Petition to ban commercial vehicles from US129 (Deals Gap)

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Re: If You or Want To Ride The Dragon

cnr1993 said:
When did this become about who can drive/ride better? Or how long you have been riding... It MUST be raining. Their is no discussion going on here, its just juvenile posturing. The argument that you can just stop in time on a bike doing the speed limit around one of these corners is laughable at best. (Maybe if you were doing 10km).With some of the comments/claims being made here I do question some of your riding ability. I question my own when out, it's called common sense, and having a healthy respect for motorcycles is a good thing.By the way the reason this began was for Dwight "Ike" Woodard, killed august 3rd. He knew the gap, and rode well. Killed by a long truck. If you argue against that you guys truly are ****** bags. Please sign if you haven't! Thank you! http://www.change.org/petitions/ikes...rcial-vehicles
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Well I am capable of coming to a complete stop in about 100' doing almost twice the speed limit on the dragon, while keeping my line. If 10km/hr would not allow you enough time to come to a stop safely, then please let me know when and where you intend to ride. I would like to keep my commercial vehicle well away from that area. Please take a course, and please ride safe. I am not sure who's riding ability you are doubting, you are more than welcome to tag along next time I head to the Dragon, or feel free to attend my next race.
 
Here is something for the law-abiders to chew on. AGAIN. They will probably still not get it, but whatever.

It is the law in both North Carolina and Tennessee that a double yellow line is not to be crossed. Any crossing of a double yellow line is a violation. The intent of that law is to keep people on the correct side of the road in situations where there might be a hazard otherwise (e.g. the mountain roads that are very common in that area).

A bicycle, motorcycle, car, light truck, or straight truck that is competently operated, has no difficulty complying with this law through Deals Gap. (Whether the operator is competent enough to achieve that, is of course quite a different matter.)

A tractor-trailer unit CANNOT drive through that road without being in violation of this law countless times (probably 100).

So by EXISTING laws, tractor trailers cannot legally be driven through that road.

That this is not being enforced ... is something of an issue.
 
How about a better solution for everyone. Put some of these up in every corner so that no one crosses the line....
parking-bollards-882.jpg


Let me guess everyone would argue those aren't safe for riders either....
 
The easiest thing to do here is simply charge all the trucks that go on the road with crossing the line which is an offence there. After getting 20 or 30 tickets per trip the truck driver will not go back and will tell all the other drivers. Right now it is illegal for a truck to be on that road because they cant stay within the lines as is the law there.
 
When I drive my car on the sidewalk. It really should be everyone else's responsibility to be better pedestrians to avoid injury. If you run into me, you are clearly walking too fast.
 
rafiki911 said:
How about a better solution for everyone. Put some of these up in every corner so that no one crosses the line....
parking-bollards-882.jpg


Let me guess everyone would argue those aren't safe for riders either....
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the trucks can't get by those with out knocking them down like bowling pins... the laws of physics prevent it. what the truck would need is independent rear wheel steering, which would be quite interesting in the least.

kind of like those fire trucks that have a guy steering at the front and a guy steering at the back...


Firetruck.2.jpg
 
rafiki911 said:
It's really funny hearing people talking about going through a blind corner and being faced with a truck....It's a blind corner.... hello.....it means you don't know what's coming up, so slow down so you can stop if something is on the other side of it.
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What part of it's illegal to cross a double line in Tennessee, and that you can't drive a 53' trailer down that particular road without breaking that law (hundreds of times) don't you grasp? There's a HUGE difference between coming around a corner and having someone oncoming wander into your lane, and coming around a corner and having someone oncoming who has no choice but to be in your lane.
 
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So no one should be driving there then... it's illegal to cross the lines and I'm sure every car and motorcycle has crossed it several times on that road. Just watch the vids that people post after going there. You can keep on telling me over and over again, not going to change my opinion, I've seen far worse roads with less problems. The real problem is people not knowing how to drive/ride properly and learning how to share the road or adapting to road conditions.

If everyone drove/rode to what the road conditions are, what their riding/driving capabilities were and paid attention to their surroundings there would be no collisions period. Not siding with riders or truckers. Clearly in these pics someone did something wrong that could have been prevented.
 
rafiki911 said:
So no one should be driving there then... it's illegal to cross the lines and I'm sure every car and motorcycle has crossed it several times on that road. Just watch the vids that people post after going there. You can keep on telling me over and over again, not going to change my opinion, I've seen far worse roads with less problems. The real problem is people not knowing how to drive/ride properly and learning how to share the road or adapting to road conditions.

If everyone drove/rode to what the road conditions are, what their riding/driving capabilities were and paid attention to their surroundings there would be no collisions period. Not siding with riders or truckers. Clearly in these pics someone did something wrong that could have been prevented.
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Trucks on that road cannot prevent themselves from going over the double yellow to negotiate it (safely or not).

Bikes/cars/planes/trains/etc even going at a reasonably slow speed cannot help when said truck is completely in their lane.

