Last week as I was driving the 2020 Mazda CX-5 Signature, the review of which is posted just above this, I came across not one but two incidents of note that were far more interesting than your garden-variety accident. The first was the Dodge Ram pickup mid-stream of which there’s more on later. But first, there’s one that flirted with danger right to the edge.
Yes, this Buick got awfully close to descending faster than ever before. This eighth generation LeSabre was produced as a 2000-2005 model, I’m going with it being a 2000 model but could be wrong. Having been a LeSabre (’88 T-Type) owner myself that’s the only generation I can readily identify.
I can’t think of many scenarios much worse than sliding towards a cliff, I wonder how hard the driver was on the brakes just willing it to stop.
You can see the skid marks starting on the asphalt and then it turns into a somewhat graceful four-wheel slide. The correct procedure would be to point the wheel at a very shallow angle in the direction you’d want to go with a little gas to get it going straight again but with a cliff looming it’s hard to put that into practice and not just mash the brakes and close your eyes which of course won’t change the direction of travel one bit but just might stop you in time.
Once the immediacy of the Code Brown moment passed, our driver had the presence of mind to leave a note referencing that he went to get a truck before leaving…Hopefully it wasn’t the blue Dodge Ram. The yellow tape and red tag is from the State Patrol or Sheriff to denote that the vehicle has been inspected for passengers and is awaiting retrieval.
This second generation mid 90’s Dodge Ram on the other hand wasn’t lucky enough to stop in time. It’s a bit hard to fathom how exactly he ended up in there (beyond the obvious, I mean).
There weren’t any skid marks on the road and if anything the grass on the verge was flattened in a very small area, as if the truck had veered off at an extremely tight angle. Or perhaps he went off upstream and the truck floated with the current for a while and the flattened grass was from something else. I first saw this about an hour before I stopped on my return journey. As I passed it the first time there was a man on the verge with a long rope connected to another man that was climbing into the cab of the Ram, perhaps to retrieve his wallet. Or firearm, who knows.
When I returned and stopped this time both men were gone as was the truck they presumably came back in that was parked. This Ram is well in the stream but with all of the runoff it’s possible the current took it out a ways if it did go in at this point. It was moving around its axis a little while I was taking these pictures.
The 4×4 OffRoad Package tailgate isn’t of much help here, but that looks like it was a pretty fine truck before this. It’s very possible that deer or elk or something similar were in the road and both drivers decided to take evasive action, just another reason that speed on these roads can sometimes have bad outcomes.
Truck for Sale: Freshly Washed
As for the Buick I’m reminded of one comedian who liked to remark about automobile accidents: “First you say it, then you do it.” (Oh $hit!)
Wow. Hard to determine exactly but it looks like the rear axle on the Dodge has strayed a bit from where it is supposed to be.
Yes, the left side was detached and moving about freely.
Nice catches! Or should I say scary catches?
Out here in rugged Oregon where so many of the highways follow rivers, these kind of occurrences are sadly all too common. A young mom drove into a river not long ago nearby, she survived by climbing out, her two little girls strapped into their car seats drowned. And it wasn’t a strange road either; they lived on it. Texting was the only logical assumption.
On Saturday we went for a fab hike in the mountains with son Ted and his GF; on the way home on Hwy 58 (the same one you drove my xB on last summer) traffic came to a halt. We eventually got around it: an identical Park Avenue like the one you found but in black, hunkered down in the steep ditch between the road and the rock cliff. A rough looking couple were standing next to it; the woman holding a towel to her head.
I feel bad about these folks driving off the road, but even worse when they drive across the median and hit another car head on. Happens way too often too.
How hard is it to stay in one’s lane? Too hard, obviously.
It’s either drink or texting or perhaps both…Although coverage is spotty up there so maybe not texting.
The road I often take up to Laramie (287) is like that (58) as well, I recently found out that a client of mine was involved in a head-on earlier in the year when a texting mom with kids in her car didn’t see stopped traffic in front of her until the last second, at which point her instinct was to whip her Honda Pilot into the other (oncoming) lane which is where my client and his family happened to be at that split second, hitting their new Grand Cherokee more or less head-on at around 65mph each way. He didn’t make it, the family was all airlifted and are now recovered, at least physically, that is. At least there’s no river, if there was they probably would have been in it, after initial impact the car apparently rolled over well off the road and ended up upside down. I won’t drive it in a small car anymore and even in a larger car am trying to look at the oncoming drivers…I heard the house they had wanted to buy originally when they moved here from down under last year was going to be available off-market so I reached out and then heard the story. Horrible.
