OK. So I miss my exit on I-10 in Arizona after a long drive. Nowhere near Tucson, but not in the middle of nowhere, either.
No big deal. I take the next exit, which is all by itself and circle around. Holy cow! The on ramp is so sharply below grade that I can't see incoming traffic until I am nosed out into the curb Lane. the on ramp is about 250' long. Maybe a slight exaggeration. The traffic is moving along at 75-80 mph. Pretty obviously, the ramp was an afterthought fifty years ago when they built the highway. Back then, they probably thought the ramp would be used 4 times a day and a car would be on the highway only every couple of minutes. Possibly built to accommodate a well-connected rancher or two back in the day. Didn't look like it had been paved since 1966 either. I wonder how many of these gems are still out there? No way to circle back to the good exit on surface streets, either.
By the way, what is the strategy in this situation? I just gunned it to get to 70+ mph while fully expecting to have to slam on the brakes and swerve into the emergency Lane at the last second. Would I have been better off making a much more leisurely entrance with the idea that unless the coast was clear I would pull over and start from the emergency Lane as if I had just fixed a flat tire? As I said, the on-ramp itself was very little used.
No big deal. I take the next exit, which is all by itself and circle around. Holy cow! The on ramp is so sharply below grade that I can't see incoming traffic until I am nosed out into the curb Lane. the on ramp is about 250' long. Maybe a slight exaggeration. The traffic is moving along at 75-80 mph. Pretty obviously, the ramp was an afterthought fifty years ago when they built the highway. Back then, they probably thought the ramp would be used 4 times a day and a car would be on the highway only every couple of minutes. Possibly built to accommodate a well-connected rancher or two back in the day. Didn't look like it had been paved since 1966 either. I wonder how many of these gems are still out there? No way to circle back to the good exit on surface streets, either.
By the way, what is the strategy in this situation? I just gunned it to get to 70+ mph while fully expecting to have to slam on the brakes and swerve into the emergency Lane at the last second. Would I have been better off making a much more leisurely entrance with the idea that unless the coast was clear I would pull over and start from the emergency Lane as if I had just fixed a flat tire? As I said, the on-ramp itself was very little used.