You should ride it one day so maybe you can know a teensy bit of what you're talking about.
 
rafiki911 said:
So no one should be driving there then... it's illegal to cross the lines and I'm sure every car and motorcycle has crossed it several times on that road. Just watch the vids that people post after going there. You can keep on telling me over and over again, not going to change my opinion, I've seen far worse roads with less problems. The real problem is people not knowing how to drive/ride properly and learning how to share the road or adapting to road conditions.

If everyone drove/rode to what the road conditions are, what their riding/driving capabilities were and paid attention to their surroundings there would be no collisions period. Not siding with riders or truckers. Clearly in these pics someone did something wrong that could have been prevented.
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Surely you don't consider the physical impossibility to obey the law to be comparable to inadvertence.
 
FullMotoJacket said:
What part of it's illegal to cross a double line in Tennessee, and that you can't drive a 53' trailer down that particular road without breaking that law (hundreds of times) don't you grasp?
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There is no mention of a double yellow line in the Tennessee Code. What there is is a section specific to driving on mountain highways.
55-8-166. Driving on mountain highways.

The driver of a motor vehicle traveling on mountain highways shall hold that motor vehicle under control and as near the right-hand edge of the highway as reasonably possible and, upon approaching any curve where the view is obstructed within a distance of two hundred feet (200') along the highway, shall give audible warning with the horn of the motor vehicle.
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As near the right-hand edge as reasonably possible means just that. If riders and cars are being nailed for crossing the double yellow, it's because it is physically possible for them to remain on their side of the road at all times. This is not necessarily the case with larger vehicles.
 
I stated that "If everyone drove/rode to what the road conditions are, what their riding/driving capabilities were and paid attention to their surroundings there would be no collisions period." Clearly that road is a little to much for some truckers/drivers/riders. I highly doubt that a good/experienced truck driver would be taking up most of the oncoming lane if he took the corners at the right angles.

Those pics are showing the worst drivers. I highly doubt that the stuff in those pics happen every day or else there would be multiple deaths per day on that road and trucks would have been banned long ago.
 
Ah, more turbofacts. It is absolutely against the law to cross a double-yellow in Tennessee. Just ask any of the thousands of people that have been cited for doing so in the past five years, since Blount County decided to make the Dragon a profit center. Which, by the way, has raised the amount of accidents despite less people going to the area because of the unsympathetic police presence combined with artificially low speed limits. Speed limits, which I should also add, are illegal; as the road is a federal highway through a park area, which is 55mph. Blount judges are now just tossing tickets out for speeding if they hit court with credible resistance, because they don't want to fight that battle with the Feds.

That's right, accidents went up when they lowered the speed limits (dramatically) and increased police presence. At the risk of sounding like a broken record..............................
 
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rafiki911 said:
Those pics are showing the worst drivers. I highly doubt that the stuff in those pics happen every day or else there would be multiple deaths per day on that road and trucks would have been banned long ago.
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Actually, I have spent 9 weeks in the area and have ridden the road at least 150 times (but have to re-learn it every year anyway, lol). In that relatively small amount of time I have personally witnessed at least three hung-up tractor trailers and many larger vehicles which caused other travellers on the road to take emergency evasion tactics to avoid collision. I've also witnessed a Miata crunched underneath a trailer, when it simply could not get out of the way.

Big trucks have no business on that road, and believe me that once they're on it the drivers would whole-heartedly agree with my statement. They only get there by GPS or by route planners that do not take into consideration the size of the vehicles.
 
rafiki911 said:
I highly doubt that a good/experienced truck driver would be taking up most of the oncoming lane if he took the corners at the right angles.

Those pics are showing the worst drivers. I highly doubt that the stuff in those pics happen every day or else there would be multiple deaths per day on that road and trucks would have been banned long ago.
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Well, on some of those corners there is no alternative but to use pretty much the full width going in and coming out.

That said, a prudent and attentive rider will have enough advance warning of such happening, provided they're riding with sufficient margin for their available sightlines. And we all know that for some here, that just isn't any fun at all, is it?
 
Ah, another Turbofact <tm>

You know, there are many, many corners on the Gap with literally no sightlines. They're completely blind and you cannot tell what is on the other side of them because there is a cliff in your way.
 
Shaman said:
Ah, more turbofacts. It is absolutely against the law to cross a double-yellow in Tennessee. Just ask any of the thousands of people that have been cited for doing so in the past five years, since Blount County decided to make the Dragon a profit center.
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Funny, reading the Tennessee Commercial Truck License Driver's manual...
If you must cross into the oncoming lane to make a turn, watch out for vehicles coming toward you.Give them room to go by or to stop. However, don't back up for them, because you might hit someone behind you. See Figure 2.13.
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Key word being "must". Most cars and bikes don't need to do that to make a turn.
 
Shaman said:
Ah, another Turbofact <tm>

You know, there are many, many corners on the Gap with literally no sightlines. They're completely blind and you cannot tell what is on the other side of them because there is a cliff in your way.
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Then why would any sane person dive into such a corner at a speed so high that they cannot react to what may be immediately around that corner? Oh wait, because it's "fun", right?
 
What speed would be too high? Crawling? Have you ridden the road with big trucks on it? No? Then please, step off your pedestal and leave the discussion to the people that have.
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