I’m sorry for the family. Texting or phone use while driving is all too common. Recently I was a passenger in a big truck, and could look down on other drivers. I observed about 10% of all drivers on the road were distracted and holding their phones, and this was on Canada’s busiest highway. Its illegal here and will get you a $615 ticket. But both driving and phone use are so familiar to us we don’t see the danger.
My co worker used to do this, even after receiving said ticket. It took a crash (due to his phone use) where he demolished his Civic and a stranger’s Toyota to break him of the habit.
The scariest I ever saw was a big rig driver looking down at his phone in Sicily. Stop signs are often seen as a suggestion on that island. At least I was riding in a massive tour bus.
I live in a mid-sized, midwestern city. The traffic here is probably about the same as any other mid-size city. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I’ve had near misses due to people fiddling with their phones while driving. And honestly, I don’t drive that much any longer.
Back when the whole Covid thing started, people asked me if I was afraid if I’d get the virus. I would reply, no, it’s more likely some person will mow me down in the grocery store parking lot while answering texts!
I just don’t understand why people feel it’s so important to text while driving. I must be getting old. And, get off of my lawn, too!
In many states the collision rate due to phone usage has exceeded that from drunk driving. It is a significant problem.
My favorite (for want of a better adjective) was the person on a four-lane section of US 54 (you’ve driven this section) who was erratic in both speed and lane usage.
Passing her she had a cell phone in her right hand and was using an iPad with her left hand, placed on the hub of the steering wheel. It did not give me a thrill up my leg.
Just. Don’t. Do. It!
A problem in Australia too. I’ll never understand what’s so important that folk feel they need to further impair their already-questionable driving skills by taking their eyes from the road.
Last year an 18 year old girl was killed near here when she ran off the road and hit a tree. In a smallish community. that hurt. I didn’t know her or the family, but some of my friends did. Police found a half-written text on her phone.
Good points Paul, I’ve seen some and heard about bad crashes in Oregon. Last year I saw the end result of a nasty, but not fatal T-Bone between a 1990s Escort and an early 1990s Dodge Ram. There are a bunch of 1990s cars in Oregon and they do not hold up as well as modern cars. Especially those tragic 1990s sedan versus 21st Century truck crashes.
Some folks hold their breath when passing through Dennis L. Edwards Tunnel and a few years ago a driver passed out resulting in a fatal crash. Senseless death like that is just sad.
In some circumstances, a tall bed is handy.
Sadly, there are many news stories across the US and Canada, of people having gone missing for decades, when their vehicles crashed into roadside bodies of water. I remember as a teen in the late 80s, a local story of a guy that went missing, as a week later his nearly new Dodge Daytona was found in a creek beside the highway he was driving the day he disappeared.
Heard a very similar story this weekend-
A parts runner in the Colorado Mountains slid off an icy road and landed in a lake. They found the car (and body) that spring after the lake ice melted.
I read a story not too long ago about a man who disappeared years ago; both he and his car were found in a small shallow lake not far from his house, courtesy of Google Earth – the car was visible on Satellite View.
Some take longer to find.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bones-from-b-c-lake-solve-38-year-old-mystery-1.920563
That happened last month just an hour east of me in the Arkansas River. Someone found a car along with the driver who’d been missing since 2002.
In South Dakota (east river near Sioux Falls) a car load of teen age girls disappeared after graduating high school decades ago. They had just graduated and planned on attending a keg party that night to celebrate.
Last time they were seen heading down a gravel road towards a small river.
Decades later, the drought hit…..and……the car appeared (old Studebaker Lark) and became partially visible. Solved a mystery that was never quite fully investigated by law enforcement who never thought to poke around in the river or look for skid marks or broken bushes where the car was driven into the river.
