The center shoulder is not the preferred place to pull over
QI was surprised to see the car Steph Curry of the Warriors was driving pulled over to the center shoulder following his recent accident on Highway 24.
It would seem to be a very dangerous place to stop, and another car ended up coming along and hitting his car after the initial crash. What should one do when in a non-injury accident is in one of the far left lanes? — Mary Fran Miller, Los Altos
AGet off the road. Turn on your emergency flashers and safely make your way over to the right shoulder if you can or better yet exit the freeway.
If the left shoulder is your only option, take it. The video showed this was a pretty violent collision and Steph was fortunate to escape without being injured. But he and the two others involved in the crash all had seat belts on.
QWhy do BART police leave their cars running when not in the car? The station agents also did not know why they do it, but they said there’s always one there running.
That’s upsetting from both an environmental and waste of taxpayer dollars perspective. If you could find out their reasoning, then maybe we could figure out how to possibly end this wasteful practice. — Mike Hecker, Castro Valley
AThere’s a couple of reasons why this practice is common among police agencies. First, there’s a computer running that will drain the battery if the car is not running.
The computer will automatically shut down to protect the car’s battery if the brake pedal isn’t tapped every so many minutes, but it takes a while to reboot the computer. Which means you’re going to be late seeing any messages and new calls.
It can take 5 minutes to reboot everything. That doesn’t sound like much, but if you’re supposed to be rolling to a fairly hot call, it would be nice if you could actually see the call upon re- turning to the car.
Second, with the engine off, the air conditioner isn’t working and since you’re already wearing a wool blend uniform with body armor, you don’t fancy getting back into an oven.
At idle, the car is using very little fuel. My cop friends say, “Please let us spend a few cents to not be super miserable.”
And one more thought from the folks in blue:
“In case you’re wondering, we hopefully lock the car when we leave it idling. It is called ‘secure idle.’ The car would behave as though it was locked.
“If someone were to break into it, without a key the car’s transmission would not move from park into reverse or drive. The electric button that controls the shotgun rack would be disabled.
“The computer could be turned off so that the screen was blank, but could be powered back up with just a couple of keystrokes.” Look for Gary Richards at Facebook.com/ mr.roadshow or contact him at mrroadshow@ bayareanewsgroup.com or 408- 920- 5037.