Cracked Windshield - DANG IT!

[rag-ftw]

OK Ya'all, here's some courtesy advice. When traveling on Canadian and Alaskan two lane roads and you decide to slow down to allow someone to pass KEEP YOUR VEHICLE ON THE ROAD in your lane.

Came up behind a coach pulling a flat bed trailer with a car on it today and he very politely slowed down and turned on his right turn signal letting me know he was slowing down so I could pass. The only problem is just before I pulled out to pass the right wheels of his coach and his trailer drifted off the road onto the shoulder showering me with rocks, one of which gave me a huge windshield fish-eye, one cracked my fog lamp, and several slammed into the front of my coach. I couldn't believe all this happened in less than 5 seconds!

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE don't pull onto the shoulder at 40mph to let someone go around! [COLOR=]KEEP IT ON THE ROAD!!!

[rag-ftw]

Tom/Barb: Yes, I was coming up from behind i.e. "passing or overtaking" the other coach. I was not going in the opposite direction or "meeting" the other coach.

SideHillSoup: I have been very impressed during this entire trip at how courteous other drivers have been by observing the "5 car rule." By and large, with rock haulers being the exception, almost everyone has also slowed down to match my speed when meeting each other on gravel sections too, hence no chips in 3 round trips on the Alaskan Highway. This incident happened on Highway 2 between Dawson City and the Highway 1 junction to Whitehorse on a very flat section of the paved road with at least a mile visibility. Which, by the way, is one of the better roads we have been on all summer! The problem happened as I was moving into the left lane to complete my pass the other coach drifted or eased the right side wheels off the road. This was not intentional it just happened. Yes, Tom/Barb I know this was what happened because he was in the same RV park as us later that evening and we had a conversation. They were very apologetic about causing the damage and stated they didn't pull off the road intentionally. As previously stated he was off the pavement and on the shoulder for less than 5 seconds.

As gbopp states: "It's more important to be safe." I would have followed him to Whitehorse if he had not turned on his blinker and started slowing down. Again I say, KEEP IT ON THE ROAD!

[SideHillSoup]

Not sure where ( country, province, state) this happens on your trip and sorry to hear of all the damage, however it is a common practise in the BC mountains for people ( Vehicles ) to slow and pull off to the shoulder on all types of roads paved and gravel to allow others to pass safely.
The problem with NOT allowing the after vehicles to pass is that after a few short miles the slower person, who is holding up traffic will most likely have a bunch of people lined up behind them. Sooner of later someone will pull out to pass and sometimes not just one vehicle, they will sometimes pass more that one at a time.
I have seen, time and time again people pulling out to make a bone-headed move to pass a slow vehicle and either both the Slow vehicle and an on-coming vehicle, have to both pull off the road when someone is passing.
Now I am not saying all of the accidents are caused by slow vehicles and or passing other vehicles and not all accidents are in the Mountains but driving can deadly when people are not paying attention on what's happening on the Hwys.

Check out this link:Link

When you hear of a "head on collision" around here in the mountains ( which we do hear a lot of in the news) 9 times out of 10 it is because someone pulled out to pass and didn't see there was on coming traffic. These type of accidents cause serous bodily injury and or a lot of deaths, plus close the Hwys for many hours while everything is cleaned up and investigated. Sometimes and a lot of the times there are no " short" detours around the accidents, so traffic is stopped for many many hours. ( Revelstoke to Golden)
It is always better to pull off to the shoulder when "safe" to do so and let slower traffic pass. You don't nessacarlly have to pull off and keep rolling down the road if you feel that is unsafe, you can wait until there is a wide pull off on the side of the road and pull in and either roll through that pull off if is it long enough or come to a complete Stop if the pull out is not long enough to roll through.
In the mountains passing lanes and or long strait stretches of Hwys on a lot of the roads are hard to come by, and trying to pass a slower vehicles is sometimes impossible for miles and miles.
Most places to pull off and not marked by signage and can either be paved or gravel, and a lot are gavel logging roads but there are a lot or larger places to pull off the road that are not road access points .
The other observation I make while driving the majority of my time in the mountains, are people that either don't use the mirrors, don't have proper mirrors that allow them to see or just don't use what they have period.
I can't count the number of times when someone in a Vehicle and not just RVers has a tassel or vehicles piled up behind them and they are oblivious to what's going on behind them and pass a number of safe places to pull over to allow the traffic behind them to pass.
Again sorry to hear about the damage to your rig, however there are very good reasons that this happens.
Soup.

[Tom_Barb]

D.E.Bishop wrote:
How would he not be close if he were passing?

Read his post, he said "he came up behind."

[gbopp]

The OP has a good point. It's important to be courteous. But, it's more important to be safe.

I would not have pulled onto an unpaved berm at 40 MPH.

The driver of the rig being passed thought he was doing a good deed, unfortunately it wasn't good for the OP.

[D_E_Bishop]

How would he not be close if he were passing?

[Tom_Barb]

Were you a little too close ?