Scariest part of driving?

[TheHighwayMan3561]

I'll actually bite on what cjk stated because for me, it's not running out of things to see as much as it is becoming failed to be impressed by new places I'm seeing because I've seen the same stuff already in other places. For example, the mountains on I-90 in Montana I saw last week were neat, but no different than the ones in Colorado I became bored with from seeing the last two summers.

Forests? River drives? Lakes? I have all that, maybe they're just bigger in Oregon.

[ozarkman417]

Running out of new things to see. Scares the hell outta me.

There's millions of miles of roads, you could live 200 years and still not run out of roads.

Roads ≠ Things to see

First, let's eliminate all the mileage with nothing to see...

Looks like we just took much of the great plains out of the equation. How about the fear of running out of places within day trip distance?

[webny99]

Looks like we just took much of the great plains out of the equation. How about the fear of running out of places within day trip distance?

Come to upstate NY! 20 years and I haven't run out of day trips yet. 

[kphoger]

Running out of new things to see. Scares the hell outta me.

There's millions of miles of roads, you could live 200 years and still not run out of roads.

Roads ≠ Things to see

First, let's eliminate all the mileage with nothing to see...

Like Kansas?   

I-70 west of Salina, yes.  But I-35 through the Flint Hills is gorgeous.  Plenty of old route alignments in Kansas to geek out over, too, such as US-40.  One of the prettiest drives I've ever done was this stretch.  Below is a picture of an old K-96 alignment that I took back in 2012.



In general, I think most people who say there's nothing to see in Kansas haven't spent very much time off the Interstate.

[webny99]

I drove a similarly fun road in Texas one time, now if only I could find it...

This area has plenty of fun drives too, from this to this to this. I think every state has classic country roads that are beautiful in their own right, even if there's no Rocky Mountains in the background... Except maybe Rhode Island.

[paulthemapguy]

Running out of new things to see. Scares the hell outta me.

This is serious in the age of COVID.  As I clinch everything in a certain radius, the distance I have to travel in order to get to something new increases and increases.  Since March, I've been trying to stay within the state border for as long as lockdown goes on, because my state is proving to be effective at lowering the number of infections.  (Now that some nearby states around us are trending downward we've reopened some things, though, I might consider some other northern states.)  Keeping myself confined to one state or the local region can only be entertaining for so long...

[ozarkman417]

One of the toughest things for me was, after a year of driving on my own, still making smart decisions when nobody else was in the car with me.  Being a young driver with new-found freedom can lead to tempting situations.

I'm just starting to drive on my own, and at the point I'm at I don't see myself taking any big risks because I lack confidence as it is. Not only that, but I'm having to get used to a car ten years older than the one I trained in. You don't appreciate the backup camera until it's gone..

[Roadrunner75]

One of the toughest things for me was, after a year of driving on my own, still making smart decisions when nobody else was in the car with me.  Being a young driver with new-found freedom can lead to tempting situations.

I'm just starting to drive on my own, and at the point I'm at I don't see myself taking any big risks because I lack confidence as it is. Not only that, but I'm having to get used to a car ten years older than the one I trained in. You don't appreciate the backup camera until it's gone..

You also don't appreciate the backup camera if you spent most of your years driving without one.  In late 2018 I got my first car with a backup camera and I still haven't been able to train myself to use it regularly.  I still look over my shoulder.  You never know if it's like the movie "Speed" and they've tapped into the camera and are showing a prerecorded backup video rather than a live feed!   

[kphoger]

One of the toughest things for me was, after a year of driving on my own, still making smart decisions when nobody else was in the car with me.  Being a young driver with new-found freedom can lead to tempting situations.

I'm just starting to drive on my own, and at the point I'm at I don't see myself taking any big risks because I lack confidence as it is. Not only that, but I'm having to get used to a car ten years older than the one I trained in. You don't appreciate the backup camera until it's gone..

You also don't appreciate the backup camera if you spent most of your years driving without one.  In late 2018 I got my first car with a backup camera and I still haven't been able to train myself to use it regularly.  I still look over my shoulder.  You never know if it's like the movie "Speed" and they've tapped into the camera and are showing a prerecorded backup video rather than a live feed!   

The only car I've driven with a backup camera was a rental we took to Minnesota in December.  It didn't take very long for it to be completely covered in winter road grime, so it was worthless for the whole trip.

Having been a passenger in a couple of cars with one, I don't think I'd have an easy time gauging the distance between my car and the obstacle behind me.  I'd much rather just turn around and use my eyeballs.



Speaking of winter driving...

One of the scariest parts of driving is finding oneself on a road so icy you have zero control over where your vehicle goes.

