Red Light Runner Crushed by City Bus

See video and original article here

I drove this route for nearly three years.

     Unfortunately this accident was just a matter of time in coming.
Please SLOW DOWN around city busses and Big rigs! They cannot stop as fast as your little car. This bus weighs ~67,000 pounds, and where this accident happend, was going down hill at probably 30 MPH. A case of "get_home_itis" can be fatal, the driver of this SUV was VERY lucky.

     From watching the video it appears, the driver of the bus may have put his own life at risk by swerving into the bridge to try to avoid the SUV. There is less than 2 feet between the front of the bus and the bus driver and whatever he/she may hit.

That bus driver is lucky to be alive, and should be considered a hero!

Tailgating

I will put this as politely and as politically correct as I can; TAILGATERS SHOULD BE SHOT!

I take the freeway to work every morning and invariably some genius gets on my tail. It is not as if I drive slowly, I rarely speed, however I routinely catch myself going up to 5mph over the posted limit. The only time I drive under the limit, is if I am having trouble with my truck or I am tired and looking to pull over.

I use the Professional Truck Driver Institute of America (PTDI) guideline to determine what a tailgater is. Simply put if I cannot see your headlights, you are too close. The PTDI guideline is a little more detailed than that, they recommend a spacing of one second for every 10 feet of your vehicles length with a minimum of two seconds. So if you are driving a typical passenger car, you should be AT LEAST two seconds behind me. If you are driving a 40 foot motor home, you should be at least four seconds behind me. Add another second over 40mph, and yet another second over 70mph. So if you are in that 40 foot motor home and doing the speed limit of 75 mph on the open freeway, you should be at least six seconds (4+1+1=6) behind the vehicle in front of you, anything less and you are tailgating!

It is not that difficult a guideline to follow, it could save your life, and you do not even have to take your eyes off the road to do it. Simply find a reference point on the road (a crack in the pavement, a shadow, a mileage post, etc), and when the car in front of you passes, count one one thousand, two one thousand, and so on until you reach the proper distance for your vehicle. If you are the example motor home on the freeway and cannot count to six one thousand, you need to back off.

Consider this, in EVERY state in the United States, if you rear-end someone, you are automatically considered to be at fault. Your insurance rate will go up, you will get the ticket, and if you injure anyone because you had to be on his or her tail, you get to pay for his or her medical expenses. Quite simply, tailgating is a stupid proposition.

One final thought, if you are foolish enough to tailgate me, do not worry, I will not tap the brakes to scare you. I am a professional driver; instead, I will resort to a simple tried and proven method recommended by the PTDI. I will simply ease off on my speed a little at a time until you either get the message and back off, or get frustrated and pass me. So if I am doing 75, and you crawl up my tailpipe I WILL drop to 73, then 70, then 68, then, 65, and so on, until you figure it out. Do not bother flashing your high beams, we are not in Europe and this practice is illegal in most states, it will not make me drive any faster and you may earn a ticket. Go ahead and flip me off if that makes you feel any better, I simply view that as a statement of your intellect and smile. n 36+ years of driving, I have been flipped off by many and have yet to speed up for the morons.

End of rant, I feel better now. =)