Students, faculty and staff take precautions when commuting to campus
Matt Weir/The Collegian
With the slippery roads and low visibility caused by the rain and fog, many drivers can argue that driving in the winter weather conditions can increase the likelihood of a car accident.
However, California Highway Patrol Officer Kirk Arnold disagrees.
“The thing is the fog does not cause traffic collisions, just like the rain does not cause traffic collisions,” Arnold said. “Weather does not and can not cause traffic collisions. What does is human error ”” that would be primary unsafe speed for the conditions.”
Arnold said these conditions are, when it’s foggy, limited visibility and slippery and wet roadways.
To avoid a traffic collision in the foggy conditions, Arnold said one of the main precautions that drivers need to do is to reduce their speed, and increase the following distance behind another vehicle.
“You want to obviously drive with your low beam headlights on,” Arnold said. “If you drive with your high beam headlights in the fog, it’s going to actually reduce your visibility.”
Within the past week, the dense fog in the early mornings and the late nights has sometimes caused the visibility level to be extremely low.
Arnold said that there are three levels of fog that CHP officers watch for: Level one is a visibility of 500 feet or greater, level two is 200-500 feet and level three, which is considered critical fog, is 200 feet or less.
With visibility levels of less than 200 feet, Fresno State students still witness drivers driving recklessly behind the wheel.
Kinesiology major Zack Groothuyzen said he has seen drivers swerve back and forth, because they can’t see the traffic lines in the fog.
“You just wonder if they’re going to clip someone or if they’re going to lose control,” Groothuyzen said. “I’ve seen some people ride someone’s tail, you know, tailgate, all the way through the fog.”
Groothuyzen recalls driving to school, off of Highway 99, late one night when there was dense fog.
“I was going about the speed limit, maybe a little over, and this car came up speeding, swerving in and out of lanes and I could barely see taillights in front of me,” Groothuyzen said. “Pretty scary stuff.”
Regardless of other drivers, Groothuyzen said he feels comfortable driving in the fog.
“As long as you don’t drive 80 mph when you can’t see 10 feet in front of you, it’s not that big a deal,” Groothuyzen said.
Linguistics and speech pathology major Pedro Lopez agrees that there are reckless drivers, especially on the freeways.
Lopez said he’s a very cautious driver. On the freeways, he drives the speed limit and stays in the slow lane.
“I’m also really careful at intersections, even if the light is green,” Lopez said.
Lopez said he recalls a couple of times when he had to drive when it was really foggy.
“I could hardly see 20 yards ahead of me,” Lopez said. “So I had to go really slow and one time I had to turn my emergency lights on just in case.”
The most important thing that Arnold and the CHP recommends to the motorists is if it’s foggy, don’t drive if you don’t have to.
“Best thing to do is just stay put until the fog is dissipated,” he said.