I remember driving a box truck on this road in Centralia, IL, on a very icy day.  As you can see in the GSV, the road has open ditches, and the road surface is mound-shaped for drainage.  Cars were off the road all over the place that day.  The police were at the intersection, so I had to stop.  While I was at a dead stop with my foot on the brake, my truck started sliding to the right toward the ditch.  Fortunately, I was able to go again just at that moment, and I was able to round the corner.  Rollover avoided!

Later, I was talking to a co-worker about the incident.  He said that his route had him over in Chester, which lies along the Mississippi River.  While he was heading back into town after delivering to the prison, he couldn't stop at a stop sign (I'm guessing this one.  With his foot firmly on the brake, his truck was sliding into the intersection.  If I'm right about the location, it's the intersection of two state highways.

Mud can be just as scary.  One time when I was in high school, I decided to take the fun route from K-117 back home to Atwood.  I was in a 1995 Toyota Corolla, and it had recently rained.  The second curve after leaving Herndon is steeply banked, and my car started sliding down into the bottom of the bank as I was rounding the corner.  Fortunately, I was able to keep from getting stuck in the bud at the bottom, turn around, and take the paved roads home instead.  This was before cell phones were ubiquitous, too.

[1995hoo]

Heh. We have one car with a backup camera (my wife's TLX) and I've quickly come to love it. It did take some effort to overcome the instinct to turn my head. I should note her car has the "proximity sensors," or as my father called it, the "parking sonar"–the thing where it beeps to let you know you're getting close to the obstacle. That helps with gauging distance. It also has a sensor that detects traffic coming across your path, and it's even beeped for pedestrians at the grocery store parking. I'll also hit the button to change the camera angle to look straight down if I pull straight through two parking spaces or if I park the car at the rear of the row of parallel-parked cars around the corner (there's a line where the "No Parking" sign is, so I use the vertical camera view to get the bumper right at the line).

But then, I should also note that while my TL doesn't have a backup camera, I don't turn my head to back out of our one-car garage at home–I use the sideview mirrors instead because they make it easier to see the sides of the garage door and the edges of the driveway–so that probably makes adjusting to using a camera a little bit easier.

My wife is a couple of years older than I am and so she's driven for longer, yet yesterday when she drove her other car (an RSX), she commented on how much she missed the backup camera. So you can get used to it! My mom, on the other hand, inherited my father's Volvo S90 last year and refuses to look at the screen at all when the backup camera is on. She doesn't "trust" it.

[J N Winkler]

I have never actually driven a car equipped with a backup camera, and can still count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have been a passenger in one.

The backup video feeds I have seen have all been taken through a fisheye lens, so there is considerable distortion.  I've also never been able to establish how sensitive they are to low obstacles like curbs and parking stops that don't threaten the bodywork but can pose a hazard to the exhaust.

Since I routinely reverse into parking spaces and have robust procedures for doing so that involve driving past and backing through a 90° angle, I tend to regard backup cameras as tools that are helpful rather than essential, even for cars where DLO is constrained by pillar airbags and rearward visibility is therefore mediocre.  I tend to think backup cameras come into their own when you cock the car opposite the desired space and back through at a shallow angle, which I don't like to do because it leads to bad tire scrub (the steering wheel has to be turned while the car is stationary, or almost so), but is probably the least socially awkward way to reverse into a parking space when someone else is riding your tail in the lot.  (Driving past the space gives the other car an opportunity to steal it; if you position your car astride the space so the other car can't get in and then wait for it to go past before you start your maneuver, that is a good way to start a road-rage incident.)

[kphoger]

I have never actually driven a car equipped with a backup camera, and can still count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have been a passenger in one.

The backup video feeds I have seen have all been taken through a fisheye lens, so there is considerable distortion.  I've also never been able to establish how sensitive they are to low obstacles like curbs and parking stops that don't threaten the bodywork but can pose a hazard to the exhaust.

Since I routinely reverse into parking spaces and have robust procedures for doing so that involve driving past and backing through a 90° angle, I tend to regard backup cameras as tools that are helpful rather than essential, even for cars where DLO is constrained by pillar airbags and rearward visibility is therefore mediocre.  I tend to think backup cameras come into their own when you cock the car opposite the desired space and back through at a shallow angle, which I don't like to do because it leads to bad tire scrub (the steering wheel has to be turned while the car is stationary, or almost so), but is probably the least socially awkward way to reverse into a parking space when someone else is riding your tail in the lot.  (Driving past the space gives the other car an opportunity to steal it; if you position your car astride the space so the other car can't get in and then wait for it to go past before you start your maneuver, that is a good way to start a road-rage incident.)

