Subject: Americans Can't Drive in the Rain?

From: [email-masked] (Bryan Chow)
Date: 15 Sep 1995 18:23:41 GMT

I made a comment about that a long time ago, and Charles and
Ryan have jumped on it - for what I don't know, since I'm an
American too.

The reason I think that is because here in LA it doesn't rain very
often.  But when it pours, I'd always see cars in the ditch near the
freeway onramp.  The CHP will be on the News urging people to drive
slowly and safely, and comment about how accident rates shoot up when
it rains.  Also, a lot of people don't seem to drive any slower when
it's raining.

So, what do you think?  Does the average American driver need to
take lessons in driving in the rain?

-- 
Bryan Chow                  California Institute of Technology [ SCP Lab ]
[email-masked] /           Home: http://www.scp.caltech.edu/~bryan/
World Wide Web      -- Roxy Music: http://www.scp.caltech.edu/~bryan/roxy/
(818) 395-3903        \    Autos: http://www.scp.caltech.edu/~bryan/autos/

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From: [email-masked] (Gumby)
Date: 16 Sep 1995 18:56:31 GMT

[email-masked] (Bryce Lindsay) says:
>[email-masked] says...

>>Americans can't drive in the rain (Don't ask about Texans on ice :-).

>>Marc

>Ice one the rode never heard of it.  Now i have had Ice in my coke. but 
>it always melts to fast.  Ice on the road wow what a concept i wouder if 
>that means i could walk accross the parking lot from my Apt to the 
>swimming pool with out wering worring about burning my feet.   

Dallas (home) gets ice about once every three years, only one snow storm
since '70 (some snow fall, but not snow that stuck and made slush and all
that).  It ices about once every five years or so here (College Station).
Houston gets it less often.

But when it happens...  Well, I borrow a camcorder and get some hilarious
footage.   In recent years it has become amusing to look at the tires of
the car going through the intersection against the light with the driver
in a look of panic, if they are spinning, they are ABS.  ABS doesn't stop
them, but they don't have to worry about having locked tires :-)

Marc

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From: [email-masked] (Larry Wiley)
Date: Sat, 16 Sep 95 02:21:19 GMT

[email-masked] (Cyrus Lee) wrote:
>
>Does the average American driver need lessons in driving in rain?  Perhaps.
>Does the average Californian driver need lessons in driving?  Yes.
>(Sorry, I couldn't resist).

When I first drove in the snow, I had to get used to it.  It took sliding down a
hill sideways, barely missing parked cars, for me to get excited about learning
how to drive in the snow.  When I first drove in LA, I got on a freeway during
what I thought was not rush hour.  I feared for my life thinking I was in some
sort of monster snake of cars I'd never escape.  I learned to drive in it.  When
my family first went to the east coast, my father sat at an intersection waiting
for a break in traffic so he could pull out onto the main drag between New
York and Boston.  The person we were visiting said, "What are you waiting
for?"  My father told him.  Our host said, Just pick out one that's new and
probally has good brakes, and pull out?"  Father gritted his teeth and did
just that.  He learned.  Different places, different styles of driving.

Larry Wiley
Revitalization for Professionals International

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From: [email-masked] (Steve Sheldon)
Date: 16 Sep 95 04:05:35 GMT

>Ryan have jumped on it - for what I don't know, since I'm an

 That's ok.  I make generalizations too and people jump on me. :)

>it rains.  Also, a lot of people don't seem to drive any slower when

 You guys have accidents when it rains?  Umm, gee, what's so hard about
driving in the rain?

 Well, granted, some people do seem to have an unnatural tendency to try to
drive too fast.  And it's a real bitch if you try to pass a Semi truck.

 But we generally don't have too many problems with rain and interstate
travel.

>take lessons in driving in the rain?

 No, just stupid people in California. :)

 In general we don't have very many accidents in the rain here in the
midwest.  The accidents usually spike right around november/december during
the first ice/snow storms.

 It takes a while for people to understand that cars don't drive well with
an inch of ice on the road.  And then after Darwinian theory selectivly
kills off the first 500 or so idiots, the rest of us do pretty well the
rest of the winter. :)

 Of course, I also wish people would learn that in the winter, bridges are
very dangerous in that ice has a tendency to build up on them more easily
than the regular roads.

 Of course I hear in Texas if they get a half inch of snow they have to
close the entire state down.

