This is from another state. so it is very reasonable that unless stated, it can apply both day and night. I found other articles that said it was day time legislation. If you are going to use an article as a reference, it should be accurate.
Have you driven in plains states in the winter on a clear day or night when the ground has snow cover ?
As far as winter conditions are concerned; long stretches of plains, like both Montana AND MAINE in the north and down east on a bright sunny day can have drifting conditions with blowing snow piling up accros the road. It often melts in the day, refreezes at night and makes unseen black ice. It is a fairly common occurrence in the winter in northern plains states. This has nothing to do with slowing down during a storm. Winter conditions exist all winter long day and night, sunshine and not, until the temperature remains above freezing. These are things legislators say nothing about and why the cop in the article referred to, is right. Winter time in general increases stopping distance day and night time and decrease your ability to stop.
All season tires loose their ability to stop as well the higher the speed even greater increase in cold climates. So if it’s cold, the stopping distances will be greater even on dry pavement in the winter as the rubber hardens. So, what seems reasonable in the summer, is not in the winter, even on clear days. The cop ? . He knows more…he has deal with the accidents. Now, a cop will hve to chase more speeders going well over 90 plus. Enforcement becomes more difficult as some of the same people who sped before will continue to drive the same speed over as they did when when the limit was less. The average speed will be greater and the severity in accidents will be greater.
It is much more difficult to write a valid ticket for exceeding the speed due to conditions then exceeding the posted speed by a designated amount. Cops are always encouraged to write a summons first for factual offenses then implied ones. That is a mistaken and misinterpreted idea in traffic law enforcement and one of the big reasons that increasing speed limits makes it more difficult to enforce and ultimatly more difficult for other drivers who really try to be careful with their speed. If you look at the physics, 5 mph over 85 mph is much more potentially dangerous then 5 mph over 75 mph. The forces increase exponentially and 10 miles over arguably, if you look at the force difference could and should Imo, in some situations, turn into a misdemeanor from a traffic violation. Motorist aren’t looking at how these attached laws need to be applied.
I don’t understand where you’re coming from. You linked to yet another article that specifies it’s a daytime speed limit, and then keep talking about night and winter. The speed limit is for dry, daytime roads. The speed limit will not apply to nighttime or to roads which have snow on them.
If blowing snow piles up across the road, slow down. If black ice is a possibility, slow down. This isn’t hard, and it’s what the law already says you have to do. Nothing about that law is going to change.
As for cops knowing better, cops do occasionally have agendas that they try to get the media to push for them. See the Minneapolis cop who duped KSTP into claiming the Mayor of Minneapolis was flashing gang signs because the cop was mad that the mayor had dared to say some cops are abusive.
Cops like writing tickets because tickets help fund their departments. If you set the speed limit to the speed that people are already doing, then many of them are no longer going to be speeding and therefore cops will write fewer tickets. That’s great motivation to come out against the increased speed limit – rather like cops come out against drug legalization and act like smoking a joint will collapse society and cause anarchy and riots, because police departments get a hell of a lot of funding to fight the “war” on drugs and don’t want that profitable war to end.
Cops have biases just like any of the rest of us do, and when funding for their department, and therefore their jobs, is on the line, they are going to be biased toward claiming whatever threatens that funding is bad and dangerous, even if it’s not.
It’s the old “cop has an agenda problem” that no one can disprove but makes a case for those with out a valid reason and has no place in a discussion. I know how cops are trained and what they are suppose to do. You don’t know anything about agendas and neither do I. It’s out of the discussion. Otherwise, debating makes no sense. You are spending two thirds of your post, not refuting what I have said factually occurs regularly in law enforcement by people who are really trying to make your life safe. Keep watching the movies where the the guy who committed the murder is a cop and Andy Griffin is just a good old boy. Tell me where the cop in the article was wrong, and not not with any agenda. Next time you are in an accident, lost or in need, robbed, threatened or harassed call the fire department instead of a cop with an agenda.
