Clear the fog away

It’s that time of year. The time that I absolutely hate and one of the main reasons I don’t like living here. Fog season.

Its not your average fog, it becomes so thick its dubbed “treacherous” on the news and radio, advising people to stay off the roads and incur “foggy day schedule” at schools. A few years back it was so horrible, it caused a 200 car pileup on the freeway.

I get to drive in this every single day lately to work. I take back roads with dairy farms that make the fog even thicker and more dense. Its exhausting and trying driving every morning in fog that only gets thicker each day. If you follow me on twitter and instagram, you’ve seen the pictures and know what I’ve been dealing with!

The past week or so, I’ve really been thinking on the do’s and don’ts of driving in fog. There’s so many that are so crucial, yet even people here don’t follow them. It amazes me…then annoys me.

Monday morning on my way to work..{a 25 minutes drive}. Pretty bad to say the least. It took every ounce of energy I had to focus that morning to get to work. It left me wanting to take a nap all day long.

Tuesday morning. Normally when I get to this point in town, it’s a breeze, but a train unexpectedly came through and we all had to wait while it went 10mph. I couldn’t even see the train for the full 10 minutes it went by and I was only 5 cars from the tracks. It was so much thicker than the day before

Its important to know the DO’S when driving in the fog but even more important to know the DON’TS

DO
~ turn your headlights on (you’d be amazed at how many people don’t do this)
DON’T
~ turn your brights on
~ turn your hazard lights on
~ turn your parking lights on

DO
~ turn your radio down or off
DON’T
~ play with your radio
~ have your radio up loud

DO
~ drive the speed limit or just under
~ set your cruise control so you won’t have to use extra energy focusing on your gas petal
~ pull to the side when someone comes up behind you who’s going faster than you
DON’T
~ go 35 in a 55 (this will only serve getting you and someone else killed who comes up on you)

DO
~ fix your eyes straight ahead while keeping the lines in sight
~ rely on your GPS when you can’t see road signs to tell you when your turn is coming

DON’T
~ look to the left or right
~ look down at your speedometer (why I recommend using cruise control)
~ talk or text on the phone
~ look at the on coming traffic that came out of no where
~ look at what appears to be headlights in the far distance (at night) as a marker. They’ll turn out to be house lights that could steer you off the road
~ think about anything. Getting lost in thought is not an option
~ think about passing a slow driver (even though you really want to)
~ do anything that would in any way distract from your driving

If you don’t know where you are or aren’t familiar with your surroundings then, I would say drive a little slower, but I can’t stress how driving way under the speed limit is a serious danger to all other drivers around. And more so, if you have to pull over for whatever reason; turn off all lights to your car! Keep hazard lights and headlights off. Any glint of light people see, will have them think they need to be over to the right and will slam right into your parked car.

My co worker (who also drives bus) sent me this picture. At first I thought it was her, but thankfully it wasn’t. A van came quickly on a stop sign she didn’t know was there, slammed on her brakes, which had the truck who didn’t know she was there slamming on her brakes, coming too fast behind her, slam into her, shoving her mini van into the other lane and stopping on the other side of the road. Thankfully no cars were coming the other direction.

You can see how thick the fog is (at 10am) behind them.

People drive stupid. Driving too fast… I’m sure people would call me stupid because I will drive the speed limit (55mph) the whole way. I’m very aware the whole time, doesn’t mean I wouldn’t get in a crash still, but I’m not going to risk it and unnecessarily go slow.

The fog is disorienting enough as it is, I don’t need to be staring at it twice as long, going slow.

I’m sure I missed some do’s and don’t, so what are some that you feel are important to follow?

How are you driving in the fog?
- in town and residential areas, I do drive very slowly. I can’t risk hitting a person I don’t see crossing the street. But on a highway, I will go ‘fast’.

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