JoeyBike

It was early Fall c.1993. I was on my way home during a long self-contained solo bike tour from New Orleans to Maine and back to NOLA. I found myself in Tazwell, TN at a Ramada Inn where I hoped to find unlimited ice for a mildly sore knee. Three days later I was still in that same hotel room watching Hockey on ESPN and MTV (when it was still good). The knee felt great but the place was socked in with the densest fog you could imagine. My only route out of there would be on twisty-turny Appalachian mountain roads with terrible sight lines on a good day. The fog never relented one bit for three whole days and nights. My knee felt like new when I finally left that place on a sunny morning.

Did I overreact? Or was it a prudent move? Honestly, I have never second-guessed that decision and I am still above ground to NOT ponder that stay.

There are a few here on A&S who do not believe that poor driving conditions contribute to cyclists getting clobbered by motor vehicles and that somehow savvy motorists should just STOP and wait for that blinding sun to rise above the windscreen visors, or the fog to lift, or maybe even clean their windshield on the regular. But a cyclist should dang well be able to go for a ride whenever they dang well fell like it regardless of conditions. No need to worry one bit about cycling directly into the rising/setting sun or that fog bank because we all know that every motorist is perfect, skilled, and alert!

Well....Perhaps that needs a bit of re-thinking.

Imagine a pileup of 100 cars and semi trucks, ON FIRE, spread out across an entire Interstate highway, and 58 MORE motorists plow into that burning pile of rubber and metal at speed.

The SAFETY message: If conditions are bad, motorists will NOT adjust their "get there at all costs" attitude or driving techniques no matter how many cyclists may wish it so. And if they couldn't see 100 burning cars up ahead, how on Earth would they see us on a bike?

Rick

I hate the fog and when posable don't pedal in it. I leave my camp sites before sunup and stop for breakfast prior to the sun in the eyes of motorists.

FBinNY 

Discretion is the better part of valor.

We all willing assume risks cycling, and in fact anytime we do anything. A benefit of experience is that we get better at assessing risk, and make smarter decisions. Also, at a certain point things tend to become less about pride and more about being smart or practical.

Pea soup fog and/or black ice conditions are among the things that will keep me from venturing out on 2 wheels (or 4).

Iride01 

Unrestricted visibility is important for all modes of transportation. Not sure what to make of this thread, other than we should all be safe. We not only have to consider what actions we'll take to ensure our safety, but what actions others will take for their safety. And will they be able to react in time to stop several tons of vehicle weight within the distance they can see at the speed they are traveling.

Staying put and not traveling is always an option.

3alarmer 

...I lived not too far from Tazewell, in La Follette, TN, for three years. I got rid of my bicycle, and switched to jogging for exercise. In East, TN, back in the early 80's, you weren't safe on a bicycle on the local roads if the visibility was 30 miles in all directions. We get some dense fogs here in the Central Valley that sometimes trigger those massive car pileups. I did used to ride to work in Merced, through dense fog. But that was a smaller farm town, and my commute was relatively short, and not heavily trafficked. So I've done it, in the past, and even more recently here in Sacramento, but only on MUP trails.

I probably wouldn't do it now, because I am old in spite of all this.

Paul Barnard

"There are a few here on A&S who do not believe that poor driving conditions contribute to cyclists getting clobbered by motor vehicles and that somehow savvy motorists should just STOP and wait for that blinding sun to rise above the windscreen visors"

It seems like you are purposefully misrepresenting my position. First and foremost, I won't ride in a heavy fog. I also believe that motorists are responsible for not out-driving their line of sight, whether it's fog, blind bends or blind hills that are reducing it. Indeed, had everyone involved in those crashes adhered to that safety practice, the crashes would not have happened. That's inarguable.

I will ride when the sun is out. I do believe that anyone who is driving in conditions where they cannot mitigate the glare of the sun to the point that they can identify and appropriately react to, motorists, cyclists, pedestrians, traffic lights etc. should remove themselves from the road. Feel free to explain how that is unreasonable.

So, while poor driving conditions are contributory, they are not causal. The causal factor is driver irresponsibility. "The sun was in my eyes" is an excuse, not a reason.

Rick

I believe it is your right to do as you want. If I can plan my trip around fog and when the sun goes up or down I use caution and do so. A friend of ours rode her bicycle to work often. One morning when the sun was in the motorists eyes, she was struck from behind. She had a broken hip from the collision. She was off of her bicycle for the better part of a year. I have been fortunate and haven't encountered fog that often while out riding. When I was in the Army and had Days off I would leave my campsite before sunup and stop to eat breakfast before the sun was in the motorists eyes.

FBinNY 

The same rule applies in fog as when riding toward a low sun.

If you're having problems seeing where you're going, so will everyone coming up behind you.

JoeyBike

So kind of you to illustrate my point. Much appreciated.
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Bleu

Tazewell is in the Smokies, and they're called that because of the damn fog. My current home of record is a little bit east in Tennessee. Probably the smartest thing to do is stay put. I have delayed my morning departure due to fog and or excessive rain , snow etc many times , and every time I do there are countless trucks and cars in the ditch when I do get there (cars get picked up quicker as heavy wreckers are fewer and very expensive). Never regretted waiting out the fog. But there are so many incompetent drivers now, some even driving class 8 vehicles, who are so hot to get there and aren't looking far enough ahead on a good day that these pileup crashes are becoming common.