Steve
If it snowed in Los Angeles would we have to declare the county a natural
disaster area?
-- 
Steve Sheldon           [These are my own opinions]    '94 Acura Integra LS
Iowa State University   ICSS Resource Facility by day  '85 Honda Spree
[email-masked]     ProMap by night                '91 Bridgestone MB5
   BEEF! -- Cause the west wasn't won on salad.

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From: Paul Lu <[email-masked]>
Date: 16 Sep 1995 10:55:37 GMT

> You guys have accidents when it rains?  Umm, gee, what's so hard about

Just plain "Lake of practice".

>very dangerous in that ice has a tendency to build up on them more easily

Oh, yes! In USA, every bridge has a sign says "Warning. Bridge ice before road"
- even in places like Georgia where the sign is useful just once a year.
I think it is a pretty good approach. Just curious - don't know what
Canada does. At least they didn't mandate some weird equipment like DRL. :-)

>close the entire state down.

Just the cities affected. It probably never happen that the whole Texas
is covered with snow, not to mention half inch.

>If it snowed in Los Angeles would we have to declare the county a natural

Actually worse, it is declared just with water. Imaging what will happen those
water are all snow.

We have such problem in Georgia, too. A 4 inch snow closed the whole Atlanta for
three days. But it is cheaper than trying to get out and have lots of accidents.

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From: [email-masked] (Dick Yuknavech)
Date: Sat, 16 Sep 1995 15:19:54 GMT

>take lessons in driving in the rain?

Ha! Anecdotal evidence: in the process of moving from Illinois to
Georgia, I was on one occasion steaming down I-75 through the north GA
hills when we got some industrial-strength rain. You know that feeling
you get in your hands and seat when the car is going into hydroplane.
45 mph was about as fast as I could go and keep the tires on the
ground. When I came up on an Airstream doing about 40 mph, I just
tucked in behind him to ride it out. Meanwhile all the pickups and
BMW's were zipping by in the middle and left lanes, really moving. I
was AMAZED at the skill those people must have had, to keep those
vehicles controlled under those conditions. As you've probably already
guessed, I got re-educated while counting all the spinouts and
ambulances over the next 20 miles. And this was ON an Interstate...it
had nothing to do with onramps or anything except straight-and-level.

--
Dick Yuknavech        [email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Bryan Chow)
Date: 17 Sep 1995 05:40:41 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Dick Yuknavech <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>Meanwhile all the pickups and

Exactly.  During the LA floods early this year, driving on the
freeway I was surprised to see how fast people were driving.  They
drove fast not because they were excellent drivers, but because
they didn't KNOW they need to slow down when it's raining!  And
with many new cars with overboosted power steering you don't really
feel your car wandering and on the verge of losing traction.

The only sign that all is not well is the cars you see in the ditch.

Very scary.

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From: [email-masked] (Bryan Chow)
Date: 16 Sep 1995 17:50:01 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Ryan Rahim <[email-masked]> wrote:
>
>Well, why didn't you say, "It seems to me that whenever it rains, 
>Californians can't handle it because they're used to dry weather."?
>
>You cannot extrapolate your frog-in-the-well experiences to cover all 
>Americans living in Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota, Virginia, Minnesota etc.
>
>No.  They need to take lessons on how to stop generalizing.

No.  YOU need to take lessons on how to stop nitpicking.

It's interesting that many people (yourself included) have said that
"Americans can't drive."  Period.  But you choose to cling onto my
statement that Americans can't drive in the rain.

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From: [email-masked] (Eric M Lam)
Date: 21 Sep 95 21:59:06 GMT

On 17 Sep 1995, Steph Greenberg wrote:

> Good thing I don't tailgate, and try to avoid driving with a car directly 
> next to me.                                                      ^^^^^^^^
  ^^^^^^^^^^ 
Speaking of this, I find that most driver's doesn't realize that driving 
side by side is potentially dangerous. Sometimes I realize that as I was 
driving on an almost empty highway people would pull right next to me and 
just ... stay there. Hmmmm ... 

I've seen people getting tagged when adriver "forgets" that there was 
someone besides them and assumed that there wasn't and just changed lanes 
(or TRIED to I should say) without checking. BIG mistake ...

