Fog Is Not Your Friend

Yesterday, I wrote about thick smog in China and elsewhere and noted that's not usually much of a problem in Vermont or surrounding states.

However, Vermont can have a real fog problem.

And fog can be some of the most dangerous weather out there.

The web site Jalopnik, which covers cars and car culture, had a thing on how people  on foggy highways tend to drive too fast, going faster than their ability to see through the gloom.

Here's the video Jalopnik featured of a crash on foggy highway.





If you're not terrified enough by that video, here's another one of a grandmotherly woman saying she can't see in the fog as she speeds along a highway, and can't even figure out how to turn on her lights, which of course distracts her even more.

As you can guess, it doesn't end well.




According to the Federal Highway Administration, fog causes or contributes to about 38,000 road crashes with about 600 deaths each year.

True, that's only 3 percent of all weather related car crashes and 8 percent of all weather related car crash deaths, but that's probably surprising to the many of us who think fog doesn't kill.

But compare the 600 people who die in foggy crashes to the average number of U.S. deaths from floods, In 2011, a particularly bad year for floods, 113 people died in high water, 68 in car-related flood incidents.

An average of 60 people die each year in tornadoes, but that number varies greatly year to year.

So far this year there have been 23 lightning deaths in the United States.

Bottom line: Fog is dangerous. Sometimes.

Vermont has many foggy mornings in the fall. And of course in the winter, heavy snow and whiteouts  cut visibility next to nothing. Plus the snow adds the joy of glare ice to the roads, so it's doubly dangerous.

So if the visibility is low on the highway, do us all a favor. Drive more slowly than you think you need to. Thank you.