Giving way at uncontrolled intersections

[FoxtrotGolfXray 5.0]

For those on here in Vic, I'd suggest you brush up on your knowledge of the give way rules at uncontrolled intersections. Good chance there's going to be rolling blackouts across the state for at least the next few days, maybe even a week or so.

Based on my observations this evening, there's a bunch that clearly don't know the rules. Approaching a lights controlled intersection (when they're out) on the non-terminating road at sign-posted speed is NOT a good idea!

[Citroënbender]

So what you’re saying is, “Drive to the conditions”? ;-)

Dash cam would be a good thing as well, by the sound of it.

[Tonz]

faaarrt wheres Franco?

[GASWAGON]

Ye 500,000 houses in Geelong area without power.

Never seen before powerline towers totally collapsed on ground.

Wind and heat terrible today!

My ex in Dandenong ranges only just got home after 4 hour wait. Trees and power lines down everywhere.

[PG2]

Originally Posted by Tonz

faaarrt wheres Franco?

He has no electrickory, so he can't log on.

[mad2]

Originally Posted by GASWAGON

Ye 500,000 houses in Geelong area without power.

Never seen before powerline towers totally collapsed on ground.

Wind and heat terrible today!

My ex in Dandenong ranges only just got home after 4 hour wait. Trees and power lines down everywhere.

NOT this side of town...... [yet!]

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by FoxtrotGolfXray 5.0

For those on here in Vic, I'd suggest you brush up on your knowledge of the give way rules at uncontrolled intersections. Good chance there's going to be rolling blackouts across the state for at least the next few days, maybe even a week or so.

Based on my observations this evening, there's a bunch that clearly don't know the rules. Approaching a lights controlled intersection (when they're out) on the non-terminating road at sign-posted speed is NOT a good idea!

Did Somerton Road in Campbellfield/Roxburgh Park and part of Hume Highway with no traffic lights working this afternoon,

My strategy worked, approach uncontrolled intersection with enough pace that people question whether you're going to stop, so they give way to you - I got through that section faster than I ever have when the traffic lights actually work

Just ****ing send it, they'll give way, nothing different for the northern suburns of Melbourne, road rules optional anyway

The intersection of Pascoevale Rd and Somerton Road was a bit halal, good luck everyone.

Was strange at work, humid AF and disgusting in the workshop, then on the way home for 15 minutes all the rubbish people dump around Campbellfield became airborne, flying across the road, traffic lights out, complete free for all.

We just entered Hunger Games, my time has come!

Originally Posted by PG2

He has no electrickory, so he can't log on.

Parties over, I survived and the power is back on

Better luck next time AFF, I'm like a blackberry bush, right bastard that just won't **** off that occasionally gives out fruit thats not worth the effort

[roKWiz]

Originally Posted by FoxtrotGolfXray 5.0

For those on here in Vic, I'd suggest you brush up on your knowledge of the give way rules at uncontrolled intersections. Good chance there's going to be rolling blackouts across the state for at least the next few days, maybe even a week or so.

Based on my observations this evening, there's a bunch that clearly don't know the rules. Approaching a lights controlled intersection (when they're out) on the non-terminating road at sign-posted speed is NOT a good idea!

Traffic lights ! what are they ??

[EBSXR6]

No injuries.
Clayton unoccupied two storey Brick Building on our Industrial Estate.
Bricks dislodged from the top storey North and South Walls.
The North wall bricks caused the roof on one of the security guard houses to collapse.
Two second storey westward facing windows blown in on the same building and glass fell onto parked car below scratched bonnet on a colleagues car.
Several large tree branches broke off.
Flooding in several other buildings.

[whitelion65]

Franco;
My strategy worked, approach uncontrolled intersection with enough pace that people question whether you're going to stop, so they give way to you - I got through that section faster than I ever have when the traffic lights actually work “

….so the same way AH’s approach roundabouts in NSW!

[Walt Kowalski]

Originally Posted by whitelion65

Franco;
My strategy worked, approach uncontrolled intersection with enough pace that people question whether you're going to stop, so they give way to you - I got through that section faster than I ever have when the traffic lights actually work “

….so the same way AH’s approach roundabouts in NSW!

I like the way you think
It’s all good until I meet you at an intersection
I would be doing the same thing
Skilz

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by whitelion65

Franco;
My strategy worked, approach uncontrolled intersection with enough pace that people question whether you're going to stop, so they give way to you - I got through that section faster than I ever have when the traffic lights actually work “

….so the same way AH’s approach roundabouts in NSW!

