We've got a road that goes across the valley between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea
called Saddle Road. The road was originally built by the military in WWII
and probably hasn't been resurfaced since it was paved sometime in the last
millenium. My son used to describe it as a one lane road with patches along
both sides. Only way to drive this road is in the center until forced to
give way to oncoming traffic. BIG problem is a lot of Yahoos in lifted,
big wheel trucks insist on taking the center lane even around blind turns.
The only relatively safe time to take the road is at night when you can see
the oncoming headlights before the vehicle. The lights at least encourage
the Yahoos to consider moving over. To make it more interesting, about a
1/4 of the road, the worst quarter, is normally embedded in the clouds so
visibility is cut to a few hundred feet and the surface slippery.
Another local trait that increases excitement is the refusal to turn on
headlights until an hour after sunset or midnight, which ever comes last.
Don't know why our native born think turning on the lights, to be seen, is a
sign of a lack of testosterone. Its not that they don't realize a need as
they often turn on their parking lights. Now parking lights are parking
lights, a detent on the switch to keep you from getting rammed in the rear
while stopped. They do precious little to increase your visibility to
oncoming vehicles. I've even had helpful souls flash their lights on and
off to tell me that my lights are on. This is often when the wipers are on
max fast (not in a Rover, obviously) and visibility down to a few feet in
driving rain. Does it ever occur to them that the reason they knew I was
there because they saw headlights long before they could see the car??
Needless to say the accident rate is very high and fatalities per accident
even higher.
Aloha
Peter
> > 2. In Southern Africa, notwithstanding their British heritage, they
>tend to
> > drive in the middle.... You there Paul? :-)
>
><koff> now that's hardly fair, Ed, where there are proper roads with
>both a left and a right lane, we mostly choose the left one... or the
>right one, whichever has the least potholes :-{)}
>
>Regards
>Paul Oxley
>AfricanAdrenalin.com
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