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State Police: Slow the hell down in work zones

Trooper Nearly Struck in O'Neil Tunnel

State Police have released this video of an out-of-control car nearly plowing into Trooper Jay Clement, sitting in a cruiser inside an O'Neill Tunnel work zone:

Trooper Clement noticed this vehicle at the last moment. Miraculously the operator of the small black car turned at the last moment, missing Trooper Clement, by only inches. The small black car was sliding out of control when he passes Trooper Clement. Subsequently, Trooper Clement stopped the motor vehicle. The operator was not impaired.

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Comments

Was not chemically impaired, they mean.

There are other forms of impairment, including "doesn't take driving seriously enough to pay attention".

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Haw haw haw. Good one!

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The video and shows the police car parked slightly in the other driver's lane, and thus leading to the sudden overcorrection by the driver to avoid it. There is a natural psychological instinct to go towards a light, and at 4 AM, perhaps the driver was not fully awake.

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1) The tunnel speed limit is 45mph

2) It doesn't matter where/how an emergency vehicle is parked - you slow down, you go around.

3) You don't get a free pass for being sleepy - if you are too sleepy to do #1 and #2, YOU SHOULD NOT BE DRIVING AT ALL.

No excuses for lazy and stupid. Not here, not ever.

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so because cop was on dotted line means the black car wasnt speeding and driving like a mad man? smart thinking, scholar..

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Statie was clearly not entirely within his lane.

Is there a more worthless state agency than the Massachusetts State Police? What did that guy make to sit in a tunnel all night? I'm a night owl. I'll do that job tomorrow for 20 bucks an hour. Hire me.

Only time I've ever needed one was for a flat tire on 93, and that's something private industry already does with reasonable efficiency.

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(Expletive) you, Scratchie.

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You need to adjust your stupid effing attitude.

He had his lights firing - it doesn't matter where he was, the guy is 1) only supposed to be going 45 max in that tunnel and 2) emergency vehicles - pull you head out and slow down and pull over is the goddamn law, not what lane they are in or how.

My dad was nearly killed working a road detail because some stupid special snowflake like you didn't get "lane closed" or how it could possibly apply to his special arse. This is the real world - your autistic technicalities don't count. But now we know why you don't go back to Vermont - they actually enforce the laws up there!

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Wow special snowflake calm down.

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You should, Gactata - such internet stress over the truth might cause you to mutate.

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1) You might have noticed that I titled my original post "two wrongs don't make a right." No need for you to tell me that the speeding driver was in the wrong - it's already implied by "two wrongs don't make a right." But thanks for playing.

2) I observe closed lanes on interstate highways. This has nothing to do with me.

3) My "autistic technicalities?" Yes, sir, I have Asperger's, but this has NOTHING to do with that. Not even remotely. Go read a book.

4) I visit Vermont quite frequently.

5) Tell your dad to stay safe.

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I drive out to the mid-west every year to visit my sister who lives out in Iowa City, IA every year, and the laws regarding slowing down in work zones are much more toughly enforced out there than they are here. I just got back from my annual road trip out there, and, like every year, I notice a stark difference between drivers observing the laws out in the midwest and the flagrant, calloused disregard for the laws here in the Bay State, where it's often total anarchy on the roads; people here do as they please.

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Any time you feel like you have the balls to pull someone over in the middle of the night when you have no idea what's waiting for you in the vehicle and your closest backup is twenty minutes away, you let me know. Other than that , you're once again showing you're as clueless as someone who hasn't adjusted to indoor plumbing yet.

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As long as I can wear SWAT gear. It's fair for that hour.

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Coming home after closing a bar, posting something stupid while half in the bag, then getting up around noon and trying to explain your previous inebriated comments?

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A tough job takes a tough man. A man like Will. Will LaTulippe. (cue theme music)

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Because it's true.

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Read the actual video description. It's even worse.

The left TWO lanes were closed. Which is why the Trooper is sort of in the middle.

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Doesn't matter how the trooper was parked, he was in closed lanes. I am wondering why they needed him there at all though, seeing how he was BEHIND the construction work. Seems like his flashing lights may have been useful in FRONT of the construction work.

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for the trooper to be parked outside of the closed-off area, please take the time to read this:

http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/reports/2002/HAR0201.pdf

As for why the troopers are necessary, consider what might have happened to the workers if the trooper wasn't there.

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would have happened to the workers, the driver had already passed them.

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unclear on the concept of multiple work crews using the same closure. But keep defending the idiot driver who decided "Oh, I've already passed the workers. That line of cones no longer applies to me."

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You obviously can't see, because if you can, you'd look at the video and see clear highway ahead of him for at least a mile. Where is this other road crew?

Nobody has "defended" the driver, I just said that the detail was pretty much useless. What exactly was he doing there?

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judge of distance. Looking at the video, I'd estimate there are between ten and twelve "skip" lines between the cruiser and where the road disappears around the left hand curve. Each line/skip combination is 40 feet, so that makes the distance between 400 and 480 feet. Far less than a mile.

And, unless YOU happened to drive through the tunnel while this lane closure was in place, how do you positively know that the next work crew isn't just beyond the start of the next curve. Or that the people working weren't getting ready to move there.

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Read the actual video description.

Expanding and clarifying: you have to go to the actual YouTube page for the video (not just the embedded video in the Universalhub.com) to see in the description that the two left-most lanes were closed at the time.

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You can also see in the video the cones blocking the left two lanes.

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But if it's true, then the cop wasn't in the wrong at all here. But I stand by my sentiment that the state police represent a labor market inefficiency.

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why did the state not put orange construction cones, plus a sign, as well as the state trooper, to indicate the fact that the left two lanes in that tunnel were closed? That would've been a much better way to prevent speeding, hopefully.

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This cop was at the very end of the lane closures. There is a construction site in the left two lanes immediately behind him. So if this guy came speeding up behind the cop, he'd be mowing down construction workers and traffic cones, and the skidding out of control would be the least of the concern here.

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This wouldn't have happened if the tunnel wasn't wet from all those leaks from shoddy construction! Only kidding... but the tunnel DOES look wet.

Why is there no mention of how fast the guy was going? I can't really tell if he's going absurdly fast.

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On a flat surface, the speed minimum speed might be determined if you measure the radius of that curve (assuming a flat surface).

His speed would be equal to 3.86 times the square root of the Radius x the adjusted deceleration factor (road coefficient of friction).

I think you actually could get a pretty accurate speed based on this video.

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Where's the construction??? AND WHO STOPS... COMES TO A DEAD STOP IN THE NUMBER 4 LANE OF A TUNNEL. WTF! and WTF^2 TO THE DRIVER OF THE FISH TAILER. what is going on in boston??!?!?!!

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