The road is closed due to smoke?

Over the past couple of weeks, Texas has had a large number of fires, as it has been a long hot and dry summer.

As I was driving into work the other day, the traffic report on the radio mentioned that a fairly busy road north of us was closed, not due to fire, but due to smoke.

You really do not hear that every day, but it makes sense.   As discussed in our online driver safety course, the most dangerous driving condition is not rain, its not snow, its not night time, it is fog.   Smoke has characteristics just like fog and it is just as dangerous.

Fog and smoke are dangerous as they severely impact visibility.   It is harder to see the road, let alone hazards, therefore our reaction time is decreased and our speed has to decrease.   Sometimes the best thing to do is just to pull over to the side and wait it out.

As the video from DefensiveDriving.com’s award winning defensive driving course demonstrates, fog and smoke for that matter, are the most dangerous driving condition.