Fog and rain are still present today… there’s no ice, but the wet roads are still…. uhhhh… wet. When I descended Hwy 18 today, the caution flag was out on turn #23 (or, #16, or #19, or #26, or #33, depending on where your house is, of course), on the downhill curve at the 4000 ft. turnout. A driver there went into the rock wall. Recovery crews were in position. It didn’t look terribly serious regarding life and limb, but the car is certainly going to spend some time in the pits.
Fog is of medium consistency, never worse, all the way down to 2500 ft. or so. Rocks were not a concern, as far as I could tell, and there did not seem to be any active car chases on the mountain. That alone sort of sets us apart from the rest of Southern California (yesterday was a great day for car chase entertainment!).
****Update 6:35 a.m., a large rock slide was reported, downbound 18 before you get to the crestline bridge. Citizens were reportedly out directing traffic. Use caution going around the curves in that area.
The wet roads are a little slippery. I mentioned recently that if your tires are bald, they’ll be excellent on dry roads, but it’s the wet roads that are of great concern. My own tires have recently been balding… but a few days ago I learned of a great solution… I read it on the Internet, so it must be true. I gave the ol’ tires a rubdown with Rogaine. Wow… what a difference! Sure, some guys get plugs… but this Rogaine sure made these things into Fabio tires. Even though they tend to slap the fenders now at higher speeds, I really like them… but maybe I’m just biased.
The checkered flag at 40th St. is as silly as ever. The cross traffic on 40th St. (going east- west) gets many minutes of green light… and by “traffic” I mostly mean imaginary vehicles, since often there are exactly NO cars traveling in those directions at that time of day. Then, the green for north- south Waterman Ave. commuters will flash green… today it allowed TWO rows of cars (total: Four cars got through in the roughly two or three seconds of green) to slip under the go light, before cycling back to its almost perpetual red, so that it could get back to its near- permanent state of green for the non- existent east- west vehicles. I still recommend taking the Starbucks Scenic Byway if you are arriving at that intersection with less than two minutes on the red clock, or if there are more than three cars waiting for it.
And an issue that I encountered earlier, while hopefully corrected by now, is worthy of note for commuters heading west: On I-210 westbound, for about two miles before I-15, there is metal debris all over the road (mostly in the #3, #4, and #5 lanes, though). A few cars have pulled onto the shoulder with tire and body damage, and others cars are swerving around trying to avoid the larger pieces. I assume that by now there’s a decent traffic jam, and in this case, that’s a good thing… it’s much easier to avoid road debris at 2MPH than at higher speeds, and collisions that occur at 2MPH are generally less serious.
In case you were wondering, the “major work” that’s slated for Hwy. 18 (as indicated by the portable CalTrans signs that were recently emplaced) is a repaving project. I don’t know when, I don’t know what parts of Hwy. 18, and I have no idea if it will impact the commute with lane closures or detours or escort vehicles (known also as, “cars of the night”), but when I find out, I’ll let you know. In any case, it looks like we’ll get some new pavement.