[magkelly]

Lack of air pressure is not the only reason tires go on the highway. There's all sorts of crap that can puncture a tire out there, no matter how full it is. I do think they should have all had their seat belts on but the tire going, that might not have been something anyone could control. FYI, that happened to my Mom and Dad once. They lost a tire due to nails on the road, but fortunately got to steer the car onto the side of the road and no one was hurt.

[Ratmagiclady]

Well if that's true then in a lot of ways I must be wired to think like a man, because you have just described how I drive. I do it both ways, actually. I use landmarks and space, distance etc, but far more the latter, not the former. FYI, I do a lot of things well that are traditionally thought to be easier for guys. Actually I think the reason women are often still underrepresented in some traditionally male occupations is because they often are discouraged at being good at those things.

Things are changing but when I was growing up a girl who admitted to being good at math, wanted to be a science geek, that wasn't considered feminine. Women my age were routinely discouraged from following so called male career paths. I personally scored very high on tests for the military, far better than most of the boys I took the test with.

The recruiter was stunned by my scores in some things actually. I could have done very well in anything related to electronics, tech stuff. What I wanted was to go to CA and study languages and intel, coding, cyphers and such, but that just wasn't on the menu. They offered a male buddy at the time that job. I got offered typing in a steno pool and not much else. Needless to say I refused to sign on the dotted line.

I don't believe studies like that actually. I've known too many girls who are good at those things who just got shot down when they admitted it and tried to go there, to get those traditionally male jobs. They give up because people convince them they can't go there. They just don't end up working in fields like that even though they could.

I actually know a woman who works in the tech field. Even now she says she still gets attitude. She takes a lot of crap from her male colleagues and superiors to be able to sit in that chair. She's tough, has to be to make it in her field, which is probably 95% dominated by men, but it's pretty obvious that they are not comfortable having her there, even now.

The doors have to open for women to walk through them. Teachers have to support the girls who have tech skills, not discourage them from developing them or the status quo will remain the same and so will those study figures. It's not that the girls can't go there, it's just that no one seems to want them to.

True nuff, mostly, at least, but actually, those studies on brain sex don't actually say 'Men are better at these things than women,' as if all men were better at them than all women: there's statistically-significant correlations, some of which surely have to do with what skills people are allowed/encouraged to develop at certain ages, but it also likely has to do with some biological factors, as well as social ones, that doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of women better at such tasks than most men, for instance, or men clumsier than most women: (and vice versa regarding emotional intelligence, etc,) these aren't hard and fast categories that mean a superiority, just tendencies on average and all. Actually, the ranges of ability overlap more than they don't.

When these tests were kind of a big topic of conversation, I took a few on them: actually I scored well above average for anybody in both sets of skills: I imagine as photo people, one might expect we'll be among those who have good visual and technical acuity, the two of us, certainly.

Anyway, there's data there, it's just that people (and headlines) tend to interpret it too strongly/perhaps incorrectly.

[jogiba]

Lack of air pressure is not the only reason tires go on the highway. There's all sorts of crap that can puncture a tire out there, no matter how full it is. I do think they should have all had their seat belts on but the tire going, that might not have been something anyone could control. FYI, that happened to my Mom and Dad once. They lost a tire due to nails on the road, but fortunately got to steer the car onto the side of the road and no one was hurt.

I lost the left rear tire/wheel when the left rear axle broke on my 4x4 Blazer Chalet in the mid 80's on I-95 in SC and did not lose control. I had seven people in my Blazer and it dropped down to the axle tube . The #1 reason tires blowout on long trips in the summer months is from low tire pressure that causes sidewall separation/bubble that ends up in complete tire failure.

[magkelly]

Fear of it happening to me is why I hardly ever drive on the interstate. My folks were very lucky. I figure if I'm going 35-45 I'm lot more likely to survive a tire blow out than I would be going 75 on a crowded highway. I had the power in a car that I was in just die on me once. Even at low speed I nearly ended up dead. I lost control completely and nearly went into deep water. I will never forget now that just driving to the grocery store can be dangerous sometimes given the right set of circumstances.

