Community Chat

[dancingwoman]

@Kachina624  The "Made in Colorado " store is still in Pagosa.  In Ouray there is a store called Columbine Gifts that has some made in Colorado things.  Sometimes we spend the night in Ouray and enjoy the hot springs. DW 

[Carmie]

I don't like heights.  I wouldn't drive on that road.

When we were in China, we were on the upper level of double deck bus.  The highway we were on was suspended bridge like road floating about 30 feet in the air above the one below it.  There were no guide rails.  The sides were about a  4" curb and traffic was heavy and the road was curved in some places like a half circle.  We were traveling fast.

I thought for sure my kids were going to collect my life insurance.  I was scared to death....

It's a good thing we didn't have to get on that highway again. 

[gardenman]

In general, guard rails won't stop a car from going off the road, but they'll slow it down. They more give the illusion of protecting you than truly protecting you. To truly stop a moving car, you need either thick steel posts or large amounts of concrete. We had two stretches of guardrail up the road from my house protecting a small stream and it was constantly getting repaired/replaced after cars went through it and into the stream. It was a goofy place for accidents as there was no reason to go off the road there. It was a nice quiet, straight stretch of road, but cars seemed drawn to the guardrails.

A moving car has a lot of mass and energy and stopping it isn't easy. You need a serious structure to stop a moving car and guardrails just aren't enough in many cases. If you're inattentive and drift towards the shoulder, then the sound of your car scraping against the guardrail might jerk you back to being attentive, but if you're not paying attention on a narrow mountain road, you probably have bigger issues in life. 

[Kachina624]

@gardenman.  In Glacier National Park there are sturdy guardrails made of stone.  The day we were there, workers were trying to retrieve a car that had gone over the edge in a fatal DUI crash.

I don't think their guardrails were high enough.

[Melzie]

Yikes!  No way! 

[dancingwoman]

@Kachina624  This is the only spot that makes me cringe...it really isn't so much the road, you just hope the vehicles coming the other way are in their own lanes because there isn't anywhere to go to avoid them...DW

[gardenman]

@Kachina624 

Yeah, it takes a lot to truly stop a moving vehicle. Most guardrails just aren't strong enough.