 ===========================================================================
 |                   Eric Lam   [email-masked]                  |
 ===========================================================================
 |   University of Waterloo	    |   AlliedSignal Aerospace Canada      |
 |   Department of Systems Design   |   Quality Assurance                  |
 ===========================================================================

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From: [email-masked] (Isaac Wong)
Date: 20 Sep 1995 15:16:14 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Bill Spikes) writes:
|> 
|> In CA (Silicone Pit, anyway) we go months with no rain, allowing the roads
|> to collect (it is their job) LOTS of dirt, dust, exhaust junk, oil, xmission,
|> etc drips. Then when the first rain displaces all this stuff and allows it
|> to float above the water, it gets a little slippery. After several months 
|> of driving on dry streets, it takes a while to relearn how to 360's at 
                                                                 ^^^^^
|> 60 MPH through rush hour traffic because you locked 'em up. <%-O

Better specify which axis the car rotates. It's not clear to somebody
(Lloyd?) by just referring 360's as spins. Someone will think that's a
rollover.

:-)

-- 
Isaac Wong                | Protel Compiler Group
[email-masked]    | Bell-Northern Research Ltd., Ottawa
[email-masked] | Dept. of Systems and Computer Engineering
TEL: (613) 763-6127       | Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

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From: [email-masked] (Adam Felson)
Date: 20 Sep 1995 16:12:12 GMT

Bill Spikes ([email-masked]) wrote:

: In CA (Silicone Pit, anyway) we go months with no rain, allowing the roads
: to collect (it is their job) LOTS of dirt, dust, exhaust junk, oil, xmission,
: etc drips. Then when the first rain displaces all this stuff and allows it
: to float above the water, it gets a little slippery. After several months 
: of driving on dry streets, it takes a while to relearn how to 360's at 
: 60 MPH through rush hour traffic because you locked 'em up. <%-O

California is the only place I know of that can have a 50 car pile-up 
just because it rained! :-)

A friend from CA described it to me:  on the first foggy day everyone 
slows down from 70 to 25.  On the second day they drive at 45.  By the 
third day they are back to driving 70mph with the usual insuffient following 
distance.  DANGER!! DANGER!! DANGER!!

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From: [email-masked] (Bill Spikes)
Date: 19 Sep 1995 20:40:59 GMT

In CA (Silicone Pit, anyway) we go months with no rain, allowing the roads
to collect (it is their job) LOTS of dirt, dust, exhaust junk, oil, xmission,
etc drips. Then when the first rain displaces all this stuff and allows it
to float above the water, it gets a little slippery. After several months 
of driving on dry streets, it takes a while to relearn how to 360's at 
60 MPH through rush hour traffic because you locked 'em up. <%-O

In the midwest, fer instance, there be summer showers to keep the streets 
clean and help wash that the road junk off your car once in a while.
Also, in the winter, there is a chance to practice your slippery-road-skills
by driving down onto the river at 40 MPH and seeing how many times you
can spin around while headed upriver. <;-) 

Bill
(Taught the crash dummies how to drive......)

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From: [email-masked] (Bill Spikes)
Date: 25 Sep 1995 18:55:36 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> you wrote:

: In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Bill Spikes) writes:
: |> 
: |> In CA (Silicone Pit, anyway) we go months with no rain, allowing the roads
: |> to collect (it is their job) LOTS of dirt, dust, exhaust junk, oil, xmission,
: |> etc drips. Then when the first rain displaces all this stuff and allows it
: |> to float above the water, it gets a little slippery. After several months 
: |> of driving on dry streets, it takes a while to relearn how to 360's at 
:                                                                  ^^^^^
: |> 60 MPH through rush hour traffic because you locked 'em up. <%-O

: Better specify which axis the car rotates. It's not clear to somebody
: (Lloyd?) by just referring 360's as spins. Someone will think that's a
: rollover.

: :-)

: -- 
: Isaac Wong                | Protel Compiler Group

You're correct Isaac, I should have made it clear:

360's = flat horizontal spins, tire side down.
end-over-end = outside loop, any part of the vehicle can touch ground except
               the sides. With much skill, inside loops can be performed.
rollover = barrel roll along the long axis of the vehicle, front and rear
          of vehicle can't touch ground. 

There are variations, naturally.

I've heard the end-over-end is the most exciting. I haven't done that one
yet except on a motorcycle and it happened way too fast.

:)

Mmmmmmm, it does look as though TODAY might be the first rain in a while.
There be some thunderhead-looking things out there.

Bill
Taught the test dummies to drive.....