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COVID-19 Daily Driving Observations
With all the shutdowns and restrictions due to COVID-19, many of us non drivers spent most days in our homes. One way we’ve kept active and gotten fresh air daily is by going on a walk.
The walk takes us to a 4-lane road in our town, which is a bypass through the main area. It tends to have a higher concentration of trucks, and the end of the road (pictured left/below) leads about 500 feet to a traffic light.
What I observed on our walks was the number of vehicles that peak the apex of the bridge and accelerate to the light! Keep in mind when you finally see the light, if it is already green there is a high probability it will be red before you reach it. The blue truck in the picture demonstrates this instance.
Also, note this road comes to a T, so a driver is accelerating into a necessary turn, all in the hopes of avoiding 1 of probably 100 stop lights to be encountered that day. As you can see from the middle picture, he didn’t make the green light, but it didn’t stop him from continuing on his journey.
In summary, the truck created unproductive fuel burn, accelerating heavily to avoid having to sit at a red light. He risked a citation (the light turns red a full second before the green right arrow comes on), he risked causing a collision, and he probably had a brake event and corner event register, due to the speed at which he made the turn. This occurs much too frequently.
The right/final picture, sadly, is the memorial for 2 people on a motorcycle who were killed at this very intersection a few years ago. Please remind your drivers to focus on the safety of themselves and others. You may think I sat out here for a lengthy amount of time to capture this situation, but sadly to say this was my first attempt at capturing the perfect example.
