Motorcycle Safety

Okay, yes this is about RVs and driving safety, because it is about RVers.  There are many RVers that are motorcycle enthusiasts.  In Canada, motorcyclists have been dragging their two-wheeled freedom machines out of storage for the last few weeks, and I am seeing more and more of them out on the streets again.  Those of you who live where you don’t get three feet of snow are lucky enough to ride your motorcycles year round.  Either way, we could all use a few reminders about motorcycle safety — even if you don’t ride one, as we all share the road. Sadly, I investigate at least one fatality every riding season where a motorcyclist loses his (or her) life because of careless driving.  Usually, that carelessness is firmly on the shoulders of the victim himself.  These are typically young males who enjoy the adrenaline rush a fast motorcycle can give them for relatively few dollars compared to a sportscar that still wouldn’t come close to the acceleration of a motorcycle at 3x the price.  I can recall travelling west of Calgary on the Trans-Canada highway at 115 Km/h in my pickup, and being passed like I was standing still by a sportbike with a lone rider.  Doesn’t sound too uncommon until I tell you that he was only on the back wheel at the time!  Craziness!  That young man was one golf ball sized stone away from death. Read more  Read More →

5th Wheel Towing – Unsafe Mounting Practices

I came across this video by Pull-Rite about the hazards of mounting a hitch behind the truck axle, and thought it to be valuable information. Here’s the scoop: This video takes a look at the more radical ideas that some people think might be a solution for towing 5th wheel trailers with a short bed truck. Mounting a hitch behind the truck axle, or changing the towing pivot point to behind the axle, creates unstable, unsafe, and dangerous towing characteristics. No knowledgeable RVer, RV Dealer, or Hitch Installer would suggest or consider these options. Moving the towing pivot point behind the truck axle induces dangerous trailer sway, and eliminates the advantages inherent to 5th wheel towing – with the trailer now having a negative effect on the safety, stability, and handling due to cross winds, passing trucks, and unexpected maneuvers. Safe handling speeds will be significantly reduced.  Read More →

Drinking and Driving Part 2

Well, some of you may have noticed my blog didn’t appear last week.  My new computer and I weren’t getting along.  I got some malware or a virus and the thing crashed on me.  I had to enlist the help of a friend who is a computer genius, and now I’m back up and running.  I have also installed new anti-virus/anti-spyware software.  I’m still having some issues with the link function here, so forgive my lengthy link urls.  Enough about that, back to the topic at hand.  Last week, er…two weeks ago, I started a blog where I asked for some input from you, the reader as to what you’d like to know about the law and drinking and driving.  You can read it here:  http://blog.rv.net/2008/02/26/drinking-and-driving-law-enforcement-perspective/ I got some interesting messages and comments from you. One of the first things I thought I’d cover was how much is too much? Read more  Read More →

Drinking and Driving – Law Enforcement Perspective

This week I’m going to post some thoughts on drinking and driving, then I’m going to ask for some interaction from you.  We all know it’s illegal to drive when we’ve had too much to drink, but how much is too much? To put it simply, any is too much.  Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) limits vary by region, by Country, and by State.  All across Canada, the legal limit is 0.08.  In the USA, it varies with some States having a legal limit of 0.08 and some 0.10.  Problem is, most people know when they feel “drunk” but that is subjective, and can vary widely person to person. Read more  Read More →

Crashes Aren’t Accidents

This week, I’m going to focus on the main causes of the crashes I attend.  I go to an average of about 3 crashes every 12 hour shift.  In poor weather, that number can quadruple easily.  First, a confession.  I was in a fender-bender about a year ago (first time in a long time), so I’m not typing this from high atop Mount Olympus.  We all make mistakes.  In my crash, I was looking for a parking spot, and going fairly slow (20 mph) on a city street.  When I checked the right hand lane I planned to change into, it was empty, so I began to move over.  When I got 1/2 way into it, a red sedan flew by me on the right, and I clipped the driver’s side of his car.  I guess when I looked behind me, he was close enough to be hidden in his low slung car, and after I started to move, he tried passing me on the right, at the wrong time.  Anyway, no one was hurt.    So, now that I have that out of the way, lets get to it.  Why refer to collisions as “crashes”?  Well, because in 99% of all cases, someone has to do something wrong for the collision to happen.  The word accident implies that it was an unavoidable circumstance, when that’s not the case most times.  If we all drove following 100% of all traffic laws and gave 100% of our attention to driving, these crashes wouldn’t happen.  But, as in my example, we’re all human, and we are not perfect.  So, I’ll always have job security I guess .  I have seen a few... Read more