[Ratmagiclady]

Fear of it happening to me is why I hardly ever drive on the interstate. My folks were very lucky. I figure if I'm going 35-45 I'm lot more likely to survive a tire blow out than I would be going 75 on a crowded highway. I had the power in a car that I was in just die on me once. Even at low speed I nearly ended up dead. I lost control completely and nearly went into deep water. I will never forget now that just driving to the grocery store can be dangerous sometimes given the right set of circumstances.

Yeah, I really try not to mess around about tires, if I can avoid it, (always kind of a priority when I have a car, really, I wouldn't take what I've got now on the highway, surely.)

Actually, I generallylike the secondary roads, anyway, whenever it's practicable. You see more, and it's generally more pleasant overall, whereas the superhighway tends to bore me.

[Just1MoreDave]

I was thinking when I first read this thread that whenever you see an oversized load wedged under a low bridge, it's always a male driver. Sure enough:

Oversized load hits overpass, shutting westbound I-70 near Golden for hours - The Denver Post

So a professional driver with CDL, a permitted load with a known height, a bridge with a known height less than the load height, and still, the driver hits the bridge.

[jogiba]

I was thinking when I first read this thread that whenever you see an oversized load wedged under a low bridge, it's always a male driver

I bet 99% of drivers driving large trucks with a height of 13ft 6" are men so the chance of seeing a woman in that situation is very slim.

[magkelly]

Actually there are more women truck drivers out there today than you might think. But it doesn't really surprise me that you see things like in that story. Half the big truck drivers on the road are stone dead tired and running for crazy deadlines just to make ends meet. They're supposed to stop and sleep but with the deadlines they have to meet to make any money these days most of them tend to drive a lot more than they should, living on caffeine or whatever to do it...

[Wheatfield]

I was thinking when I first read this thread that whenever you see an oversized load wedged under a low bridge, it's always a male driver. Sure enough:

Oversized load hits overpass, shutting westbound I-70 near Golden for hours - The Denver Post

So a professional driver with CDL, a permitted load with a known height, a bridge with a known height less than the load height, and still, the driver hits the bridge.

Depending on the way the bridge was constructed, how many caps have been put on the road below it and how often the height is actually inspected, the posted height can be wrong by anywhere from several inches to almost a foot.
Around here, there are a lot of earth berm overpasses which, no matter how much packing is done, subside over time.
I was traveling how from vacation a couple of years ago, almost convoying with a semi carrying a combine.
I saw him go under a bridge with ample clearance only to scuff off part of the equipment on a subsequent bridge that was posted as a higher clearance bridge.
It isn't always the driver's fault. He knows how high his load is, but if bridge clearances aren't accurate, stuff is likely to happen.

[RioRico]

It isn't always the driver's fault. He knows how high his load is, but if bridge clearances aren't accurate, stuff is likely to happen.

Which suggests that part of infrastructure maintenance should include periodically surveying bridge clearances and correcting the signs as needed. That's probably cheaper than repairing bridges after they're whacked with sturdy loads. But no, that's too sensible. I'm reminded of an old software product-development paradigm:

Never time to do it right
Always time to do it again

Which means: Get the product out by deadline, then spend 3 years fixing it. The corollary here is: Adequate preventative maintenance isn't budgeted, but repairs are mandatory. Yeah, funny budget games. Is this any way to run a system? [political comments deleted] BAD bean-counters, BAD!! [anti-Baghead rants deleted]

ObTopic: Some jurisdictions require extensive training before issuing DL's. I think I read that training, testing, and fees are rather costly in Denmark and other places, which helps curtail major driving fockops. Then there's the subject of signage design and how problematic signs lead to erratic driving. But that's for another discussion.

[SpecialK]

I bet 99% of drivers driving large trucks with a height of 13ft 6" are men so the chance of seeing a woman in that situation is very slim.

It would be 1% :-)

I want to see more videos!