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Comment by ocschwar | Hacker News Reader

I am not kidding about this: there are places in the Midwest where people have been required to remove trees from their front yards in order to make things safer for drivers who might drift off roads.

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My grandmother lived o a very wide but otherwise normal street in South Bend, IN. She had a row of GIANT oaks in front of her house. There were at least 3 crashes I heard about that killed drivers. People would drive down the street way too fast, hit a slight bump about 40-50 feet down the street from her house and lose control. The city offered to cut down the trees after 4 teenagers died a while back. She declined though, because they would end up in her living room if they didn't hit the tree.

That being said, there's only one tree left, cause that last accident killed the tree they hit.

I'm from Minnesota and have put in 100,000+ miles of driving there, much of it in the winter. I'm not sure how I feel about removing trees and other side-of-the-road obstacles, but just wanted to point out that it's possible in very bad conditions to drift off the road, spin out on the highway, rear-end the car ahead, etc. even if you're being extremely cautious. I hit black ice at 30 mph on the highway and my car rotated a full 540 degrees, but fortunately didn't end up in a ditch. Sometimes conditions and visibility can be so bad in Minnesota, that I don't think any outsider can understand how difficult it is just to stay on the road. I've taken drives where you see cars in the ditch every quarter mile. I rear-ended a guy once, but he wasn't even angry because he saw my car slide slowly toward him from at least 50 feet away.

I once hit black ice at 10 MPH, just as an old man was crossing. Luckily for me, the black ice ended 12 feet before I'd have hit him.

At that speed, I'd rather have hit a tree.

Point is, when the roads are narrow, and you know that any mistake will cost you money at the body shop, you don't travel at dangerous speeds.

I understand the need for life to go on in places with hostile weather, and also that unexpected situations come up.

But at some point, a reasonable standard must be set, and if you can't drive safely you shouldn't be driving. Clearing obstructions on the side of the road won't really help if you're spinning out of control on a busy highway.

That's to make the safety zone larger. You know, so drivers can safely drive off the road. https://youtu.be/P9BUyWVg1xI

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