Originally Posted By: Miller88
The thing that worries me about the highway is being way easier to get involved in a pile up. There's a minor wreck ahead of you, you stop, then you get plowed by someone on their cell phone.
The exit ramp I have to use to get home at night often backs up into the interstate. If it's backed up, I will take the next exit and circle back. Don't want to leave myself exposed.
With that said - there were a few intersections where I would see wrecks at least once a week. From red light runners.
At least when you are on a surface street, you can easily make a detour. If you are on the interstate and there is a wreck, be prepared to sit forever.
One morning I got stuck for 1.5 hours because someone entering the highway from an on ramp was not paying attention and cut across 3 lanes of traffic. She clipped a truck which spun out and hit a box truck. The pickup ended up on its side blocking 2 lanes of traffic and the box truck was stopped on the 3rd.
Most of the interstates are/were not intended to handle the volume they currently experience. Furthermore, driving habits have also changed. The distances drivers allow between vehicles has decreased significantly, so much so that those who did traffic flow modeling had to change their parameters. So even highways without an increase in lanes experience as much as 40% more traffic per volume per hour that was thought possible than only a few decades ago. People use interstates for cross-town, intercity, and inter-regional travel... and not just interstate travel.
I expect distracted driving to increase as automaker continue to try and reduce the amount of attention needed to operate a vehicle. The more a car does for you, the less you pay attention.
