Who has ever seen DPS stop/slow freeway traffic with side to side 6 lane

[lonestarnot]

crossovers?

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

1. I See It Every Day Out My Office Window

They do it on the freeway right in front of my window, usually on heavier traffic days.

[lonestarnot]

4. They do this to slow traffic regularly, outside your office window?

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

5. Yup

They do. I look out, and there are not any cars going by. Not a single one. A couple of seconds later, there's the cop. Side to side, with about a mile of cars stacked up behind him.

[lonestarnot]

10. Damn. I had to find out about this the hard way.

[Control-Z]

14. self delete

edit: to delete and post in the proper place

[Duer 157099]

2. me

it's because somewhere in front of them, there's debris in the road that's being removed

[lonestarnot]

3. Well that's only two people so far. I had never seen this in all my years

of driving. Happened this week. Freaked me out.

[lies and propaganda]

7. where at? cause the only place Ive seen it was in Cali

but then i see you live in Phx and so do I. Usually its when there is a debris spill up ahead, or a traffic chase, etc.

It is weird as shit though, and annoying.

[lonestarnot]

11. freaked the hell out of me!

[Duer 157099]

18. Yes, I bet you thought

that the police were leading you and all your traffic mates down the road to a predetermined site, for some dastardly purpose.

I know, that's how I felt the first time it happened to me.

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

6. True, But...

While I've seen them do it when they remove debris, the more common use is when they want to stagger the traffic. They do it in the same exact spot, right in front of my office window, and about 1-2 miles prior to this major freeway juncture which gets congested frequently.

[Duer 157099]

8. Huh. They've got that much free time on their hands?

The first few times I saw this, that was what I thought -- they're doing traffic control. Then, after seeing what they were actually doing (holding back the flow so a, for example, tow truck could remove an accident, or someone could get that mattress out of the lane) then I laughed at myself for thinking they were just doing traffic control.

But, maybe you're right, especially if it's the same time and place every day.

Great. So now we're paying cops to play the part of freeway onramp lights.

[lonestarnot]

16. Well if it is just for purposes of traffic slowing, it's felt like

frightening.

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

20. At Least They're Not Writing Tickets

But it does slow the freeway down to a crawl, especially those cars right at the front. It's painful for them to wait. Not like they're going to pass the cop.

[lonestarnot]

12. Oh then does that mean the public is leaning this dangerous tactic

firsthand in CA also?

[driver8]

9. I see it all the time in California from the CHP.

The first time you see it, it looks very strange.

[lonestarnot]

13. Scared the crap out of me!

[Control-Z]

15. They did it for me

after a truck hit me on the fwy a few years ago. After my car bounced around it ended up against the divider. They wanted me to drive my car over to the right shoulder. I was so shaken up there was no way I could have gotten back into traffic that day so they backed their cars up the fwy about a mile, put their flashing lights on and then zig-zagged until the fwy was completely stopped. I drove across. Traffic started up again. Pretty darn cool.

[lonestarnot]

17. Absolutely cool!

I had just never seen this nor did I have knowledge of this tactic until this week in my thirty-seven years of driving. I thought it would be wise for DPS to do an informational.

[Gold Metal Flake]

19. This is called a "traffic break".

First time I saw one was on a Houston freeway when they broke traffic to let President Bush go by. The son of a Nazi Bush, not the grandson of a Nazi Bush.

[Richard Steele]

21. Mildly interesting anecdote:

I saw that once, was stuck in the crowd of cars for an hour.
Eventually, I got close enough to the front of the pack to see
the reason.

A military transport was hauling an Armored Bulldozer (awesome
machine; the size of a small house) and the Highway patrol
was stopping traffic every time it came to an overpass so it
crossed alone.

I assume it was WAAAY over the highway weight limit; the cops were making sure
no other cars were on the bridges at the same time it was.
Once it was across, the cops would start rolling again, and open a single
lane so a few of us could pass before the next exit.