I love driving in Sydney, it's like people move with intent. Roundabout rules say something about give way to all vehicles currently in roundabout - first over the line has right of way

Imagine going to the bank on pension day walking behind all the oldies - now put them in cars and that's what driving in Melbourne is like

[Citroënbender]

Some days up here, are like that. Monday morning commuter zombies particularly.

[ford71V8]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

I love driving in Sydney, it's like people move with intent.

Imagine going to the bank on pension day walking behind all the oldies - now put them in cars and that's what driving in Melbourne is like

See, thats how I see Adelaide traffic.
Drive like that in Melbourne, you'd never reach your destination.


Was behind a SUV plodding along 15ks under the limit yesterday.
Sticker on the rear window telling me the car has a 7-year warranty. I think that ran out before they got home.

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by Citroënbender

Some days up here, are like that. Monday morning commuter zombies particularly.

Same boring commute to work, the last 5km of the trip can vary by 20-30 minutes depending on traffic and when you time your exit

Hume Highway/Sydney Rd in Campbellfield/Fawkner is chaos between 3-6PM and same with the surrounding local roads,

Even getting onto the Hume Freeway can be banked up from Campbellfield through Craigieburn.

Big Islamic population in the area, looking forward to Ramadan starting because all the mussies start later in the day, it will free up some road by staggering start and finish times of the local population.

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by ford71V8

See, thats how I see Adelaide traffic.
Drive like that in Melbourne, you'd never reach your destination.


Was behind a SUV plodding along 15ks under the limit yesterday.
Sticker on the rear window telling me the car has a 7-year warranty. I think that ran out before they got home.

Adelaide is the easiest city to drive around but the locals have by far the most hectic road rage ive ever seen and I've driven in Melbourne,Adelaide, Canberra, Sydney, Brisbane and in between.

Worst drivers hands down Melbourne and Canberra.

Adelaide indicators and lane discipline in roundabouts optional, also passive aggressive driving behavior towards any car with VIC plates is mandatory, must try to cut them off at all merge points to asert SA dominance.

[Charliewool]

Originally Posted by Franco Cozzo

I love driving in Sydney, it's like people move with intent. Roundabout rules say something about give way to all vehicles currently in roundabout - first over the line has right of way

Imagine going to the bank on pension day walking behind all the oldies - now put them in cars and that's what driving in Melbourne is like

What’s a bank?

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by Charliewool

What’s a bank?

A pack of flogs, who always gets their cut on both ends

[Citroënbender]

Daringly, to return to topic - are the outages so bad as possibly suggested yesterday evening?

[Dr Smith]

Originally Posted by Citroënbender

Daringly, to return to topic - are the outages so bad as possibly suggested yesterday evening?

Peak of 500,000 homes/businesses without power yesterday....down to 300,000 this morning....my own neighbours house had the power cut by a gum tree branch so we put bins out on the road to warn of the live wire...unfortunately no sparking to make a great photo...and then an old sparky living nearby stops, pulls out his magic miniature Harry Potter wand and says yep, still live, jumps in to neighbour's yard and tapes over the cut ends and casually rolls it up and wraps it up against the power pole and I come back with some signs warning of live power lines...

The hail was up to 20cent coin size in my suburb but it was the crazy gusts of wind with the rain that caused the chaos. Parts of rural Vic look like they have had a baseball bat smash through them and on top of that about 80 fires broke out from lightning strikes with 2 very major ones causing loss of property. Think I heard so far 1 death of a farmer so condolences to his family.

Country Vic..not my neighbours live wire incident....

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by Citroënbender

Daringly, to return to topic - are the outages so bad as possibly suggested yesterday evening?

Had important work called off, there's infrastructure dramas all over Melbourne, it's all hands on deck making sure your toilet doesn't have shit come up out of it and all over your floor if that's not powered up sooner rather than later on local level, or dumping untreated sewerage into waterways.

Areas with no power will have emergency generators being fuelled up to prevent this from happening.

You know how in flood events they tell you not to wade around in the water? That's because sewerage and storm water drainage backflows and you'll be wading around in literal shit if you want to play in flood waters.

[Citroënbender]

Those pylons; it reminds of the infamous Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse - looks like they may have failed from harmonic resonance.