I always taught, and teach my kids that cops were and are, the good guys and here to help us. of course, cops beating the hell out of people sometimes made, and makes that difficult sometimes
Cops are often vilified by some I know regularly for no apparent reason…until one of them shoots a minority for no apparent reason. Then, and only then are they held in Esteem by the same people. In Montana, like elsewhere, as a group, they are just trying to do the best they can…for the citizenry benefit. That’s their agenda.
@dagosa: What you’re missing with the “black ice” argument is the relative humidity difference out West.
Once you get into the Rockies, the moisture level is much reduced vs the east coast. You do get snow, but it’s very fluffy and dry vs. what we’re used to, which is more like Zamboni ice shavings. (That’s why people go to such lengths to ski out west, when there’s plenty of mountains, and snow, here in the East.)
This also means that when snow gets warm enough to melt, it doesn’t hang around long as water: with a dewpoint much below the freezing point, it evaporates almost as soon as it melts: you could say “Rocky Mountain snow sublimates” and not be too far off.
So, while Montana gets their fair share of snow, ice is really an “east of the Mississippi” thing.
Well, I didn’t bring it up but in Minneapolis, the Chief of Police has been less than effective in dealing with the crime issues especially in the northern part of the city. The very left leaning new mayor seems to be in lock step with the Police Chief. Like Ferguson, they just cannot bring themselves to think that there is a crime infested portion of the city that needs a heavy police presence. So the Chief and the Mayor throw the police under the bus and then show public support for known criminals. Can’t make this up.
Anyone remember back in the 60’s it was common for two lane roads to have night and day speed limit signs? Day was 65 and night was 55. The headlights would block out the 65 at night. Actually seemed to make sense.
As discussed before, I think the term “black ice” on a rural road is being mis-used. Black ice around here is from car exhaust, not from frost and only happens in the metro in very cold temps and in heavy traffic. Maybe I’m missing something but I’ve run into frost on rural roads but never black ice.
The thing to remember in our never ending attempt to be safe is that life is unsafe and results in death-eventually.
Quite true. But in addition to @meanjoe75fan 's accurate explanation of black ice in arid climates, drivers are also responsible for knowing when bad things might happen and working to mitigate them. If it’s 75 degrees, you know there won’t be any black ice. If it’s 10 below, you know there might be, and you take steps to try and keep it from making you crash if it does show up. Namely, slowing down. As the law requires.
@Bing we’re getting a bit off topic, but for the record, yes you can make this up - they did make this up. The mayor had no idea the guy had a criminal record. Mayors do not have time or the ability to run a criminal background check on everyone they shake hands with. Regardless, the guy did his time, is free, and is now working to encourage people to vote, and the mayor came out to do a publicity bit toward that cause.
Nothing about that encounter suggests gang affiliation. No one in his right mind will believe a 45 year old professional woman with a masters degree in sociology and a long career in public service, is a gang member or has any interest in promoting thug life.
Black ice isn’t black and occurs normally in Montana in some conditions, It’s water hitting a frozen surface and freezing instantly. Water does not have to hang around. Snow melts, leaches to the ground and freezes . Fog freezes on contact. Fog disapates, ice is left.
I think what you call black ice, we would call frost on the road. Usually you have ground frozen solid from December to March and not much snow melt or water leaching to the ground. I have seen a water mist hit the frozen road and create an icy surface back in 1978. It might have been black but it was at night and the most treacherous 7 miles I’ve ever driven until I could get to the coffee house and wait for the sanding trucks. Had to have been at least 200 cars in the ditch in that 7 miles. Wet and then glare ice.
@Bing, That’s a good point about sparse traffic between Seattle and Minneapolis. Going east from there to Boston will find increased traffic in Chicago, Cleveland, and New York. Going south from Maine on I95 you will find increased traffic in Boston, NY, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Richmond, Jacksonville, and finally Miami. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see terrible traffic from Conneticutt to North Carolina. I know from experience that traffic from Baltimore to NC is often stop and go. And I mean the entire way. We’ve stopped traveling on I95 because it is a parking lot.
