Don't Jerk And Drive In South Dakota

This seems to be a little insulting: My in-laws have been told not to "jerk and drive."

The South Dakota road (and sexual?) safety hashtag

The Modereger clan lives largely in South Dakota, and actually, they were among all South Dakota state residents who were recently told to not "jerk and drive."

Before we go on, South Dakota authorities tell us to get our minds out of the gutter. See, "don't jerk and drive" is not really a message to not, um, have fun with yourself while you're driving, though that's strongly discouraged too.

Television station KMTV in Omaha, Nebraska says what South Dakota state road safety officials are trying to say is to not jerk the steering wheel while you're driving on icy winter South Dakota roads - and presumably any road anywhere that has snow or ice on it.

Says a South Dakota public service announcement:

"Should your tire leave a snowy or icy road, resist the urge to jerk the steering wheel. Over correcting only results in chaos. Besides, nobody likes a jerker."

The South Dakota director of Public Safety says he's aware of the campaign's double meaning. He says South Dakota drivers should keep their cars out of the ditch and their minds out of the gutter.

So take THAT, you people driving across South Dakota in the winter!

However, someone with the South Dakota Office of Highway Safety says the campaign has outperformed previous ones and has reached the demographic of young men, which is hard to reach, says KMTV.

So actually, in a way, the state is keeping its mind in the gutter, because they know young men sometimes have their minds there, too, apparently.

Well, as long as we keep their cars out of the ditch, I guess that's fine.

However, we now have some sad late breaking news, The Argus Leader newspaper in Sioux Falls, South Dakota is now reporting the state is going to pull the "Don't Jerk and Drive" campaign. 

I guess some state lawjerkers, er, lawmakers, were upset with the ad campaign

According to the Argus Leader:

"Before the cancellation, state Rep. Mike Verchio was planning on calling (highway safety director Lee) Axdahl before the Transportation Committee next month to 'explain why they would do something like that.'"

Like why isn't obvious to Verchio, a Republican from Hill City, South Dakota. But Verchio said his constitutents were upset by "Don't Jerk and Drive"

The ad campaign was successful, as anything strange like this would be.

State authorities said more than 16,000 people saw the campaign, with its #Don'tJerkAndDrive hashtag, and this public safety campaign outperformed previous ones by a ratio of 25 to 1.

Outperformed, get it?

OK, time to get my mind out of the gutter. I'll stop being a jerk now.

Two Of The World's Worst Drivers

I've often said the world's worst drivers are (more or less) on roads here in Vermont, where I live.

But two videos, one from Russia, one from China, show that nobody anywhere seems capable of driving anymore.

Both videos demonstrate that once you make a mistake, continuing on probably compounds the error.

First, the bad Russian driver





Then we have a scooter driver who, after hitting a large object, goes for the void. I'm not sure which one is worse.  Supposedly he wasn't seriously hurt, but maybe it's time he takes public transportation to wherever he needs to go.

I Hope The Jerk Who Rear Ended My Truck Yesterday Has a Sore Neck

So yesterday, I'd just gotten out of work and was heading home at around 3:30 p.m. in my trusty Toyota Tacoma. Up ahead of me on Burlington, Vermont's Pearl Street, the traffic light turned red.

A line of cars ahead of me started to slow down. The woman driving the car in front of me started to slow down. I started to slow down. The young guy in back of me, "Mark" did not slow down. At all. Well, he did hit the brakes at the last second, but POW!

A partial view of my only somewhat damaged rear bumper
on my truck. The guy that hit me had it much worse. 

Crash, he goes into my rear bumper. My neck snaps back, my truck leaps forward and smashes into the back of the car in front of me.

It looked bad. The car in front of me had its back end pushed in. The car driven by Mark was totally crumpled in front, steam rising from the leaking radiator. I despaired at the damage to both the front and back end of my truck. I don't need this.

The three of us got out of our cars simultaneous. "Oh my God, are you alright, the woman ahead of me, Laura, said.

"Yes, how about you,?" I asked, alarm in my voice.  She said she was fine.

I turned to Mark behind me, spread my arms as if to say "What the fuck?" but said, "Are you OK?" He mumbled something that sounded like a yes. That was the last sound I heard uttered from him for the rest of the incident.

Considering that my vehicle had been hit twice, basically, while the others had hit once, I was lucky. My back bumper is smushed in a little. The crack in my windshield is suddenly worse. There's a bit of give to my front grill. But the truck is in remarkably good shape.

While I'm not really enjoying this whole situation, the only thing that I'm really feeling negative toward is Mark.

I get it. He wasn't paying attention and should have. But we all make mistakes. This one ended in a three vehicle crash. Bummer. I'd have forgiven him had he at least mumbled an "Are you OK," or even a vague, "I'm sorry."

Instead, he stood around sulking the entire time, as if Laura and me had the gall to be on the road and in the way when Almighty Mark wanted to get home and We Were In the Way!!!

Poor frickin' baby. What were you doing Mark? Texting your girlfriend? Downloading music from your favorite new band? Or just trying to get where you were going at all costs? And why were you going so fast on such a congested city street?

I'll never know the answers to those questions, of course. But it doesn't matter.

At least I got the chance to call 911 and speak in police scanner parlance: "Hello, I'd like to report a three car MVA, no injuries but fluid leaking," I informed the dispatcher.

A pleasant and patient Burlington Police officer showed up. While he did paperwork, Laura and I commisserated on the situation, happy that nobody had gotten hurt, and this would resolve itself.

