On Mon, 26 Nov 2012 15:28:37 -0500, "Robert Green"
wrote:

"Harry K" wrote in message news:b0a998e3-e78b-42b9-b41d-
stuff snipped

It is the rare freeway that does not have wide, shallow berms. Of course
the byways are another sory. You are in dense fog and will wait for an exit?
Not me, I will be as
far off the road as I can get (within reason) as soon as I can find the edge
of the highway.

When I was in California, I found myself cresting a small mountain with the
morning rush hour traffic and then entering fog so thick I was not able to
see anything but the tail lights of the car ahead of me and the headlights
of the car behind me. I was panicking but these drivers slowed just a
little bit and all followed the leader for several miles until the fog was
gone. It all depends on how good the "point" driver is, I guess. I think
things would have been much worse outside of rush hour with people traveling
at higher speeds. I really thought we were all going to die but we hust

I thought about pulling over but up there in the mountains, every foot you
stray from the traveling portion of the roadway could be a foot closer to a
very steep drop. Staying in lane (no one passed anyone!) and proceeding
slowly but carefully seemed to work out in that case. Every case is
different, though. I really got the impression this was such a common event
on that particular mountain that people just figured out what worked and
coped.

Fog and blizzard driving are two very different things. Unless you're an
emergency responder, there's little excuse for getting caught in a blizzard
with today's weather forecasting technology. I am not sure I'd go very far
off the road in a blizzard because you could get buried by a snowplow and
end up like Per Hansa from "Giants in the Earth." I would try to find an
exit and a motel ASAP or even a gas station or restaurant, especially if
conditions were worsening. Two years in Buffalo, where snow starts in
October and lingers until May.


"Today's weather forecasting technology". Now *that's* funny!

We drove through one a couple of decades ago on a trip from Eastern NY
to East-central IL. The snow started about the western 100mi of I80
in PA. From there to Columbus, OH took eight hours, where it turned
into ice. At times it was so bad that the only thing I could see was
the tail lights of the truck I was glued to. If he was driving across
corn fields, so was I. Trucks occasionally passed us at "normal"
highway speeds and it was "dead reckoning" for 20-30 seconds.

I wouldn't have made the trip at all except that the FIL was in the
hospital, for the last time. We wanted to get our son there to see
him for the last time.