Leisesturm

Gosh Joey, I'm not sure what we would do without your periodic PSA's about dire threats to us and our bikes. Still, how seriously must I take a threat that last happened in 1993, and on an Interstate Highway at that? You can do better than this. You want a fog story? I have a fog story [cue Harp glissando, scene dissolve] Sometime in the late 1970's I was 18 years old and working as a musician at a summer camp for rich kids in New Hampshire. I had never been outside of my little corner of Brooklyn, NY. I had never seen Nature. I had never seen fog. Not really.

I had never hitchhiked either, but all my co-workers were doing it, and we got some rides around, and I thought, 'how hard could it be to do myself'? So one Friday evening after a show, I set off for home for the weekend. No rides, the cars got fewer and fewer, and then none at all, and I might have been two miles from Camp, maybe three, I'm 18 remember. 18 and athletic and full of hope. Maybe I'll just walk home. Night fell and I couldn't even see to walk. I saw some distant headlights coming and I stuck my thumb out and I heard a long blast of airhorn and the brightest of lights showed me that I was right in the middle of the road! The truck never slowed! I had to throw myself out of its way, or maybe the air piled up in front of it pushed me? I stayed right where I was in a shaking heap at the side of the road all night. At first I was shaking from the shock of the near miss, but then I started shaking from the cold.

While you were icing your knee in a toasty hotel room (room service?) and watching MTV, I was lying in a ditch in the dark. Cold and damp in the New Hampshire woods. Listening to the night creatures. Keep in mind that its my picture in the dictionary under the "city boy" entry. I was enough of a nerd to know that there were things called Bears. It was a very long night. Here comes the fog part.

When morning came, I found myself swathed in the thickest, pea soupiest fog I could never imagine in my wildest dreams. I couldn't even see the ground! But I could hear the cars and trucks now that folks had woken up and were on their way to wherever. Zooom, whoosh, Zooom. I couldn't see them. They were just feet away, and surely they couldn't see anything either? But they were blasting along .... whoooosh, zoooom.

So I waited some more hours until that fog lifted and I never tried to hitchhike anywhere ever again. And decades later I was on an Interstate doing the limit plus 10 (80mph) which was my habit in the Gay 90's. And suddenly some sixth sense said "STOP NOW" and I started decelerating like mad, pumping the brakes so they flashed a warning to anyone tailgating and there spread out in front of us was an entire freeway full of stopped traffic.

It isn't that drivers cant SEE the 100 burning cars and trucks (if there is no fog) it is that the (normal) human mind simply cannot comprehend that it will take a full half mile or more to slow down from 80 miles per hour and you have already used up 1/2 of that making your right foot mash the brake pedal! But on normal roads, the kind bicycles are allowed on, such dire hazards should not exist. I'm good with that. I don't like riding in fog. But I'll put my flashers on and head out if I have to. We don't get real fog around here nohow anyways ...

Clyde1820

With hindsight, clearly you'd made the right call that day. But, in those conditions I almost certainly would have done the same thing.

For decades, I lived in a place along a coastline with serious bouts of fog, rain storms, dense clouds up in the low mountains. Lots of twisty roads everywhere. Mostly country roads, but a handful of "highways" (one lane each direction, sometimes two). Always deadly, if the conditions were right.

On countless occasions, I had deliberately opted to stay off the road, or wait several hours. On one three-day trip a buddy and I did, we got stuck in a freak "gully-washer" of a rainstorm over a ridge in the mountains. My buddy went off the road and into a deep ditch, and didn't survive it.

You never know. Those little hairs on the back of the neck? I listen to them. They're often indicators of recognition of a brewing threat that we should pay attention to. But when it's dense fog or stormy weather ... yeah, I generally stay away from the roadways. Far too many people exist on such routes who don't adequately appreciate the risks and who refuse to travel accordingly. Isn't worth mixing it up with such people.

JoeyBike

That must have been terrible for you! Yeah, things happen so fast. I try to limit those "things" best I can.

Regards.

vol

Not fog, but once during a winter, few minutes after I got on the bike to go to work, I saw snow flurries coming down, dense enough to affect visibility. I got off the bike, went home and took public transportation.

Like choosing where to ride, when to ride, this is one of the things we can control to potentially save ourselves. Any inconvenience is outweighed by the potential serious consequence.

JoeyBike

Like you, I have nothing to prove.

Clyde1820

It took more than a year to get over. Was ugly. And there wasn't a damned thing I could do about it.

There's good reason the old adage is an old one: "Discretion is the better part of valor." Though, on that particular day, there was nothing to indicate that a particularly-nasty rain band was about to hit just as we passed the ridge line. No way to avoid it. One second, it was very light drizzle ... the next, it was all but impossible to see 15ft ahead, and that squall was dropping boulders and mud off the mountainside right next to the road. One of those buggers landed right in front of us, smack in the middle of the road. Had we taken the other route through the mountains, quite likely we'd have missed that ugly rain, but it was also a sketchy route through the mountains, neither one much safe than the other.

JoeyBike

Oh, I've been trapped in some sticky situations on bike tours. Some bridges come to mind. No place to bail. Just put the hammer down and get past the danger spot ASAP. Nothing but luck to pay homage to. One of my biggest fears was to be in the middle of the country (Kansas for instance) and have a mesocyclone blow up on top of me raining baseball size hail, ground strike lightning, torrential rains, and maybe a tornado. What the Hell would I do? Kneel on my sleeping pad in a ditch?

Long before cell phones I traveled with an NOAA Weather Radio. That thing saved my arse many times. I made sure to check it every day and plan on indoor accommodations when the rough stuff moved through. I got surprised a couple times but never more than heavy rain and tiny hail. WIND of course. Again - LUCK plus some precautions.