Mark apparently works for a local ferry service on the lake. I hope he doesn't drive the ferries. (The ferry service does seem to be run quite professionally and safely, so I doubt Mark is the Captain of any of their boats)

Some of Mark's coworkers arrived. He must have called them, asking for a ride home. His was the only vehicle that had to be towed from the scene. Karma, I guess.

My neck is vaguely sore today, but that's it. I'm feeling so ornery toward Mark that I really hope his neck is more sore than mine.

And yes, I know, in the grand scheme of things, this really isn't a big deal. Vehicles can be fixed. Nobody's hurt, really, and life goes on.

So, Mark. I'm busy. So maybe you should be the one contacting my insurance company and making all the arrangements. Or maybe you could just take a refresher course on how to drive.

Illinois Tollway Actiing Like Loan Sharks? Demanding $27,000 After Clerical Error

The Illinois Tollway said, at least until very recently, that Dan Usselmann of Illinois owes them $27,000, pronto.

The trouble begain when the Usselman family had their debit card stolen, according this report from CBS News 2 in Chicago. Usselman said he called the Tollway, explaining the problem, and giving them their new debit card number to use that to charge their account, rather than the old number.

Toll road authority or loan shark?

The problems began, Usselman said, when a Tollway clerk entered the new debit card information on only one of the family's cars, but kept the old information on their other car.

So, the Usselman's were racking up charges on their old card without ever knowing it.

The Tollway began sending them notices, saying pay up. And maybe the Usselmans would have, had the Tollway not been sending the bills to an address the Usselmanms hadn't lived at in years.

The Usselmans weren't clued in on the problem for over a year, so by then fines escalated to $27,000.

The family asked if they could at least start paying the fine in installments, but the Usselmanns said they were told no.

When the CBS station started poking around at this wild outrage, which after all, seemed to be largely the Tollways's fault, the Tollway authority "generously" offered to cut the bill to $1,100. But only after the media attention. They figured they could buy their way out of bad publicity, perhaps?

I guess not.

The $1,100 is ridiculous since, if the Usselmann's account is true, it was the Tollway's screw up, not theirs.  Yes, municipalitites need to find ways to raise revenue. But doing so like the world's worst loan sharks?

So, next time you're in Illinois, don't drive on the roads controlled by Illinois Tollway. It could be an incredible expensive trip.

I Want to Drive On Really Cool Glow in The Dark Pavement

Leave it to people in the Netherlands to come up with a really cool way to improve traffic safety.

They've taken to painting lines on dark roads with a photo luminescent powder, which makes lanes glow brightly in the dark.

This is a godsend to people like me, who have trouble seeing on particularly dark,  rainy nights while driving on unfamiliar roads. Apparently other people are worse at this than I am, judging from the alarming traffic patterns I sometimes see at night.

Photo luminescent paint on a road
in the Netherlands alerts motorists when
the road might have ice

Sunshine that  the paint absorbs during the day allows the material to glow for up to 10 hours at a time at night. That's true even in the weak winter northern hemispheric sun.

In some areas, they've used the paint to draw huge snowflake patterns on the pavement. You don't see the glowing snowflakes on the road until the temperature drops to 33 degrees or lower, because of the technology that went into the roadway.

When you see the giant snowflakes, that means the road is freezing or close to it, so it alerts motorists to slow down because there might be black ice.

The article says a design and technology company called Studio Roosegaate is behind these innovations. The pavement and pain in the Netherlands is a pilot project. If it works, it could spread throughout Europe.

If it works, I'd also like it to spread to the United States.

As an aside, I've been the beneficiary of some great ideas from great friends on what to post in this blog. The Netherlands highway paint idea came from Vermont's Denis Desjarlais, who has a habit of finding very cool articles. Thanks, Denis!

Road Signs for Stupid Drivers

I just came off of writing an article for the Burlington Free Press about traffic problems in parts of northwestern Vermont

I wish the Vermont Transportatio
Department would install signs
like this.  

Yes, it's true Vermont highways aren't exactly like L.A. during rush hour and a storm, but we get our frustrating moments. Some people in Vermont have creative approaches to driving. It is kind of a free spirited state, after all.

We deal with people who can't decide which lane they want to drive in, so they pick both. It's scenic here in Vermont, so we expected a pretty view all the time. Which explains why when a traffic signal goes from red to green, people don't go, but sit there, waiting for the green to turn into a nicer shade, to match the surrounding trees.

They also wait for stop signs to turn green, too.

For some reason, Subaru drivers move very slowly. There's a LOT of Subarus in Vermont, so don't drive here if you are in a hurry. People don't like change, either.

So expect a slowdown when approaching a construction zone. After all, construction means change, and that's never good.

The signs say the speed is reduced to 40 or 50 mph at construction zones, which makes sense. You want it to be safe for the construction workers.

But people slow down to 10 or 20 mph, expecting a reward or something for slow driving. Also, if on Interstate 89, watch out if you see a police car with a trooper inside on the lookout for speeders. Even if you're obeying all traffic laws.

That's because people freak out near parked police cars along highways.  If the speed limit is 65 mph, people will slow down to 40 mph when the cop comes into view. I guess they think the nice police officer will hand out candy to people who drive really, really slowly.

Me, I miss out on the candy. I have this strange notion that if I'm not speeding and I'm not driving erratically, the cop will leave me alone. An odd viewpoint in Vermont, apparently.

But, we eventually get to where we are going. I guess it's better than a highway full of road ragers pointing machine guns at us as they pass.