On the other hand, angling in is apparently a good way to have an accident.

[J N Winkler]

On the other hand, angling in is apparently a good way to have an accident.

I'm really sorry to hear about this one--dealing with insurance is a ton of hassle even under the best of circumstances.

I can't say I've encountered that particular failure mode, but I have had a few close calls where someone turned into my path from a location I could not check because of blocked sightlines.  There was also another near miss where someone else and I tried backing 90° into the same space, from opposite directions.

When I reverse in, I generally hit my blinker as I approach the space, before I drive past it.  Then, once I have passed it and brought my car to a smooth controlled stop (meaning I feather the brake pedal so the dive response is imperceptible), I pause a second or two after I move the lever into reverse, until I can feel the drive axles wind up as the transmission engages.  Then I do a final mirror check.  This tends to build in enough time for another driver to figure out what is going on and respond accordingly.

When the target space is to my left and I am in an aisle that is wide enough to accommodate two cars side by side pointed in opposite directions, I stay right and try to treat the backing maneuver as a left turn, which it effectively is, only in reverse.  This has worked well.  I tend to have more difficulty in lots where the aisle is "car and half" width.  Besides the added problems due to visibility lessened still further, I had a near miss several years ago where I initiated the maneuver and had to abort because a woman in a car coming from the other direction wanted to jump the gap and would not be denied.

In cases where I have had a car come "out of nowhere" just as I was about to back left into a driveway from the street (blinker and reverse light on), I have aborted by turning the blinker in the other direction, putting the transmission in Drive, and pulling forward to park at the curb and wait for the other car to pass.

[kphoger]

dealing with insurance is a ton of hassle even under the best of circumstances.

I've found that, if you provide good details about what happened and are up front about anything that was your own fault, agents are very appreciative and the process isn't bad.

What I didn't know the first time I had an accident (a few years ago) is that there's no point in getting a repair estimate immediately after the accident.  After dealing with the police, I drove a few blocks to a shop and had an estimate done, then I called my insurance agent and mentioned the quote, and the agent said that was a good thing.  Then I went to a couple of different shops to get quotes, and finally one of the mechanics told me it was pointless:  insurance would send out their own adjuster and do their own numbers.  So all that running around for no reason!  (It ended up being totaled out anyway, and I took the check to buy a replacement car.)

[MikieTimT]

A police cruiser on your rear bumper for 20 miles on a 2 lane.

[kphoger]

A police cruiser on your rear bumper for 20 miles on a 2 lane.

...in a foreign country.

I was once leading a caravan of three vehicles on a stretch of desert highway in Mexico, doing about 105 km/h with a speed limit of 80 km/h.  A federales cruiser came up behind us and stayed there.  105 was about the normal flow of traffic, so I didn't slow down.  He stayed back there for several miles, then eventually passed us.  It sure freaked out the other drivers following me, though!

[J N Winkler]

dealing with insurance is a ton of hassle even under the best of circumstances.

I've found that, if you provide good details about what happened and are up front about anything that was your own fault, agents are very appreciative and the process isn't bad.

What I didn't know the first time I had an accident (a few years ago) is that there's no point in getting a repair estimate immediately after the accident.  After dealing with the police, I drove a few blocks to a shop and had an estimate done, then I called my insurance agent and mentioned the quote, and the agent said that was a good thing.  Then I went to a couple of different shops to get quotes, and finally one of the mechanics told me it was pointless:  insurance would send out their own adjuster and do their own numbers.  So all that running around for no reason!  (It ended up being totaled out anyway, and I took the check to buy a replacement car.)

I was thinking more in terms of an accident forcing you to absorb imperfectly compensated economic losses to go from 100% (before accident) to 100% (after accident, to the extent that this is possible).  The insurance will cover part of it sans deductible, but you are out time spent liaising with your own insurance, the other driver's insurance (if another car is involved), the police (if they are called), the repair shop, etc. and this is typically not compensated.

Our experience with loss claims on auto insurance, albeit with a company that underwrites only for members of a specific occupational group, has been that the insurer prefers the estimate to be obtained from a body shop it nominates.  The stated benefit to the insured is that this ensures the repairs are of high quality.  We have found that this allows the insurer to take charge of the repair process and save some money by specifying parts of "like kind and quality" in lieu of OEM parts.  To be fair, I have never observed a LKQ part that was clearly inferior to the OEM equivalent, but with control of the process entirely in my hands, my personal default is to spend the little extra for OEM.

