Drivers baffle Nevada Highway Patrol officers with bad behavior in Tahoe

[Demovictory9]

The Reno Gazette Journal found some arresting details of stubborn, sometimes obstinate, drivers who ignored Caltrans and California and Nevada Highway Patrol officials’ advice to avoid driving around Tahoe for nonessential purposes.

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Some of these drivers over the past week have not only delayed key services like gas trucks and electrical repairs from getting into the area, but have seemingly putting other drivers at risk.

One driver, Nevada Highway Patrol Officer Charles Caster told the newspaper, tried evading a closed-off highway, Nevada state Route 431, in order to take his wife to dinner to the Ritz Carlton in Truckee. (Caster said it wasn't clear if they made it up there at all.)

Another had 30 inches of snow on his vehicle, a Ford Bronco. And perhaps, most baffling of all, one stopped traffic on Interstate 580 to repair a tire chain. As the Gazette Journal notes, most drivers should have four when driving through icy conditions.

But most, ultimately, just tried to circumvent the massive highway closures earlier this week, taking poorly maintained and less-traveled throughways directed by Google Maps. Earlier this week, Caltrans District 3 spokesperson Steve Nelson told SFGATE that the agency saw drivers trying to skirt highway closures via side streets, only to end up stranded in these back roads.

https://www.sfgate.com/renotahoe/article/Nevada-Highway-Patrol-officers-deal-with-drivers-16738911.php?IPID=SFGate-HP-CP-Spotlight

[Hekate]

1. I can't even say what I am thinking. Idiots.

[chowder66]

2. A few of us Du'ers were talking about this in our areas in another thread.

This doesn't surprise me one bit. People have become ungovernable, at least a sizable amount have.

I felt from the get-go that electing Trump would unleash the bad in people but also seeing so many rich or privileged people get away with so much crime and damage may be subconsciously or consciously sending a message to people to say fuck it.

Examples really need to be set and while structure is returning with the Biden administration to a large degree, the mess is so big that I'm not so sure that getting the genie back in the bottle is going to work.

[jaysunb]

3. We're living in a Stephen King novel. Nt

[Delphinus]

11. Yup.

[Rhiannon12866]

5. Well said.

And I've had those exact thoughts, too. TFG gave them permission to engage in bad/unacceptable/offensive behavior and they're not willing to give it up. Bad behavior at school board meetings, attacking election workers and especially refusing to mask/get vaccinated to protect themselves and others are just the most egregious examples. Being unable to put the genie back in the bottle is the perfect description.

[chowder66]

12. A lot of people model those at the top and it's an important example to set.

Especially at the governmental level in a democracy.

[ZonkerHarris]

4. Darwin laughs.

[diane in sf]

6. They can dig their buried cars and bodies out when the snow melts.

[mwooldri]

7. Absolutely stupid.

I drive a truck for a living. While I am a company driver, I agree with my employers rule: if your truck needs chains on the wheels to move, then you need to find the nearest place to park and wait out the storm and for the road crew to go through and make the road safe. Yes I do have chains on the truck, as I am required to go out west. Never used them.

[2naSalit]

8. Agree...

That was my personal rule about snowstorm in particular while I was driving for pay, still is now. I had to carry chains but never once even considered putting them on. If I needed chains, it was probably time to pull over and take a nap.

[BSdetect]

9. Tahoe sadly attracts too many entitled douchebags.

[MineralMan]

10. Stupid people consistently do stupid things.

Imagine how stupid you must be to leave a major highway because there's too much snow, and then trying to drive on a secondary road to bypass that major road! Wait, for pity's sake. The snow plows and other equipment will get that highway drivable long before they even look at those secondary roads.

[central scrutinizer]

13. Google is actually doing a service

Rerouting morons off main roads onto snowed in death traps.