PCASD Driving School Lessons In Application

[bryanearll]

How much fun is this!

So living in Monrovia, near Pasadena, the mountains beckon behind my house daily. Legions of motorcycles, sportscars, and Dodge Caravan's journey into the moutains for recreation.

Hwy 2, out of La Canada, is quite popular with the locals. Nice curves and generally good pavement for miles.

Took my time getting used to the car in "semi-performance" mode and it was a good thing because someone on a pocket rocket had missed a corner and recovery vehicles were cleaning up the mess.

The climb to the Red Box saddle (cutoff to Mt. Wilson) though was fun, lumpy pavement, and tight curves and wide corners got the car hopping. I've ridden my bicycle there enough to know the corners well and have seen plenty of drivers plow their cars into the cliffs, so I worked on Apex's, carving the turns, throttle steering and whatnot...

Cruised to Newcombs Ranch, an excellent place for lunch, and then turned around and headed for a couple of other roads I was locally familiar with.

So my suggestion for you guys, when you are in the area, is to look up "Big Tajunga Canyon" and "Upper Big Tajunga Canyon". PLEASE REMEMBER THEY ARE POPULAR AT TIMES WITH CYCLISTS...
Upper Big Tajunga Canyon is an awesome peace of pavement.

See you on the road!
b

[paul-silver]

A week or so ago, I used "accident avoidance" skills on my commute home from work. Was driving westbound on the 56,
and just before the Camino Del Sur exit, there was an accident scene on the left median/shoulder. One of the vehicles had its back end sticking out into the left lane, in which I was travelling. It was quite dark, and it was not possible to really see the car sticking out into the lane until I got quite close. Had to make a quick maneuver to avoid (a) the accident scene and (b) causing another accident due to traffic in the right lane.