More Evidence of the need of SUV training/license class requirement

Hi All,

I was a witness, albeit a half-awake witness, to an accident this week, which gives further support for the need for SUV special training, and license level.

That day, this week, I was a passenger (carpooling) in the front passenger seat. I was drifting in and out of sleep while we cruised along the interstate. At the point of the accident, the interstate was five lanes, call them 1 for the fast lane, to 5 for the lane all the way to the left.

We were cruising along in lane 3. A few moments earlier I had noticed a light blue first generation Prius in Lane 4, and pointed it out to the driver, who was not familiar with the first generation of the Prius. This Prius, of between 7 and 10 years old was Jay Leano collector car imaculate! I had never seen the light blue before, and it is truely a fantastic color! Unfortuneately, this car would not be in such great condition after the accident, due to the incompentent operation by yet another SUV driver.

Initially, I had my eyses shut, and heard the driver gasp. I quickly opened my eyes, and did not see anything initially wrong at that time. There were two dark colored small cars close to each other in Lanes 1 and 2, about 20 yards ahead of us. We were in Lane 3. The car in lane 2 rear bumper was even with the front bumper of the car in lane 1. There was a heavy deposit of salt in the center of each lane.

The car in lane 2 accellerated slightly then steered over into lane 1. At that time, this car lost control and its axial line veered off its direction of travel, and it rapidly moved in front of the car in lane 1. It also slowed quickly. The car in lane one had only a brief moment to counter steer, and it steered towards lane 2. There were at least two impacts, the first of which pushed the car initially from lane 1 broadside to its direction of travel, and that direction of travel was inline with lane 1. The second impact turned the car initially from lane 2, so that the car was reversed in its axial orientation. At this point, the two cars became entangled and slid off into shoulder to the left of lane 1, and smashed into the center divider concrete wall.

I can only guess that the lane 2 car hit a thick section of roadway salt under high accelleration , which caused its passenger side drive wheel to loose traction. And that resulted in its rapid pull to the left in front of the Lane 1 car. It could have be a tire failure as well, I suppose.

As the two smashed up cars flew off to the left, I scanned the complete roadway ahead of us. The first generation Prius was about 75 yards in front of us, off over to our right in lane 5. We continued along in lane 3

Then a dark colored SUV went flying by us in Lane 2. It then closely passed in front of us, in a distance of about 5 yards. It was doing in excess of 15 mph faster than we were, as best I can remember.

This was at least 3 seconds after the first two cars went into the wall.

The SUV continued in a direction that crossed lanes, and drove right into the driver side rear fender of the Prius. Being well ahead of the first accident, I doubt the Prius driver had seen it.

After impact with the Prius, the SUV continued off to the right, and out of my line of sight. I was now concentrating on the Prius, which was knocked to about a 30 degree angle off the direction of previous travel, and rapidly veered off to the left in front of us. As we had slowed slightly to stay behind the initial accident, and the Prius had not, it passed sliding sidways in front of us, across all five lanes, and impacted the center wall, which then snapped it around into a reverse direction.

What a Shame this all was. Incompetent 2nd lane driver, not realising the issue with salt coated surfaces, with poorly maintained tires, or both , and then the incompetence of the SUV driver, to be in such a panic to move right, that it almost hit us, and then the SUV not having sufficient manueverability or braking capability to avoid hitting what was previously a collector car first generation Prius.


I really think the Illinois State Police need to start doing more rolling patrols in this area. As the next day, less than a mile further down this road, was another accident, that resulted in a death. People are just not driving with sufficient caution on I-355 northbound.

As many of you know, my 2006 Prius was totalled on an on-ramp to this road back in September 2010 by an incompently operated SUV.

 

Hi dotb...,

You apparently did not read my original post carefully.

First, I was not driving. Second, we were in the 3 rd lane from the left, not in a Prius, but a full sized American sedan and after everything was over, were not involved in any collision at all. I can only praise the driver of the vehicle I was in for staying aside ahead, and then behind the collisions, and out-of-control vehicles all around us! 4th, the driver that was cutoff in the fast lane was doing 65 mph in a 55 mph zone. 6th, going faster was apparently too fast for condtions due to the salt dust deposits on the roadway, as the initial collision proved. And finally, the collision with the Prius was in the 5 th lane, a lane that eventually exits, snd should have been the lane where slowest traffic is, yet the SUV shot over there at about 70 mph.

 

Hi cwerda and fuzzy1,

Yes. I think we really really need a heavy-weight vehicle license class. I doubt many professional CDL drivers would conflict with this opinion. Anything over 5500 pounds, and / or taller than 6 feet, should require this training/license class.


I say height as a requirement for the training, because on other occaisions, I have been endagered by SUV drivers, who did not realise the height of their vehicle resulted in vision blokage of other vehicles around them. I had one SUV driver wave traffic in front of me, as I proceeded along in the right lane of a secondary road, while the SUV was was stopped for traffic at an intersection in its lane. She attempted to wave oncoming left turner to drive right into me. The SUV was a Hummer H2.

 

Hi Tony,

My point is that everybody is trained to drive a car in driver's ed, but nobody gets SUV/Large Pickup operation education as part of standard driver's ed. Yet, they are given the right to operate a much more dangerous, and difficult to control vehicle by merely passing the driving test in the typical 3000 pound car.

SUV's/Large Pickups have peculiarities of operation and design which make them more likely to go out of control, and once out of control there is much more energy of motion associated with these vehicles that will cause much more damage. By the same laws of physics that less impact is imparted to the occupant of a SUV, that much more impact is imparted to the objects/people that a SUV hits. To have the right to have that amount of energy at one's command, it only seems reasonable one should have to learn how to control and demonstrate the capability of that level of control.

 

Hi Steve...,

Well, yea. And the SUV specific training would help to deal with that, would it not ?

But, you also have the oblivious drivers too, who are in a SUV to save their own rear-end, besides the one that drive agresssively, for agresiveness sake. Again, SUV traning would deal with that. When the reality of the limitation of the SUV is made apparent, allot of them are going to amend their driving behaviors.

With either type of driver, the situations propagate until the SUV handling/braking characteristics are insufficient to recover the situation. And then people/property get badly injured. This is why training is needed to bring to the concious level when they are going beyond the capbilities of their vehicles.