Telephone Pole Incident
Last Wednesday we drove from New York state to Honesdale, PA. Honesdale was selected because it was on US Route 6 near enough to the beginning of the PA section of the road to allow us to go both east and west US 6 for sightseeing the eastern third of the route. Plus Honesdale had a Passport America discount campground with good reviews and a higher than average “scenic” rating. After paying nearly double our budget for a month in NY and VT, a 50% discount sounded pretty good.
US 6 was to be an adventure for us. After our first day we have made alternative plans to tow on 4 lanes and tour US 6 by truck alone.
We don’t normally tow the trailer on secondary roads. When we traveled with the pop up we “shun piked” all we could. Now, with a few miles of towing experience building up, and knowing US 6 was: a) A designated state scenic highway, b) A designated state “through route” and c) A state approved large truck route, we chose it for our first major tour.
We had many trials on our first day. Several were in NY state. PA had its share as well. Half required route finding without signs and unmarked construction detours as well as pilot error. Half required excellent trailer brakes and brake lights to avoid accidents. The telephone pole incident was one such brake concentric incident.
We were leaving a small village. Our scenic route followed the scenic and curvaceous serpentine route of the local stream. Driving such a route requires of me such concentration that I see nothing but white and yellow lines, and other vehicles. I knew a stream was there by the curves and the small bridges. Curves? Make that blind curves marked 25 to 35 mph. Piloting a 50 foot behemoth on a road I was unfamiliar with leads me to follow the speed limit. You can imagine how the cars behind me feel about that.
On a triple set of blind curves a service truck was at a side street wanting to turn left. That would be right in front of me. Well, it’s a free country so he did turn right in front of me. I could see it was going to be close, so I applied the brakes somewhat aggressively. When he was in the other lane and I was right on top of him, I saw the telephone pole behind him. Perhaps he had forgotten it was there. I maxed out the brakes. I stopped. The cars following me did not plow into my trailer. The very bad man went away with his pole.
This was the second panic stop of the morning and the third major stress of the day. One more panic stop was in my future and another stressful routing finding incident in construction zones in narrow village streets involving a series of 90 degree turns both left and right, and one U-turn. Try that with a behemoth!
I praise my electric brakes. I credit driving slowly and a benevolent deity. Still, I wonder how many close calls I can have until overtaken by bad luck.
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