I’ve heard some scary stories from Colorado paramedics and I hear that sometimes the car is left where it landed once the people are removed from the scene. Worse driving I saw in Colorado was a passenger car with Florida plates passing downhill in a no passing zone somewhere near Durango. I’m sorry to hear about the fatalities and while the Buick might be salvageable the Dodge looks toast.
Clear Creek? Not sure, but decades ago driving my ’89 Camry wagon on US 6 from Central City to Denver in a couple inches of snow I wasn’t paying attention, the right front wheel caught the edge of the pavement, and came close to going into the creek. Very little shoulder in places and even a little snow obscures the edge of the road. Pretty common in three seasons. Quite a few central mountain locations got some snow a couple of weeks ago.
Maybe 20-25 years ago we passed a Buick Century wagon that was literally in a tree hanging over Clear Creek Canyon. It was near one of the tunnels, and looked to be supported by the steep bank on one end and the tree on the creek side.
In Oregon even the suburbs can get interesting. The Oregon 217 and US 26 interchange in Beaverton has seen numerous rollovers and my personal favorite, the drunk who drove his BMW off the side of the ramp and landed on the MAX tracks below. There were no fatalities but rail service from Beaverton to Portland was interrupted and he got an epic bill from TriMet for removing his car and repairing the tracks,.
Thanks for the post Jim, I was wondering about the Ram when I read your Mazda post. At least it isn’t salt water, so there may be some good parts available.
( I don’t have a Mazda anymore, and it feels strange…..)
I was thinking the same thing, this is fresh mountain water, the fabric portions of the interior interior may be trashed and the engine would need a refresh but the body is probably ok, especially for a proper pickup truck. This Ram in the river is still better than just about any example of this generation Ram you can find in the rust belt.
So, are you saying that it is better to ram in a Ford than it is to ford in a Ram? It’s a shame he couldn’t dodge the river instead.
It was just the location. Had he gone further north to the tundra where the rivers are less plentiful…
If you head a bit west you can cross the Sierras and get to Tacoma, of course a lot of that is Frontier land so beware, I’m not sure if Rangers patrol that.
If you look in the distance you can see a Ridgeline.
did the Comanche get far enough west to get into the Canyons in Colorado?
Speaking of Rangers. Given the art direction attention to detail you apply to all your photo shoots, with the wrecked 90s RAM 1500 and Buick perfectly positioned for a TV shoot, I thought for a moment you were attempting to recreate a scene from Walker, Texas Ranger. lol
Texting and alcohol are definitely problems where we used to live in the Middle West, but deer and sometimes simple exhaustion are also culprits. The Wordless Outtake I wrote up some years back was likely due to deer avoidance:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/blog/wordless-outtake/wordless-outtake-2003-05-pontiac-sunfire-pole-position/
I taught my sons to just keep driving with minimal avoidance maneuvering for large animals, and none for small ones.
Our new home has an additional hazard – Amish buggies.
Do cars with ABS leave skid marks?
Yes, but instead of continous lines, they leave dashes as the system cycles from lock up to release and then builds up to lock up again.
thats Hwy 14 right? i doubt there was much cell signal to be had. The buick was either too much speed, icy spots or just bad driving. The truck might have been the same if there was no indication of intentional stream crossing.
Yes 14 a bit east of Rustic.
All the highways leading from the Willamette Valley over the Cascades are hairy and require much caution. Add RVs chugging uphill at 30 mph, infrequent passing lanes, and impatient drivers and you have loads of opportunities for wrecks. One at Detroit on Hwy 22 caused a half hour long backup and the ambulance was still at the scene when I idled by… I can’t imagine the torment of severe injuries and the long, long wait for an ambulance to come from Salem or Eugene.
All the concern about phones, texting, and distracted driving. Yet I never hear any complaint about the 800 pound gorilla in the room – touch-screens!
Happy Motoring, Mark
Neither of these two vehicles had touch screens. Almost every touch screen on the market today can also be voice controlled. The Mazda I was driving at the time these were seen has a touch screen however once moving all input via the screen itself was locked out so you’re either using the control knob or voice commands to make adjustments (or redundant controls on the steering wheel or dash). Cell phones would seem to be a bigger distraction, no real need to text when you could in theory just make the call, after all it is a phone.