Tag: ramp of doom

Caltrans has been resurfacing the Ramp of Doom for the last few weeks. No major accidents there, though on the opposite ramp yesterday a moron tailgated me on a curve at 50 MPH while holding a cigarette in one hand and dialing a cell phone with the other (I think she must have been steering with wrist pressure alone).

Anyway, this morning… big accident at the Walnut entrance to Jamboree. Looked like an overturned (and backwards!) gardening truck. Several fire trucks, a ton of police cars, a couple of random cars that looked okay (maybe witnesses, or people who stopped to help). The ambulance was just leaving as we arrived. The ramp was completely blocked, so plan A was to continue to Harvard… along with everyone else. Harvard isn’t built for that much traffic. So, on up to Culver, over a block, and back down to Jamboree (after a 2 mile detour).

Then, after I’d dropped alenxa off, I got on the 405… and guess what? Another accident! I couldn’t quite tell what was there, since it was on the other side of the freeway, though the fire truck was on the near side at the center divider. Looked like at least 3 cars, maybe 4.

And of course a construction crew at the classic Ramp of Doom.

It was one of those mornings…

With no warning (or at least none that I noticed), the Ramp of Doom was closed this morning. This led to a line of cars dropping from ~50 MPH to about, let’s see, zero in a short distance, which I suspect isn’t particularly conducive to traffic safety, but never mind that for now.

Anyway, as I crept past the bridge, I looked up to see if some automobile carcass was blocking the ramp entirely. It turned out there were two bright orange construction trucks parked on the shoulder of the bridge, a couple of guys in orange vests and construction helmets, and what looked like plywood in roughly the spot of Wednesday’s accident.

Presumably they were repairing damage to the railing. Though it seems to me that the whole ramp could use some re-engineering.

The rain was intermittent this morning. It seemed to have cleared up by the time alenxa and I got up, but was sprinkling by the time we left for work. The first leg of the drive went from light rain to heavy downpour and back to light rain with large chunks of blue sky and even a couple of segments of rainbow.

The rain had mostly stopped by the time I dropped her off, so on the second leg of the drive I mainly had to deal with spray from the cars in front. When they were moving fast enough, anyway.

Had a bit of a shock at the now-infamous Ramp of Doom, though. There was a red pick-up truck, upside-down and backwards, pointed toward the edge and shoved up against the railing of the bridge. It was surrounded by two police cars and a bunch of traffic cones, with the police making observations. No sign of the driver, who I imagine wasn’t in the best shape, though there was a stopped car on the shoulder just before the ramp. The cab looked slightly crunched, but it’s possible the driver could have walked away. Maybe the other car was a friend or co-worker, coming to pick him/her up. Or he could have already been carried out by ambulance.

A light pole was knocked down, lying inside the curve of the ramp. It may have been there already, but I hadn’t noticed it before.

Three cars were stopped along the side of the bridge. No obvious damage.

A tow truck sat in the left lane, surrounded by traffic cones.

People stood around on the side of the road, talking on cell phones (presumably calling insurance agents, police, or more tow trucks).

Two SUVs were in the middle of the bridge, one facing forward with its right front wheel assembly ripped off. It was leaning forward, resting on that corner, debris scattered around it. The other was facing backward in the far left lane, aimed slightly toward the center divider. This is an odd pattern: SUVs facing backward in the left lane on that bridge. I think there must be something about their balance that makes them likely to start spinning when drivers take them out of the turn and try to merge left.

Although in this case, the tow truck driver was stopping traffic so that the backwards SUV could turn around. As the driver swung the car around, I saw a huge dent in the rear passenger side door. It became clear that, whatever led into the accident, the other SUV had rammed it, losing its own wheel for the trouble. Now that I think of it, this isn’t the first SUV I’ve seen lose that wheel on this ramp.

Usual spot at the SB 405 – NB 133 interchange, just after the ramp on the 133’s bridge over the 405. Three cars, including a Jeep that looked OK from behind, a car in front of it that had completely flipped over, and another car in front of that one that I couldn’t see very clearly, because I was watching the guy standing out in front waving his hands to make sure people slowed down and didn’t plow into the scene. It had clearly just happened, since neither police nor ambulance had arrived.

At least I hope that’s why he was waving his hands. It certainly looked more like “Hey, watch out!” than “Please, stop and help!” Damn, I didn’t even think of that until just now.

Let’s just say someone’s old beat-up Buick is a lot more beat-up than it used to be.

SUV, backwards, propped up against the bridge railing with its front crushed, flanked by police cars with lights flashing. Police interviewing (I assume) the driver. Up ahead maybe 50 feet, a stopped BMW with its hazard lights on and no obvious damage. Bits of safety glass scattered all over the road, clattering on the bottom of the car as I drive past.

I keep forgetting to post about it, but last week there was another car accident on the Ramp of Doom. This time, as I drove up and around the cloverleaf, there was an SUV stopped several feet down the slope inside the curve, at such an angle that I just couldn’t figure out what enabled it to stay put, with a police accident investigation unit crawling around the area.

What’s interesting is that all the accidents I’ve seen (with the possible exception of the multi-car pile-up, in which case I don’t remember what type of vehicles were involved) have involved SUVs. Maybe it’s just statistical likelihood given what’s popular to drive, or maybe it’s the high center of gravity like sekl suggested.

I’ve been driving the same route to work for about two years, finishing with a transfer from one freeway to another and then to the first exit. The transition ramp is a cloverleaf up onto a bridge. Aside from an incident in which I was nearly clipped by a maniac in a Mercedes who insisted on climbing into my trunk on the off-ramp and zoomed past me the moment it reached the second freeway, I’ve never encountered anything worse than merging traffic.

In the past month I’ve seen three accidents—or, more precisely, one accident and two aftermaths.

First was an SUV that I watched slowly make a U-turn and crash into the center divider. (I have no idea how much control the driver had over the car at the time, but I swear I saw the wheel fall off when it hit.) Then last week there was the aftermath of a multi-car pileup on the side of the road. With the rain yesterday, I deliberately avoided the ramp and took the previous exit and surface streets. I was driving on automatic pilot today, so I took the ramp, and there was a car on the right shoulder and another SUV parked backwards, its right front wheel crunched into the center divider—in almost exactly the same spot as the one I saw a month ago.

Edit: I just wasted 10 minutes to bring you this *ahem* high-tech diagram: