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Accident on the Topes


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1 hour ago, HoneyBee said:

Yes a while back a water truck plowed threw several cars and finally came to rest in the Wallmart parking lot. From memory one of the injured was the vet that has her practice behind the Pemex just before the centro laguna. She had a Honda Fit and the rear passenger part of the cab was gone.

Mexicans love their cars so in general they slow down to cross over a tope rather then risk damage. 

That was way more than a few weeks ago.

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1 hour ago, happyjillin said:

So tell us where there is room for such a structure anywhere around here and especially on the grade leading down to Walmart. We shall see about the topes won't we and they ain't pie in the sky now are they.

ON the right-hand side there should be about enough room if properly engineered. It will look ugly, because these things are graded upwards to help slow the truck down.

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9 hours ago, ComputerGuy said:

ON the right-hand side there should be about enough room if properly engineered. It will look ugly, because these things are graded upwards to help slow the truck down.

No there is not. I speak from experience having seen these in Montana,BC and Alberta where they are in the mountains.

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First of all, the topes they installed on the libramiento are the warning kind: not large enough to do serious damage, but they do jolt you (in a car) and make a loud noise. You can drive over them at speed (40 kmh) in a well maintained car (I have repeatedly) without damage to the vehicle. In a large truck, they would be barely noticeable.

Second, if your large truck does not have functioning brakes, hitting a series of noisy topes is just going to move WHERE you have the accident, not prevent it. If cars in front of the truck slow down and crawl over the topes, the truck (without brakes) is going to rear end them, or veer off right into the small buildings, or veer off left into oncoming traffic. If the truck is alone on the libramiento, the same conditions apply: they will zoom over the topes and plow into the intersection. So topes add nothing to the equation if the problem is runaway trucks.

If the problem is people speeding on the libramiento as they come into the commercial area near Walmart (which is a problem), warning topes will slow them down, at the cost of some damaged chassis (due to poor maintenance and surprise), some rear end collisions (you stop, I don't), and some bad driving (passing on the left/right to avoid the topes and slower drivers). Such is the nature of all warning topes, yet that is the way Mexico chooses to control traffic speed.

 

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9 minutes ago, HoneyBee said:

Actually truck emergency ramps are basically huge gravel pits. The truck basically sinks in to it, so you do not want to be to close when it happens.

Not really. The gravel causes friction to slow the truck and some ramps have a gravel barrier at the top. Secondly. a really steep grade is needed to be effective and that's an impossibility here. Hope this foto helps everybody get this idea out of your thoughts.

Runaway truck ramp.jpg

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Mexico has many ramps for runaway trucks. We have them all over the place n Chiapas along with signs  saying , give rightaway to vehicules without brakes, and a red line the truck should follow..There is no room on the libramiento on the right to do this type of ramp.. Also trucks are not supposed to use their motor to slow down because of the noise..to the fracc near the libramiento. It s a catch 22 and now people are complainng about the opes.. What should there be there so people slow down??

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1 minute ago, Bisbee Gal said:

Another option would be to ban southbound trucks on that section of libramiento; let them come into Chapala instead where the hill is not so steep.  They could still exit northbound from Walmart.  

 

 

So you're saying that from north of Soriana in Chapala to Walmart in SAT. 18 wheelers and other large trucks would be just fine then and cause no extra traffic problems? Are you going to show us how well you can navigate an 18 wheeler from Madero onto Hidalgo once that corner is finished?

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I'm not advocating banning the trucks SB, but if it is indeed a life-and-death safety issue as others believe it is, getting them off that road SB would solve it. 

Other posters envision re-engineering a great expanse of SB libramiento; surely a few intersections in Chapala could be redesigned if in fact that is needed (isn't there truck traffic in Chapala now?).  

It's not as if there would be much of an increase in truck traffic on the carretera between SAT and Chapala....trucks make deliveries there now, simply from the Ajijic side v. the Chapala side.  

I have lived in mountainous cities/towns where large truck traffic is routinely banned on certain roads due to steep inclines or narrow access.  Truck haulers deal with it...send smaller trucks or offload from a nearby accessible street.  

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18 wheelers and semis have no business being on any road lakeside. They make small trucks for going through small towns with narrow streets where anything larger simply doesn't fit. Why is this any different? The sheer weight of a loaded Coca cola truck or Corona beer truck could be responsible for chewing up the highway. Both of those distribution plants are prime real estate now whereas they used to be located in the "boonies". imho, they should both be re-located but I have no clue as to the number of people who are employed there who would be affected by such a change.

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1 hour ago, happyjillin said:

So you're saying that from north of Soriana in Chapala to Walmart in SAT. 18 wheelers and other large trucks would be just fine then and cause no extra traffic problems? Are you going to show us how well you can navigate an 18 wheeler from Madero onto Hidalgo once that corner is finished?

Perhaps I used the wrong analogy[18 wheelers] How about just plain large trucks[e.g. tankers, cement trucks etc.  and can you Bisbee Gal show us your skill at doing this turning at Madero onto Hidalgo once that is complete and made even less navigable than it was even for buses. You cannot change what is here just by wishing it.

mexican water tanker.jpg

tanker truck pemex.jpg

cement truck cemex.jpg

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