Driving in Poor Weather

I’ve posted a few threads on the forums recently as we’ve had some really poor weather here in the Great White North as of late.  Blizzards, heavy snow, icy roads, we’ve been through it all in the last few weeks.  Fog, heavy rain, snow, sleet, hail, strong winds, bad weather for driving comes in all forms…and it comes on when we’re out on the road.  There’s a common problem many of us Canadians, and those in the Northern USA see every year - people seem to forget all of the winter driving skills they used last year.  The first bit of bad weather brings oodles of fender benders and serious collisions alike.  What to do – continue on or pull over?  Stay home or make the trip we planned?  These are decisions we each have to make at the time.  Read more  Read More →

All About Tires – and walnut shells?

They’re too noisy, they wear out too fast, they’re expensive, and most people only pay attention to them when they go flat.  Yes, I’m talking about your tires. Typically neglected and ignored, these are some of the most important components of your tow vehicle or RV.  If we’re going to talk tires, perhaps I should explain the mysterious code found on the sidewall of tires. I’ll use a P225/60R16 as an example from one of our police cars. Here’s what it all means: Read more  Read More →

Vehicle Safety – What boxes do I check?

As a guy that goes to the scene of many vehicle crashes, I often get asked what safety features one should consider when buying a new car, and which cars or trucks are “the safest” and which ones aren’t so safe.   There are very few cars that come to mind that are dangerous, but there are some with minor design issues that come to mind. I have seen more than one person killed when, in a rollover type collision, they were driving an early 90s vintage GM small car.  These models include the Pontiac Sunbird, Chevy Cavalier, and a few other models.  These were the cars that had the seatbelt assembly for the front passengers built into the doors.  Problem with this design is that if the door latch should fail, the door can then open, and if that happens – you are no longer restrained.  In the case I am talking about, that is indeed what happened — the driver was ejected in the rollover and subsequently killed.  The photo below is not that car, but rather an example of the seatbelt type I am talking about. Read more  Read More →

STOP!

It’s just common sense.  The faster you go, the longer it takes you to stop. BUT, how much longer?  This week, we’re going to look at the relationship between stopping distance and speed, and then throw in the human factor. I’ve investigated hundreds of collisions that occurred only because the driver was simply going too fast.  They didn’t understand the relationship between speed and how long it takes to stop.  Then, for those of us that tow an RV or drive a heavy class A or C, you have to throw in the added kinetic energy that those vehicle/RV combinations have.  WARNING: CRASH GEEK CONTENT BELOW! I’ll confess that I’m a metrican, so the following calculations will be in metric. Some laboratory type examples: Car traveling 50Km/h (~31mph) will take about 14.6m to stop in dry pavement.  This assumes all brakes are working. Same car traveling 70Km/h (~43mph) will take 27.5m to stop (almost exactly double!) Who would have thought that an increase of 20Km/h (12mph) would have doubled the stopping distance?  For those that want to know, the formula is: d = s²/254µ  where: d = distance in meters s = speed in Km/h µ = coefficent of friction of roadway Now, the human factor.  Based on research done by a guy named Paul Olson, the 85th percentile (85/100 people) perception/reaction (P/R) time for a driver that is faced with an unexpected roadway hazard is 1.5 seconds.  Interestingly the 95th percentile number is a longer 1.6 seconds.  “Now,... Read more

Automotive “Black Boxes”? Explosives in your car?

Yes, and yes. Many an RVer is driving around right now with “Big Brother” watching, and up to six explosive devices in their vehicles. For years, aviation crash investigators have had the benefit of being able to recover some of the last moments of a doomed flight by recovering and analyzing the flight data recorder. This device, commonly referred to as a “black box” (which is actually bright orange), saves data on altitude, speed, and control inputs. Unknown to many, this type of information is available to automotive crash investigators as well. First, a little background. In the early 1970’s, the US National Transport Safety Board recommended that vehicle manufacturers and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) work together to gather crash data using some kind of on-board recording device. General Motors has become a leader in making this information accessible to a person with the right equipment and knowledge. Some type of recorder has been installed in General Motor’s vehicles since 1974. It began with airbag-equipped vehicles having old fashioned electromechanical g-sensors, diagnostic circuits, and an instrument panel readiness light that illuminated if a fault was detected. These crude sensors basically amounted to a metal ball in a tube. At one end of the tube was a magnet, on the other, two contact wires separated by a gap. If the impact was severe enough to dislodge the ball from the magnet, the sensor was triggered. ... Read more

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