Indiana Highway RV Torture Test

[broark01]

I apologize to any Indianans that might take offense to the following.

In my experience, year in and year out, over decades, Indiana has the worst highway to bridge transitions in America. Worse than MI, worse than WI, worse than IL, worse than OH worse than anywhere. It is like the highway engineers do not talk to the bridge engineers and they guess where everything is going to line up.

Invariably and without exception, on IN highways north/south bound or east/west bound, the bridge transitions are kidney, truck and trailer pounding rough. The approach to the bridges are designed like giant washboard ripples that get everything oscillating up and down driving the truck/trailer suspension system into the dampers on the frame. Then your momentarily airborne before hitting the bridge and bottoming everything out again. With adrenaline flowing I check the rearview mirror to see if anything major fell off. But before I get my eyes back on the road in front of me there a similar set of undulations before being launched into the air and landing on the highway.

After a few hours of this Evel Knievel RVing it is time for an Aleve and to check for equipment failures (broken axles, springs, hangers, bolts or missing accessories from the top of the trailer). Not to mention checking the cabinets and shelves inside the trailer that have come open or failed completely.

Come on INDOT, figure this out.

[IND_navyvet]

DutchmenSport wrote:
Ah .... com'on folks. Indiana ain't THAT bad! Don't ya'll know how to drive in Indiana? Here's the instructions:

1. Drive slow! Bumps don't hurt as much that way.

2. Don't drive interstates, you'll save having to eventually replace your tires as county and state highways are MUCH smoother.

3. Never, never, never cross a rail road track at the suggested speed limit, or you'll end up in a ditch and 4 flat tires! Always slow WAY down and creep over them, even on main highways, you just never know how uneven they will be.

4. All newly repaved roads will be dug up within 24 hours after being completed and what remains is a gigantic bump, or hole, or crack, or something that will break the cabinets from the wall of your camper if you hit them at full speed.

5. Never drive at night in the summer. Your windshield will be so splattered with bugs, you won't be able to see through it any more. Very dangerous for on-coming automobiles, who also have their windows blocked by dead bugs. And oh ... don' turn on the windshield wipers or you'll just have pull over. Solution? Drive in reverse and use the back-up camera on your bumper!

6. The best driving experience is when you get behind a farm combine and can't pass. Actually, the ride is pretty nice then!

7. Or, just avoid Indiana altogether. I've been complaining and warning about our horrible interstates for years now.

And to think, there are actually some folks on these forums who think I am silly for bungie cording my cabinet doors and drawers so they won't come open ... and I live in Indiana! Well, maybe they are correct. Bungie cords on the doors and drawers don't do much when the entire cabinet is laying on the floor!

Amen.

[DutchmenSport]

Ah .... com'on folks. Indiana ain't THAT bad! Don't ya'll know how to drive in Indiana? Here's the instructions:

1. Drive slow! Bumps don't hurt as much that way.

2. Don't drive interstates, you'll save having to eventually replace your tires as county and state highways are MUCH smoother.

3. Never, never, never cross a rail road track at the suggested speed limit, or you'll end up in a ditch and 4 flat tires! Always slow WAY down and creep over them, even on main highways, you just never know how uneven they will be.

4. All newly repaved roads will be dug up within 24 hours after being completed and what remains is a gigantic bump, or hole, or crack, or something that will break the cabinets from the wall of your camper if you hit them at full speed.

5. Never drive at night in the summer. Your windshield will be so splattered with bugs, you won't be able to see through it any more. Very dangerous for on-coming automobiles, who also have their windows blocked by dead bugs. And oh ... don' turn on the windshield wipers or you'll just have pull over. Solution? Drive in reverse and use the back-up camera on your bumper!

6. The best driving experience is when you get behind a farm combine and can't pass. Actually, the ride is pretty nice then!

7. Or, just avoid Indiana altogether. I've been complaining and warning about our horrible interstates for years now.

And to think, there are actually some folks on these forums who think I am silly for bungie cording my cabinet doors and drawers so they won't come open ... and I live in Indiana! Well, maybe they are correct. Bungie cords on the doors and drawers don't do much when the entire cabinet is laying on the floor!

