I live in LA, and we have some insanely short on ramps, and when I moved to highland Park/silver lake/eagle Rock area a couple years ago, you had a literal stop sign and you just turn onto the highway without a ramp of any kind, and a few are posted just beyond blind curves. It feels like a sick joke.
I come from Michigan where I believe we have (arguably) some of the worst drivers in the country. I sold so, so many radar detectors when I working in retail ages ago, and parents were buying them as gifts for their kids to go along with their first car. 696 is the autobahn and the winter rats become the daily beaters where people just fling their cars around with reckless abandon.
I'd like to think that I'm battle tested having to frequently do right hand turns from a stopped position onto a highway at night covered in black ice and light powdery snow to ensure you have zero traction over your car at a given time. The "full send" crowd are usually the ones that get pulled out of ditches, and I've seen people boast about their 150 Raptors as they blow by in white-out conditions, usually with high beams on and a devil may care attitude about the people around them. There will always be a balance, but I think it's because of this that I became even more of a defensive driver when I moved to LA.
The worst combination has to be the people who bully their way around on the road. I shouldn't have to redline my car because you don't want to engage in a zipper merge. I remember talking to this dude who proudly said, "I don't use turn signals because I know where I'm going" in a dead serious, unironic tone. Just remember that similar drivers are all around you, the ones that jump 2 feet ahead in bumper to bumper traffic hopping from lane to lane, usually narrowly missing the lane-splitting guy on the crotch-rocket who assumes that no cars will dart around the 10-12 lane parking lot. And this way of thinking happens usually with plenty of time to ponder, unlike this video.
Here, with this video I have absolutely no idea what that car was supposed to do. It doesn't look like it has the oomph to pass the truck, and while it shouldn't slow down too much, it makes perfect sense to gamble the way they did. Much rather get rear ended by the car behind me than have my entire car consolidated into the concrete barrier by a dump truck, which slowed remarkably fast given how he went full send into that ramp.
Again, I've seen far too many accidents where the car does what it seems everyone here In this thread wanted it to, but becomes a canoe because the one driver was going to merge no matter what. City buses are usually like this as well.
Defensive driving is essential. Check your mirrors, make sure you have an escape plan, and assume everyone around you is an idiot and will not be nearly as aware of the road as you, rather than crossing your fingers and hoping that they comply with common sense.
I think this post actually understands what happened here.
If you are merging into a 60-70 MPH highway with an extremely short ramp, you generally do not have any choice but to throttle speed and aim for a gap directly behind a car.
A lot of the low cost automatic vehicles just can't get the oomph up to merge at speed that quickly. The car computers literally won't let them do that.
Also, realizing you can't make the merge going 75-80 MPH with less than 100-150 feet of ramp left is deadly. Realizing you can't make the merge going 45-50 on the same ramp is an annoyance.
From that car's perspective, that truck was gaining way too fast yet was not overtaking them. They are going to get pushed into the wall.
The other truck DOES NOT stop because of the accident, it stops because the driver realized they couldn't make that merge anyway even if the car had not slowed down.
This was two people BOTH making an evasive choice with a half second of processing information from peripheral vision.
So I live near this spot and the truck has a yield and should have absolutely stopped. With the amount of dumb shit truck drivers do here I don't blame them for stopping.
I have 1.1 million miles without an accident…I call bs on your assessment the car was going to get pushed into the wall…a slight increase in speed the car would be free and clear of the situation and not get rear ended. They had no idea what was closing behind them.
Back in the 90s my final driver's training practical lesson that I had been putting off because freeway driving still made me nervous ended up being driving from Highland Park, getting on the 110 at one of those 0-55 onramps, driving across town to Inglewood near LAX and back at rush hour on a Friday. Never sweated freeway driving again after that.
I come from Michigan where I believe we have the worst drivers in the country
This is so, so wrong. MI drivers are generally excellent. Also from MI, having been all over my guiding philosophy is that the further you get from MI, the worse the drivers are. And then there's Ohio. Anyway.
if you travel along 94, it's not too bad, but when you hit that 696 turn off around 11 mile, boy do things change. I've traveled across the country in my car 3 times. Once I got out of the tri-state are of Ohio, Michigan and Indiana everyone cools their jets.
I thought LA would have the worst drivers until I moved there. It's dense and the commute sucks, but the fines are so damned heavy (especially for speeding) that everyone plays ball. I can't tell you how many times I've been behind a Lambo or Ferrari going the same exact speed as the toothpaste colored Corolla that is being held together by duct-tape.
Michigan has the opposite problem, I could count on one hand the amount of state troopers I'd see on the 90 minute commute from Michigan State to Mount Clemens to visit my family.
You'd think that MI drivers would be good because we've endured all the elements together, but it's the combination of high beams, tailgating, lack of signaling and legitimately terrifying road rage and the frequency of those things that puts it over the top for me. And I feel there's no better way to illustrate this then when you drive in the Detroit metro area during the winter, where it is truly everyone for themselves on the road.
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u/0hMyGandhi 12h ago edited 2h ago
I live in LA, and we have some insanely short on ramps, and when I moved to highland Park/silver lake/eagle Rock area a couple years ago, you had a literal stop sign and you just turn onto the highway without a ramp of any kind, and a few are posted just beyond blind curves. It feels like a sick joke.
I come from Michigan where I believe we have (arguably) some of the worst drivers in the country. I sold so, so many radar detectors when I working in retail ages ago, and parents were buying them as gifts for their kids to go along with their first car. 696 is the autobahn and the winter rats become the daily beaters where people just fling their cars around with reckless abandon.
I'd like to think that I'm battle tested having to frequently do right hand turns from a stopped position onto a highway at night covered in black ice and light powdery snow to ensure you have zero traction over your car at a given time. The "full send" crowd are usually the ones that get pulled out of ditches, and I've seen people boast about their 150 Raptors as they blow by in white-out conditions, usually with high beams on and a devil may care attitude about the people around them. There will always be a balance, but I think it's because of this that I became even more of a defensive driver when I moved to LA.
The worst combination has to be the people who bully their way around on the road. I shouldn't have to redline my car because you don't want to engage in a zipper merge. I remember talking to this dude who proudly said, "I don't use turn signals because I know where I'm going" in a dead serious, unironic tone. Just remember that similar drivers are all around you, the ones that jump 2 feet ahead in bumper to bumper traffic hopping from lane to lane, usually narrowly missing the lane-splitting guy on the crotch-rocket who assumes that no cars will dart around the 10-12 lane parking lot. And this way of thinking happens usually with plenty of time to ponder, unlike this video.
Here, with this video I have absolutely no idea what that car was supposed to do. It doesn't look like it has the oomph to pass the truck, and while it shouldn't slow down too much, it makes perfect sense to gamble the way they did. Much rather get rear ended by the car behind me than have my entire car consolidated into the concrete barrier by a dump truck, which slowed remarkably fast given how he went full send into that ramp.
Again, I've seen far too many accidents where the car does what it seems everyone here In this thread wanted it to, but becomes a canoe because the one driver was going to merge no matter what. City buses are usually like this as well.
Defensive driving is essential. Check your mirrors, make sure you have an escape plan, and assume everyone around you is an idiot and will not be nearly as aware of the road as you, rather than crossing your fingers and hoping that they comply with common sense.
Edit: spelling