The hassle factor is part of the reason I try to drive with a mindset of continuous improvement--I look not just at "near misses," but also incidents where I felt the chain of events unfolded in a less than satisfactory way, and ask myself what I can do to ensure better outcomes if similar situations recur.  It is also why I park nose-out whenever possible; parking lots are where my risk of "paint trade" PDO accidents are highest, and the majority of my close calls have involved backing out of a space under conditions of limited visibility.

[Roadrunner75]

Our experience with loss claims on auto insurance, albeit with a company that underwrites only for members of a specific occupational group, has been that the insurer prefers the estimate to be obtained from a body shop it nominates.  The stated benefit to the insured is that this ensures the repairs are of high quality.  We have found that this allows the insurer to take charge of the repair process and save some money by specifying parts of "like kind and quality" in lieu of OEM parts.  To be fair, I have never observed a LKQ part that was clearly inferior to the OEM equivalent, but with control of the process entirely in my hands, my personal default is to spend the little extra for OEM.

A few years ago someone slid on ice at a traffic light into the back of the RAV4 I had at the time and smashed up my rear bumper and lights.  Their insurance company accepted responsibility right away and routed me to a "preferred" auto body shop that works directly with them and a few other insurers (I know I had a choice).  It seemed like a McDonald's of body shops (although it wasn't a chain like Caliber) and I was a little worried, but the repairs looked fine (as far as I could tell) and they did it really quick.  A few years later that same RAV4 got taken out again while my wife was driving and it did end up at Caliber (via the other guy's insurer) but that time it was totaled.

[allniter89]

The highest-risk maneuver I have to make routinely is backing out of a space in a crowded parking lot.  It's not "scary" as far as personal injury to me, but the possibility of hitting another car or, worse, somebody who's walking whom I fail to see, makes that pretty risky.  When practical, when spaces are head-to-head without any barricade in between, I'll pull through to the second one so I can exit the space by going forward.

My drivers ed & truck driver ed teachers said dont back up
if u have a choice. I pull thru car parking too the problem is if the parking lot have 1 way aisles.

[In_Correct]

I don't have a license quite yet, but merging onto the freeway seems the scariest.

That depends on the type of ramp. If it is a shorter clover leaf ramp with no acceleration lane, hope for the other drivers to move to the left lane so the right lane is clear.

If it is a straighter ramp such as a diamond or a slip ramp, they are very easy as long as they are long enough for you to accelerate.

99.9% of the time the traffic will see you entering the highway and they will move to the left lane.

A terrifying example is going over a hill on a two lane road only to see a bucket waiting for you to run over it. Fortunately the bucket was empty.

It landed in the center and dragged unless I pulled over to free it. There was no damage to car. But there was plenty of damage to bucket!

[kphoger]

I was thinking more in terms of an accident forcing you to absorb imperfectly compensated economic losses to go from 100% (before accident) to 100% (after accident, to the extent that this is possible).  The insurance will cover part of it sans deductible, but you are out time spent liaising with your own insurance, the other driver's insurance (if another car is involved), the police (if they are called), the repair shop, etc. and this is typically not compensated.

Fortunately for me, I've never been out any time–at least time from work.

With the first accident I had, a few years ago, it was on a day off (on my way to the mechanic, ironically).  Our vehicle was still driveable, even though the front end damage bent the frame and required me to tie the hood down.  While the car was at the shop, we borrowed a car from friends at first.  Then my mom drove me 150 miles west, while my in-laws drove 150 miles east to meet us, where I picked up my wife's sister's car for us to use for a while.  After insurance totaled out our vehicle and I then sold it to them, we drove my sister-in-law's car up to Kansas City on a week-end to buy a replacement vehicle.  My wife and I then drove separately down to Branson to drop the borrowed car off.  We didn't have to pay for lodging, because my mother-in-law works in hospitality and got us a free room.  Next morning, we headed home together in our new vehicle.  All of that happened on week-ends, when I wasn't working.

When I had the accident two months ago, I was coming home from work.  The vehicle was perfectly driveable still.  After dropping it off at the body shop early one morning, I had a friend pick me up and drive me to work.  I came in maybe one hour late, hardly worth mentioning.  When they were done working on it, my co-worker drove me down after work to pick it up.  In between, she drove me to and from work.  Other than walking down the grocery store once for a couple of items, my family had no errands to run in between.

So my total fringe losses included about one hour of PTO at work, plus some extra gasoline to drive Wichita-KC-Branson-Wichita.  Barely tops $100.

Plus, my insurance company just informed me they're working to reimburse us for the deductible.

[J N Winkler]

Fortunately for me, I've never been out any time–at least time from work.

What I am getting at is the concept of pure economic loss, which is much broader than time off work (paid or not).  Your leisure time has value, and when it is spent dealing with the aftermath of an accident, that is a taking.