Bucolic country lanes are also treacherous

The vast majority of people in Northern California don’t live in Tehama County. For them, it is “drive through” country, terrain to be navigated on their way to Medford or Seattle. And in that regard, the only roads that really matter to them are I-5 and 99E.

But for residents of the county, particularly in and around Corning, much of their driving takes place on the smaller two-lane roads. These lesser roads vary greatly in character. On certain roads you can drive for miles and see nothing but orchards, ranging from gnarled hundred-year-old olive trees to recently planted expanses of almond and prune saplings. On other roads you may see small ranchettes with horses, goats, and ornamental rows of agaves lining the roadside. And still other little roads dead-end in old farm-yards, featuring abandoned houses, decaying barns, and rusting machinery.

As bucolic as they are, these roads are treacherous. I grew up in rural Corning, half a mile off the paved road. A mile further on, that paved road crossed a more travelled road at an uncontrolled intersection. Traffic was minimal. Nobody ever stopped unless they had to.

When I was 12, an elderly neighbor turned his old truck in front of an oncoming vehicle. He died in the hospital a day later. Ten years after that, two pickups collided at right angles at the very same spot, each travelling at the speed limit. Two men in a full-sized pickup survived. The two young brothers in a compact pickup were not so lucky.

The bigger roads are also problematic. Case in point,

South Avenue. If you don’t know this road, it takes off west from 99E, near the CalFire station on the hill, and runs out across the river to I-5.

Some years ago, I did a visual tally of the roadside memorials along South Avenue. At that time there were seven. As of early 2023 there are now six: Four crosses, one motorcycle helmet on a stake, and one tall peeled post adorned with antlers and a cowboy hat on top. Each one represents a person who died in a vehicle crash. Many deaths are never memorialized. There are no markers at the country intersection I described above.

South Avenue was never engineered to be a highway. Although the lanes are relatively wide, they are bordered by inadequate shoulders that tilt down abruptly from the pavement. In certain stretches, deep ditches flank the roadside with no guardrails. The pavement is imperfect and the curves are not banked.

There are also surprises for the unwary. At random times one may encounter slow-moving farm equipment on the road, even when crossing over the Woodson Bridge. There are two separate railroad crossings where all fuel trucks must come to a complete stop.

So far I’ve avoided mentioning the nastiest hazard of all, which would be the other vehicles on the road. And to be honest, it’s not the vehicles that are dangerous, it’s the small percentage that are piloted by idiots.

I’m talking about behavior here, not IQ scores. And by behavior, I mean bad driving. Annoying tailgaters, weaving phone-checkers, and suicidal passers are just a few examples.

I’m highly motivated when it comes to matters affecting my personal survival, so I pay a lot of attention to other drivers. After years of observing them, I came up with a working philosophy I stole from one of my favorite novels. Simply stated it goes like this: Assume that the other drivers are trying to kill you, and never let your guard down.

“Catch-22” is Joseph Heller’s iconic World War II novel. In that book, the main character is an airman named Yossarian. He is convinced that the enemy is trying to kill him personally, to wit: “They’re trying to kill me,” Yossarian told him calmly. “Nobody’s trying to kill you”, Clevinger cried. “Then why are they shooting at me?” Yossarian asked.

I realize that the other drivers I encounter are not trying to kill me personally because they don’t even know me. But if they drive badly on substandard roads, and things go sideways, I could end up just as dead as if they did it on purpose.

I want North State drivers to remember this: Yossarian was right. Those fools are trying to kill you. Keep an eye on them.