As to sewer backflow, in theory a relief gully solves the risk of discharge in-house but so many are compromised by poorly executed renovations, it’s a real possibility for them.

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by Citroënbender

Those pylons; it reminds of the infamous Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse - looks like they may have failed from harmonic resonance.

As to sewer backflow, in theory a relief gully solves the risk of discharge in-house but so many are compromised by poorly executed renovations, it’s a real possibility for them.

They're usually built right next to waterways for a reason so they can emergency dump all the sewerage into the creeks/river - whoops don't tell the greens voters that one.

[Charliewool]

Caller on 3AW from Phillip Island said they’ve been told power could be out for 5-7weeks..

[whynot]

Originally Posted by Citroënbender

Daringly, to return to topic - are the outages so bad as possibly suggested yesterday evening?

From a distance of two states away, I am sort of struggling to comprehend the damage on both the distribution and transmission levels for the recorded wind speeds.

Because 500kV transmission towers are backbone infrastructure, particularly for such a sensitive customer as a smelter, they are built like brick dunnies. These were built in the old SECV days, before privatisation, when engineers were old and conservative. I haven't got access to the design specifications, but at a guess, 160 kph wind gust minimum is the design rating. Add in an engineering safety factor on top of that, and they shouldn't topple in winds below 180-200 kph.

So, either there is; a design flaw that has been there since the 1980's, a wind gust (micro burst) up around 180 kph, poor maintenance, or the lines has picked up debris (like roofing iron) that has turned it into a sail. Or all of the above.

That the faults bumped off major power stations nearby is no surprise. But one will have to wait for the engineering report to understand if it was transient stability, over frequency (due to lack of load) or under frequency (too much load dumped on them) that caused the generators to trip. All said, nice work by the plant operators to get back two units that evening - on a power station not designed for TTHL.

The level of power outages on the distribution network is a surprise as well. Looking through the BoM observations, there are a few sites around Melbourne that peaked at 106 kph. But most sites are only around 80 kph gusts. From a distance, the only conclusion that I can draw is that the greenies have been actively harassing the power companies for the last few years not to cut trees near powerlines.

(This sort of happens once every 10 - 15 years. Greenies create a stink in the local media. Next, the local media run sob stories - with some teary do-gooder - about some endangered pigeon in the tree in their front yard. Electricity company avoids bad publicity by not cutting tree due to community objections. Greenies hail it as a societal victory over evil electricity company. Works for everyone, right up until the next storm drags down a monster gum tree into the electricity lines that supply the local hospital / supermarket / telco site / pub. People wake up to themselves, and tree trimming resumes.)

If Victoria is really going for an all electricity future (i.e. no gas for heating & cooking, and EV for transport), then the government of the day needs to understand exactly how critical a highly resilient the electricity grid has to be. That means lot of redundancy (and transmission lines) across the state. It also means a superbly maintained distribution network - including trees being kept clear of powerlines.

[kevino]

Originally Posted by Citroënbender

Those pylons; it reminds of the infamous Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse - looks like they may have failed from harmonic resonance.

As to sewer backflow, in theory a relief gully solves the risk of discharge in-house but so many are compromised by poorly executed renovations, it’s a real possibility for them.

Same thing happened in parts of Scenic Rim and Gold coast (SE qld)Xmas Day tornado at 9 om hitting select areas.
Poles the same broken power off to thousands for 1/3 weeks.
Energex the govco lines coy said they had never seen these poles break like this-its a first.

[Dr Smith]

Originally Posted by whynot

From a distance of two states away, I am sort of struggling to comprehend the damage on both the distribution and transmission levels for the recorded wind speeds.

Because 500kV transmission towers are backbone infrastructure, particularly for such a sensitive customer as a smelter, they are built like brick dunnies. These were built in the old SECV days, before privatisation, when engineers were old and conservative. I haven't got access to the design specifications, but at a guess, 160 kph wind gust minimum is the design rating. Add in an engineering safety factor on top of that, and they shouldn't topple in winds below 180-200 kph.

So, either there is; a design flaw that has been there since the 1980's, a wind gust (micro burst) up around 180 kph, poor maintenance, or the lines has picked up debris (like roofing iron) that has turned it into a sail. Or all of the above.

That the faults bumped off major power stations nearby is no surprise. But one will have to wait for the engineering report to understand if it was transient stability, over frequency (due to lack of load) or under frequency (too much load dumped on them) that caused the generators to trip. All said, nice work by the plant operators to get back two units that evening - on a power station not designed for TTHL.