I don t want the terrorists to hit us again, but if they must they can feel free to hit the Delaware memorial bridge and chesapeake bay bridges. let this place return to being a quiet backwater that everyone makes fun of and I ll be happy.
I have to say that Chesapeake bridge (at least the one by Annapolis) is the worst bridge I’ve ever been on. Then once you get over it, you have to come back again. Heed the warning signs when they say “bay bridge 20 miles, 10 miles, 5 miles, last exit before bay bridge” and don’t just keep driving like a doofus.
I once got on the Pennsylvania turnpike, before I knew what a turnpike was, and had to pay the whole fee at the valley forge exit because I did not take my ticket as I got on. DOH!!!
I think that @wesw means the bridge to Virginaia Beach and the Bay Bridge from Annapolis to the Eastern Shore when he says the Chesapeake bridges. Truckers traveling to or from points south of Norfolk and Philadelphia and points north often stay off I95 and travel the Eastern Shore using the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. You can get to Philadelphia without the Delaware bridge.
It had been snowing all day, rare for us.
Snow accumulating on the roofs and yards yet being driven into slush on the roadways.
then the sun went down…along with the temperature…waay down.
Slush and melted snow FROZE
but it was STILL snowing !!
SNOW…ON TOP OF ICE…as night falls and everyone’s getting off work to boot…I-40 closed…
can you say …’‘BUMPER CARS’’…and …’‘DEMOLITION DERBY’’ ?
My wife gets off work a little later than all the masses.
At the hospital on the hill, she has a bird’s eye view of the carnage on the boulevard going down from there into the city.
Not one vehicle can make it down or up…every single one has careened off of the others like pin balls.
Any person who attempted to get out of their vehicle fell flat on their butts…everyone !
Wreckers were stuck untill they chained up !
After a couple hours of watching the mele’ it is time for her to get off. ( she has her 91 Explorer, I have my 92. Hers only has Michelin cross-terrain tires, mine has the BFG all-terrain T/As )
I get a phone call…
.’‘YOU know how to drive in this shizz…come and get us…yes US, Antoinette is spending the night cuz I-40’s closed .’’
Needless to say it was quite a fun trip up the hills and back down to bring the girls home.
I did not traverse the main thourofares that were polished to a sheen and blocked with, by now, dozens of dented ditched drivers. I took the little neighborhood streets that wind their way up there eventually and this was key to being able to…’‘drive in this shizz’’.
After picking them up, I talked them down the hills as they asked…’‘how the heck did you get here when everyone else is off the road ?’’
’’ have you ever noticed, like when you’re just walking on the sidewalk, all the stones and debris along the curbs where the traffic doesn’t drive ?’’
’‘THAT…THAT is our saving grace. We’re hugging the gutters all the way because that’s where the traction is and it’s not polished at all, it’s still rough stuff .’’
we made it home.
All in low gear and fifteen minutes to go two miles, but that’s how to drive in this shhhhtuff.
I commended her for knowing her limitations and not being fooled that the 4x4 was a save-all…cuz it’s not…and THAT is part of knowing how to drive…knowing how NOT to.
Yeah this is the one I think all three of us are talking about. I86 feet in the air and 4 miles long. Luckily I was by myself in a rental so I could smoke all the way across. Might have had a heart attack otherwise.
I was on a pretty good one around Baltimore last summer. Maybe that’s the other one. I’ll have to look at the map.
Edit: I missed the Baltimore one in favor of the tunnel but hit the Delaware Memorial Bridge. That was big but nothing like the Chesapeake one.
I hear ya on the ice. When you go from 65 down to about 10 in a matter of yards, it gets interesting. I was in low gear at 5-10 not daring to either accelerate or brake. Once the tire would slip, you’d either be stuck or sliding off the road. You really notice the slight crown on the road and every little twist and turn. I talked to one guy coming the other way who had his cruise on when the wheel started slipping early on. Luckily he didn’t have posi. In 40 years, I never failed to make it home, although late, but were many I didn’t make it to work. A matter of motivation and being nuts.