Driving in Texas

[sarcasm]So, is this some sort of elitist blanket accusation about the state of driving in all of Texas, or about the state of traffic conditions and emergency management in that part of the country, or only about that specific roadway and municipality? I'd hate to think that something that you were innocently posting could be possibly misconstrued.[/sarcasm]

Short answer: Yes

I lived in The Lone Star State for many years, and as much as I like it there, it tends to go down hill from what you saw in the videos.
 
So the cops trying to unscrew this colossal mess are at fault?

Texans are the nicest folks on the planet until you give them car keys, which is much the same as performing mass frontal lobotomies.

4 lanes of I-20 backed up this morning................ for several miles............by dumbass drivers because a single police car was parked on the grass beside the service road with reds/blues flashing while issuing a traffic citation. All this took place 50 feet from the lanes of traffic. Cop at fault here too????
 
Texans are the nicest folks on the planet until you give them car keys, which is much the same as performing mass frontal lobotomies.

QUOTE]

I have a bunch of friends in Texas so I didn't want to put it quite so bluntly but you nailed it. They should take away the keys and go back to horses.....LOL
 
I've lived in a few states and driven through a bunch of them. Cars are like anonymous Internet forums. They give one the impression that he can unleash the personality that he hides from polite company, and from the boss at work. That people turn their brains off when they turn their cars on is a human condition, not specific to Texas or any one state. It is the same all over the US and the world.

Youtube vids from around the world make driving anywhere in the US seem down right safe...
 
Well the 3 biggest things that cause horrific traffic like every single day are:

a. HOV lanes, the single most stupid invention in the history of traffic. Listen to the radio reports every day and pretty much for every highway there is ... "accident in the HOV lane and left lane".

b. Stupid road lane designs... because it is such a good idea to have an exit from 2 directions of a major super highway merge from 2 lanes each exit, to one lane each exit, to one single lane exit, to merge with another super highway on the same lane as the exit lane for a major street.

C. Go from 4 lanes in each direction to like 2 lanes in each direction and merge in 3 other lanes... then open back up about 3 miles later to 6 lanes... apparently when spending a billion dollars nobody thinks about widening a short stretch of straight road to have matching lanes.

That being said the police do create serious traffic problems (usually when trying to raise money for their cities budget)... Just got to love it when you are listening to the traffic report and 3 major super highways are down to a crawl because on one of them in one little spot some city is running "hov lane enforcement" (otherwise known as fundraising ), or the other favorite one of course, sitting on the shoulders with their lights on so everyone either has to swerve to another lane or slam on their breaks if they are trapped in the lane... (again... extra budget gap filling time), but those are minor in compared to the above 3.

Then again you drive enough and you pretty much always see people driving / walking / bike riding like they either want to get killed or want to see how horrific of an accident they can get into (maybe there is some youtube competition with the Russians for worst accidents).
 
^^^And in Austin where the limit on 130 bypass the limit is 85 which should give rise to some 100 mph driving.
 
There are reports that the feral pig population is an effective speed limiter on 130...

google search feral pig texas 130.
.

Wow, I didnt realize it had gotten that bad. They are destructive SOB's. And that's not counting the deer which are about out of control.
 
A few years back me and some buds went to the Cattlemen's restaurant outside El Paso. A couple of miles after we turned off the interstate, there was a Hollywood movie shoot being set up on both side of the county road. Which seemed kind of neat at the time.

After dinner, we hadn't much more than left the restaurant's parking lot until there was a deputy sherrif's car turned crosswise in the road. No blue lights or nothing, just sitting there.

So we pulled up and asked what the dealio was, and he said they'd closed the road while filming was in progress. We asked him if we could back-track and circle around the shoot, or get back to El Paso on back roads, and he said no, there was only the one way. So we asked what we should do.

He said, "If ituz me, I'd go back to the bar and have another beer."


A cop. Suggesting we go drink more beers.



Only in Texas.