What’s with the uptick of wrong way drivers?
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New Cars Will Have to Detect Drunk Drivers as Early as 2026
With the infrastructure bill headed to the President's desk, this portion of legislation will gradually become reality.
www.thedrive.com
15 years from now: outrage as Jimmy gets fired from his Amazon shift because the interlock in his hooptie broke and thought he was drunk and wouldn't let the car run.
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Wrong-way driving is strongly correlated with weekends, nighttime, driver age, and intoxication. I’m not your google.
And wouldn’t it be nice if outlawing things make them stop happening?
I work in the car business. I’m in and out of dozens of customer cars every week. Before legalization, it used to be rare to find a car with weed scattered everywhere. Now it’s 1/5 cars.
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Nope.
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Intoxication. Most frequently alcohol intoxication. Alcohol abuse is up. Whipits while driving is way up, which is terrifying, I never encountered this prior to 2018, never. People on PCP drive better, at least they tend to top out at 35 mph.
After that, it gets complicated.
1. We have an aging population. The gray menace is real and demented drivers end up going the wrong way.
2. There are some changes in roadway design that people are having trouble adapting to. Traffic circles are appearing in the US, (finally). Locally we have an interchange where divided surface street traffic is routed so that motorists are driving on the left side of a divided road at the interface of surface streets and an interstate. It's more efficient if people don't screw up...
3. Changes in traffic enforcement. Almost nobody that you might want to be a cop, wants to be one. Our state troopers start at $100,000/year. There are 1000+ vacancies. Departments are shrinking. Departments told their officers to minimize proactive stops during COVID. Departments told employees to build the public trust with non-punitive activities but what the public wants is that when there is an impaired driver, they will be stopped and arrested.
Officers are human and too many became accustomed to doing too little. During the Michael Brown / George Floyd era, some good officers became hesitant to conduct traffic stops. Some departments encouraged their employees to focus more of their efforts on non-enforcement types of public service in order to build up the relationship with the community at large and their departments. It takes only a few years of this for the officer training a new hire to not actually know how to go out and make the traffic stops required to consistently locate and arrest impaired drivers. It's a numbers game. Between 7 pm and 5 am a certain percentage of drivers will be under the influence and so impaired as to be unable to safely operate a motor vehicle. The number of people caught is proportional to the number of drivers contacted. I guess this is the elephant in the room, IMO.
Circling back: alcohol and other drug abuse is up, all other factors being equal, wrong way drivers will be up.
Edit, right to left...
After that, it gets complicated.
1. We have an aging population. The gray menace is real and demented drivers end up going the wrong way.
2. There are some changes in roadway design that people are having trouble adapting to. Traffic circles are appearing in the US, (finally). Locally we have an interchange where divided surface street traffic is routed so that motorists are driving on the left side of a divided road at the interface of surface streets and an interstate. It's more efficient if people don't screw up...
3. Changes in traffic enforcement. Almost nobody that you might want to be a cop, wants to be one. Our state troopers start at $100,000/year. There are 1000+ vacancies. Departments are shrinking. Departments told their officers to minimize proactive stops during COVID. Departments told employees to build the public trust with non-punitive activities but what the public wants is that when there is an impaired driver, they will be stopped and arrested.
Officers are human and too many became accustomed to doing too little. During the Michael Brown / George Floyd era, some good officers became hesitant to conduct traffic stops. Some departments encouraged their employees to focus more of their efforts on non-enforcement types of public service in order to build up the relationship with the community at large and their departments. It takes only a few years of this for the officer training a new hire to not actually know how to go out and make the traffic stops required to consistently locate and arrest impaired drivers. It's a numbers game. Between 7 pm and 5 am a certain percentage of drivers will be under the influence and so impaired as to be unable to safely operate a motor vehicle. The number of people caught is proportional to the number of drivers contacted. I guess this is the elephant in the room, IMO.
Circling back: alcohol and other drug abuse is up, all other factors being equal, wrong way drivers will be up.
Edit, right to left...
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Senior:
How was she walking on those stripper shoes! And driving with them?!!!! And then she gets out of car and gets back in. Why didn't Mr. Video stop her?!!! That's what I would have done. Both videos were ridiculous!
This happens almost once a week at a particular intersection on my way home. Some moron comes out of the highlighted street, doesn't read the big one way sign staring them in the face, and then they're met by two lanes of left turn traffic that are not going to give any leeway. Don't be stupid, stupid.
![Property Ecoregion Map Infrastructure Slope]()
yeah, we have intersections like that.
The road engineers should specify a curved island to direct cars the proper way, and to make it clear "you will go only left here".
There's a one-way road to get into my neighborhood, and people frequently are going the wrong way on it. I have had to stop Uber/Lyft drivers from going the wrong way on it, as a passenger.
In the case of the rideshare drivers, their GPS doesn't tell them it's a one way street, or it doesnt tell them fast enough, before they turn on the road. I assume other drivers are making the same error.
In the case of the rideshare drivers, their GPS doesn't tell them it's a one way street, or it doesnt tell them fast enough, before they turn on the road. I assume other drivers are making the same error.
That's insane. Google Maps will tell you when a road is one-way.
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I've never tried those shoes on, so I couldn't tell you!!!!
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I can't believe after 5 days of posting this, a work collogue was killed alongside her husband this morning due to a wrong way driver.
www.cbs17.com
3 people killed as wrong-way driver hits car head-on along I-40 in NC
ALAMANCE COUNTY, N.C. (WGHP) — Three people are dead after a crash on Interstate 40 early Friday morning, according to Highway Patrol. Police say 41-year-old Abraham Rubio and 44-year-old Ashley Ma…
www.cbs17.com
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This thread is going to go to hell in a handbasket once a certain population of TCL reads that story.
Was coming here to post this. My mom told me about it this morning on the phone, as this is right down the road from them. Just so sad… it seems as though every month there’s a case of a wrong way driver on I-40. 99% of the time they’re drunk and it’s during late night/early morning.I can't believe after 5 days of posting this, a work collogue was killed alongside her husband this morning due to a wrong way driver.
3 people killed as wrong-way driver hits car head-on along I-40 in NC
ALAMANCE COUNTY, N.C. (WGHP) — Three people are dead after a crash on Interstate 40 early Friday morning, according to Highway Patrol. Police say 41-year-old Abraham Rubio and 44-year-old Ashley Ma…
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