Matt wrote today about a mystery corner that seems to flummox drivers. A conveniently placed camera made me giggle a little as I read it — we can laugh at that sort of stuff as long as no one is hurt.
That got me wondering — do you have a trouble spot near you? Matt referenced the infamous 11-foot-8 bridge, and I gotta tell you, one of the highlights of my travel life has been seeing that underpass in person when I was in Durham on a press launch.
I’ve been wracking my brain thinking of a problem corner near me, but here in the city, six-way intersections tend to be more troublesome than curves. Chicagoans of a certain age will remember how Damen/Elston/Fullerton was before it was redesigned and rebuilt.
Then again, the Oak Street curve on famed Lake Shore Drive has been the scene of many a wipeout. Some of them far too serious to be funny.
My hometown in the suburbs has a curve near an old quarry-turned-lake that has caused the occasional issue — there was a fatal crash in the area a few years back. Apparently, there were once homes near that curve, and my dad tells a funny story about one of his friends missing the corner and placing his car in the homeowner’s bedroom.
If I spent enough time Googling, I could find plenty of examples of tight corners that drivers miss on a frequent basis — sometimes out of stupidity, sometimes out of unfamiliarity with the road, sometimes out of intoxication, and almost always because of excess speed.
Oh, I almost forgot the most famous one of all — the Snake in Malibu. There’s one particular corner that once starred in YouTube videos in which the owners of high-dollar sports cars and sport bikes overdrove their limits and learned lessons the hard way.
Your turn — is there a curve or corner near you that should get a camera aimed at it? Or, perhaps, a low bridge?
Sound off below.
[Image: Denis Belitsky/Shutterstock.com]
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