rest of us
and enjoy the fact that most of the time, most of the really obscure ones
aren't enforced?

For example, do you know the bridge rules for all 48 of the lower states
without looking in your trucker's atlas?  How 'bout axle loading rules for all
48?  How 'bout the tolerance each state allows for over-weight?  If you're not
in IFTA, do you know the fuel tax laws for each and every state?

Oh what, you don't know all of those by heart?  Then I believe that the term
that applies to you is "hypocrite".  Nothing new.

At least we have the trucker's atlas where we can look up most of the more
chickensh*t rules.  The slow down and/or move over rules aren't yet in there,
now are they?

John

From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: If you're driving in Florida
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 23:38:46 -0400
Message-ID: <krq064985b8opl1pfla9l9svg1qb1hrojc@4ax.com>

On Mon, 23 Jun 2008 06:53:29 -0700, "Frank Howell" <fphowell@yahoo.com> wrote:

>Steve Wolf wrote:
>> The feds can fix this problem of not knowing a law from one state to
>> the next.  The federal government can withhold state roadway funding
>> until such time as each state conforms to a federal standard for slow
>> down/move over laws.  Given the problem needs to be solved, then
>> bigger government can fix it.
>>
>Maybe we should expand government. Let's make it HUGE, and if a really big
>problem comes along, make it HUGER.

Well, you know, one of the very few things the Constitution authorizes the
federal government to do is regulate interstate commerce.  Maintaining uniform
traffic laws across the 50 states is a direct regulation of interstate
commerce.

Note that I don't want the feds mandating a slow down and move over law.  What
I want them to do is supply a model law and require that >IF< a state passes
this ill-conceived concept, it has to be the model law.  Simple, easy and no
expansion of "big government.  Just the feds doing what they're supposed to be
doing for a change.

John