Edit:
And if anyone remembers anything from my previous posts from a few years ago, I was crossing a bridge and hit the transition (at 35 mph - county road) when the A-frame trailer tongue snapped off on my Springdale TT. Bridge transitions! yea! Lovely Indiana!

[lbrjet]

My trailer has traveled 34 states and the bridge transitions in Indiana are the worst we have come across so far. State 35 (CA) is coming up in a couple of weeks so I will see soon if it is worse.

[dewey02]

broark01 wrote:
I apologize to any Indianans that might take offense to the following.(snip)

We are called Hoosiers. Born and raised in Indiana and NEVER heard the word Indianans.;)

[PawPaw_n_Gram]

We didn't get to PA til Oct, and our drive on I-84, US-6, PA-287, US-220, I-80, PA-46, PA-26, I-99/US-220 was pretty good conditions.

jplante4 wrote:
The real reason is that road construction contracts in the northeast are awarded to friends and relatives of state legislators with no regard to if they know how to build a road.

That happens in every state.

In Texas, we watch for when we cross a county line. Sometimes the change between one county and the next is almost unbelievable. Even on Interstate highways. (Contracts here tend to be awarded county by county, so it is down to the individual county commissioners to award contracts.)

[john_bet]

broark01 wrote:
I apologize to any Indianans that might take offense to the following.

In my experience, year in and year out, over decades, Indiana has the worst highway to bridge transitions in America. Worse than MI, worse than WI, worse than IL, worse than OH worse than anywhere. It is like the highway engineers do not talk to the bridge engineers and they guess where everything is going to line up.

Invariably and without exception, on IN highways north/south bound or east/west bound, the bridge transitions are kidney, truck and trailer pounding rough. The approach to the bridges are designed like giant washboard ripples that get everything oscillating up and down driving the truck/trailer suspension system into the dampers on the frame. Then your momentarily airborne before hitting the bridge and bottoming everything out again. With adrenaline flowing I check the rearview mirror to see if anything major fell off. But before I get my eyes back on the road in front of me there a similar set of undulations before being launched into the air and landing on the highway.

After a few hours of this Evel Knievel RVing it is time for an Aleve and to check for equipment failures (broken axles, springs, hangers, bolts or missing accessories from the top of the trailer). Not to mention checking the cabinets and shelves inside the trailer that have come open or failed completely.

Come on INDOT, figure this out.

No offense taken. We all have opinions on everything. I for one have been driving/towing on Indiana roads since 2000. I have never experienced the things you describe in your post. And yes I have experienced rough roads in almost every state we have been in at one point or another including yours. Have a nice day.

[jplante4]

PawPaw_n_Gram wrote:
An explanation we got from an engineer in Connecticut was that the contraction rates of the bridge decking and the non-bridge highway surface are vastly different and the greater the temperature transitions, the greater the pavement bond breaks between the two. Apparently this happens more in winter when the temps are coldest.

The real reason is that road construction contracts in the northeast are awarded to friends and relatives of state legislators with no regard to if they know how to build a road.

[Drbolasky]

PawPaw_n_Gram wrote:
We were shocked by how rough the transitions got the farther north we went up the east coast last March and April (2015). In our opinion, Maryland had the worst, though NJ, NY and MA were bad.

Wow ! I'm pleasantly shocked that PA didn't make your list..... :W We usually don't confine our poor road conditions to the bridge transitions.

[PawPaw_n_Gram]

We were shocked by how rough the transitions got the farther north we went up the east coast last March and April (2015). In our opinion, Maryland had the worst, though NJ, NY and MA were bad.

An explanation we got from an engineer in Connecticut was that the contraction rates of the bridge decking and the non-bridge highway surface are vastly different and the greater the temperature transitions, the greater the pavement bond breaks between the two. Apparently this happens more in winter when the temps are coldest.

We watched the CT highway department spend much of that summer patching and smoothing highway to bridge transitions.

[Two_Hands]

I think California's bridges and roads are just as bad. I keep hoping an rv group will file a class action law suit against the state to cause the state to pay for the damages caused by these bridge and road conditions.

[Tyler0215]

Those are Indiana foot bridges.
One foot higher than the road.