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Fatal crash shuts 128
By adamg on Wed, 05/07/2008 - 4:00pm
Car no match for back end of a parked lumber truck, around 1 p.m. in the high-speed right lane breakdown lane on Rte. 128 south near Rte. 16.
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Comments
I hate that breakdown lane
I hate that breakdown lane traffic. People think it's a Get Out of Jail pass, they pass on the right and weave in and out of the first traffic lane. If you're driving a tractor trailer and you need to pull over, you can't trust a soft shoulder to hold up the weight.
it also was illegal for the car to be there...
...given that the lane is only open during certain hours, and "1pm" ain't part of them.
Why the guy might've been in the breakdown lane
I could've sworn I heard or read that he lost control in the real high-speed lane, careened along the median guard rail, then went flying across the highway before slamming into the back of the truck.
I'm not absolutely sure, because I'm still a bit dazed myself after having been rear-ended on Rte. 9 (you know the story: Person in front of me hits the brakes, I hit my brakes, the guy behind me hits his brakes - only his don't work). Kind of amazing how little damage was done to the car (there's a small round dent in the bumper that goes nicely with the two scratches already there and nothing else), but oof, head, meet headrest, and now, yes, I have the makings of a nice stiff neck).
jeez
I could've sworn I heard or read that he lost control in the real high-speed lane, careened along the median guard rail, then went flying across the highway before slamming into the back of the truck.
Excuses, excuses, excuses.
OK, I didn't imagine it
More details.
Looks like
That guy was gonna hit something. He used up the whole road. Four lanes across, four lanes back, and it wasn't until the lumber truck that he hit something. If the truck wasn't there, maybe he'd have gone back across again in search of something definitive to hit.
Traffic was still bollixed at four.
Q tip?
Another detail has emerged that may provide insight as to the cause of the crash:
"Charles P. Kachin, 76, was pronounced dead at the scene following the 1:04 p.m. crash, said state police."
In a related topic, is Adam a menace?
;^)
Pfft
I practice responsible hypermiling! :-).
So, no, I don't tailgate trucks to get in their draft or drive with my right tires on the white line on the side of the road. And I don't speed up to try to get through yellow lights (well, no more so than anybody else around here, that is)
If you aren't tailgating that Pious
... you won't have any problems.
Changes in speed matter less when you aren't driving like a hemmhroid!
Oh, and I didn't know that drafting trucks, coasting down hills, rolling to stops had a spiffy name like "hypermiling" - I was taught from the start that it was called "driving your car". Then again, my maternal grandmother won extra gas ration coupons during WWII by winning fuel economy contests intended to showcase fuel saving driving techniques.
The best part of hypermiling
Is "pulse and gliding" and only when conditions permit. Basically, you accelerate at moderate speeds up to about 40, then let up on the accelerator and then depress it just enough so that, in the Prius, at least, it shuts down both gas and electric engines (doesn't do as much over 40 because the gas engine automatically comes on at 42 mph). Then you glide until you get down to about 30 and repeat. You can get away with it in a Prius because it's designed to fire up the engines the instant you press on the gas.
No, don't worry, never done it deliberately on 128 at rush hour. But there have been some rush hours where that's basically happened because of the "flow" (such as it was) of traffic. Kinda cool to get 100 mpg for a few miles, even if part of that is also due to the way the road basically is downhill much of the way from just past Rte. 9 to Great Plain Avenue.
Me? Obsess much over the MPG/engine monitor in the dashboard? Oh, no, of course not :-).
The insanity that is 128
It's so, so lovely that the state has built turnouts in case you actually break down in the breakdown lane.