The level of power outages on the distribution network is a surprise as well. Looking through the BoM observations, there are a few sites around Melbourne that peaked at 106 kph. But most sites are only around 80 kph gusts. From a distance, the only conclusion that I can draw is that the greenies have been actively harassing the power companies for the last few years not to cut trees near powerlines.

(This sort of happens once every 10 - 15 years. Greenies create a stink in the local media. Next, the local media run sob stories - with some teary do-gooder - about some endangered pigeon in the tree in their front yard. Electricity company avoids bad publicity by not cutting tree due to community objections. Greenies hail it as a societal victory over evil electricity company. Works for everyone, right up until the next storm drags down a monster gum tree into the electricity lines that supply the local hospital / supermarket / telco site / pub. People wake up to themselves, and tree trimming resumes.)

If Victoria is really going for an all electricity future (i.e. no gas for heating & cooking, and EV for transport), then the government of the day needs to understand exactly how critical a highly resilient the electricity grid has to be. That means lot of redundancy (and transmission lines) across the state. It also means a superbly maintained distribution network - including trees being kept clear of powerlines.

A couple of weather observations show near Anakie , where the towers failed, like Avalon airport hit 120km/hr in that 2:00-2:30pm window but you do raise a good point that the failure rating would/should be far higher unless debris hit and caused a massive drag on the structure. There are a lot of poultry farms in that area as well as crop farming.

[kevino]

Originally Posted by whynot

From a distance of two states away, I am sort of struggling to comprehend the damage on both the distribution and transmission levels for the recorded wind speeds.

Because 500kV transmission towers are backbone infrastructure, particularly for such a sensitive customer as a smelter, they are built like brick dunnies. These were built in the old SECV days, before privatisation, when engineers were old and conservative. I haven't got access to the design specifications, but at a guess, 160 kph wind gust minimum is the design rating. Add in an engineering safety factor on top of that, and they shouldn't topple in winds below 180-200 kph.

So, either there is; a design flaw that has been there since the 1980's, a wind gust (micro burst) up around 180 kph, poor maintenance, or the lines has picked up debris (like roofing iron) that has turned it into a sail. Or all of the above.

That the faults bumped off major power stations nearby is no surprise. But one will have to wait for the engineering report to understand if it was transient stability, over frequency (due to lack of load) or under frequency (too much load dumped on them) that caused the generators to trip. All said, nice work by the plant operators to get back two units that evening - on a power station not designed for TTHL.

The level of power outages on the distribution network is a surprise as well. Looking through the BoM observations, there are a few sites around Melbourne that peaked at 106 kph. But most sites are only around 80 kph gusts. From a distance, the only conclusion that I can draw is that the greenies have been actively harassing the power companies for the last few years not to cut trees near powerlines.

(This sort of happens once every 10 - 15 years. Greenies create a stink in the local media. Next, the local media run sob stories - with some teary do-gooder - about some endangered pigeon in the tree in their front yard. Electricity company avoids bad publicity by not cutting tree due to community objections. Greenies hail it as a societal victory over evil electricity company. Works for everyone, right up until the next storm drags down a monster gum tree into the electricity lines that supply the local hospital / supermarket / telco site / pub. People wake up to themselves, and tree trimming resumes.)

If Victoria is really going for an all electricity future (i.e. no gas for heating & cooking, and EV for transport), then the government of the day needs to understand exactly how critical a highly resilient the electricity grid has to be. That means lot of redundancy (and transmission lines) across the state. It also means a superbly maintained distribution network - including trees being kept clear of powerlines.

Excellent post
And large gum trees on surburban sections on the 25/12 tornado storm caused same things you are talking about

[Charliewool]

To add to above (from 9 news)
Gippsland says there is no electricity in the popular Eastern Victorian tourist town of Lakes Entrance.

He said traffic lights in the town are not working, mobile phones are down and service stations are closed.

“Woolworths is wastefully throwing out all refrigerated goods due to no back-up generator,” Mr Cunningham said.
He said stores are only able to accept cash payments and described the situation as “appalling”.

Cashless society?… yeah bananas!

[roKWiz]

Why is there still such things as domestic overhead powerlines.
Didn't these go out when someone knew how to operate a ditchwitch, our little town doesn't have many.