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Can you still get out driving where you live?

26K views 176 replies 48 participants last post by  Viffermike 
#1 ·
Curious how forum members are coping with lockdown / isolation measures where they live. Are you still able to take the 718 out for a drive? Or is that completely off the agenda for now?
 
#2 ·
Here in New Jersey, driving is only allowed for necessary tasks such as food shopping or doctors visit. We're on 24 hours curfew. Our governor sounded serious today when he said police would be spot checking drivers and if someone didn't have a good reason for being out and about they could risk arrest.
It's not fun, but to be fair, it's the best way we currently have to stop the spread and give the hospitals some relief.
The college I worked at is setting up a drive-thru testing facility in the parking lot.
One of my racing friends owns a small factory that is now empty. He has offered it to the local hospitals for as long as they like, if they need extra space.
I'd say it's all hands on deck around here.
I live on a road that is moderately busy most days. Mostly, all I see now is police cars and mail trucks.
 
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#65 ·
Here in New Jersey, driving is only allowed for necessary tasks such as food shopping or doctors visit. We're on 24 hours curfew. Our governor sounded serious today when he said police would be spot checking drivers and if someone didn't have a good reason for being out and about they could risk arrest.
It's not fun, but to be fair, it's the best way we currently have to stop the spread and give the hospitals some relief.
The college I worked at is setting up a drive-thru testing facility in the parking lot.
One of my racing friends owns a small factory that is now empty. He has offered it to the local hospitals for as long as they like, if they need extra space.
I'd say it's all hands on deck around here.
I live on a road that is moderately busy most days. Mostly, all I see now is police cars and mail trucks.
That's not exactly true; after 8 PM, yes, but during the day, you can drive about. I took my 718B out yesterday for 30-40 minutes just to get some air. I'm from the Princeton area and luckily have everything we need, and since I work from home normally this isn't too much of an inconvenience, except for the fact that my wife and 21 yo son are here full-time now, too!
 
#3 ·
Just posted about a group drive in the mountains in Georgia, USA. Most people working from home where they can and some other local restrictions, but no prohibitions on driving yet.

 
#68 ·
R.O.:

REMEMBER that you can spread it BEFORE you have symptoms....and it's 3 times more contagious than flu.

You know, "group" anything is probably not a great idea. People are leaving NYC now because the virus is everywhere. They're going to CT, NJ etc to avoid infection. Guess what? It's spreading to CT and NJ. Louisiana got it right after Mardi Gras and now they're thick with it. Same thing will happen with GA or anyplace else that allows group activity from out of the state.

That said, there's no harm in going for a drive in your own car and coming home. Drive conservatively. This is not a good time to have an incident with injuries. Medical facilities are a mess. This shite is real. Keep your distance, don't touch your face. Wash your hands...a lot. Think about what you touch. Everyone should treat everyone else like they're already infected.

Stay safe and let this thing die out.

:cool:
 
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#8 ·
Yeah, total lock down in some of the States must be tough.

As Greg mentioned we are still ok to drive around as long as you don't need to cross a boarder but we only have five states in Australia (excluding Tasmania) so you are unlikely to need to cross a boarder.

I think a bit of spirited driving therapy wouldn't go astray with all that is going on. Hopefully the roads will be a little quieter at least!
 
#52 ·
Considering that the emergency services are already overwhelmed dealing with Covid-19 wouldn't it seem 'reasonable' to reduce the chance of getting into an accident and requiring those services?

This goes for other skill/risk activities like rock climbing, back country hiking or downhill skiing to name a few.

Come on people this is serious, it is time to stay home and chill, a little temporary loss of personal freedom to move about will not kill you, but Covid-19 and exposure or spreading it can! :eek:
 
#38 ·
Funny that's not confined to CA. I was out Sunday morning here in Pittsburgh and I saw more beasties than usual. The sparse traffic made them especially easy to pick out.

Though we are in a shelter at home mandate, there's no driving restrictions here yet. You can go out to shop for groceries, to the pharmacy and to home centers for supplies. Every other business is delivery only. Oh there is a curfew of sorts too. No travel after 8pm.
 
#11 ·
We aren't in an official lockdown yet here in Ottawa (Canada), but we are being aggressively urged to stay home as the health department says the virus is actively spreading in the community and their models show up to 4000 infected in a city of 1 million. Also, it's snowing (again), and I don't have the appropriate tires. Actual spring usually doesn't arrive here until late April.
 
#12 ·
Massachusetts isn't in lockdown yet except for Provincetown on Cape Cod and Nantucket. People are being strongly encouraged to exercise social distancing. I see where the number of new cases in Middlesex county where I live grew more slowly yesterday, which is to say the curve is flattening at least here. This is the county where the Biogen conference spread it to quite a few unsuspecting guests.

I confess to be mildly bothered by the fact that Nantucket has lockdown. How does it move to an island that far offshore? Some idiot decided he had to travel to his beachhouse, I guess. Or else go home after visiting the mainland. Provincetown is almost the same, perhaps the source of the Nantucket case. Out on the end of the earth someone had to go there anyway.
 
#73 ·
The problem is NYC is rife with it and people are going to vacation homes etc to escape....and they already have it but no symptoms. It can be spread before symptoms show up. Nasty.
 
#13 ·
Here in PA, all non-essential business is mandated closed. “Unnecessary” travel is only discouraged at this point. However, the Governor has threatened enforcement by the State Police against any business that dares defy his order. I imagine the police are not happy with the idea of being sent after the local folks with whom they normally do business in the myriad of small towns across the state.
 
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#14 ·
Dallas County, Texas is under lockdown. It centers around downtown Dallas. Harris County (Houston) is considering it, I heard the county judge lay out a very well thought out plan of action, which, in my judgement will lead to a lockdown in 2-3 days.

We all need to wake up, the shιt is real!

The death curve for the US is somewhat faster than exponential, for practical purposes we can assume it is exponential.

In March 14th I did some extrapolations (which assumes that the social distancing measures have limited results and no serious lockdown).

At the time, we had 57 dead in the US.

The data extrapolation showed 100 dead by March17 (we had 109)

1000 dead by April 3 (does anyone doubt we will hit that number when we have 419 by March 22 (yesterday)?

10000 dead by April 15 (nothing certain but death and taxes).

If you get it, the trend is one order of magnitude more deaths every 2 weeks. 100,000 dead by the end of April?

Pray to wherever you believe that we will get our act together and slow down this thing, so it does not become a conflagration that will consume us all.
 
#58 ·
...

We all need to wake up, the shιt is real!

The death curve for the US is somewhat faster than exponential, for practical purposes we can assume it is exponential.

In March 14th I did some extrapolations (which assumes that the social distancing measures have limited results and no serious lockdown).

At the time, we had 57 dead in the US.

The data extrapolation showed 100 dead by March17 (we had 109)

1000 dead by April 3 (does anyone doubt we will hit that number when we have 419 by March 22 (yesterday)?

10000 dead by April 15 (nothing certain but death and taxes).

If you get it, the trend is one order of magnitude more deaths every 2 weeks. 100,000 dead by the end of April?

Pray to wherever you believe that we will get our act together and slow down this thing, so it does not become a conflagration that will consume us all.
On March 14 I did the projection that if the 'death curve' is exponential, we will hit 1000 dead by April 3.

On March 23 (2 days ago people) I redid the graph/extrapolation and the 1000 mark was moved forward to March 27-28!

Today, March 25, it looks like it will hit 1000 either tomorrow or early March 27...

My March 23 projection shows 10,000 dead by April 9 and 100,000 by April 23. An increase of one order of magnitude every two weeks.

I am not doing this to spread fear. The projections assume that we do nothing, or that our measures are ineffective like Italy, where they went to 'social distancing' and then 'lockdown' and the disease is running rampant.

Obviously, China's severe lockdown points to more effectiveness than Italy's or Spain's.

This means, it's up to us on how effective we can make the lockdowns

don't be lulled if your state doesn't show many people getting the sickness. Some may be to less testing, as we didn't have enough test kits early on. But, once you have some cases, you will get more. It is likely that those states with fewer cases are on some delay, but the disease is so infectious, that once started it takes draconian measures to stop it.

Lets hope that our researchers will find some medicines and ultimately a vaccine.

In the meantime,

Stay home, stay safe.
 
#16 ·
Never thought I see the day that a man with a machine gun is asking for my papers. What the actual F@$K? This shits crazy!
Let me quote myself:

We all need to wake up, the shιt is real!
Especially looking at our demographics (most of us are old geezers...).

Stay home, stay safe, until better times come!
 
#20 · (Edited)
Our governor issued a stay-at-home order today and closed all essential business. Edit: No, make that a stay-at-home advisory, not an order. There are some notable exceptions. One is anything contributing to medical efforts. That actually includes my company because our gas analyzers are used for, among other things, medical oxygen production. The order includes a ban on any gathering of more than 10 people but explicitly excludes people in parks, playgrounds, parking lots as long as they maintain a 10ft distance. Presumably it means people can go out and walk around, emphasis on "around" when other people are around. Driving is discouraged but allowed for certain things like buying groceries, medical trips, etc.
 
#21 ·
I think driving is discouraged because for people without Porsches driving is merely a means to an end and an activity to get you to a place that you are not meant to be at. Therefore if you discourage driving you will therefore decrease people congregating in places where they should not be.

For those with a love for driving for whom driving is not a means to an end but the end itself I am not sure that would hold true.

The last couple of days I have found that taking my car out and buzzing around deserted industrial zones is an amazing stress reliever. Logically alone in my car there is no way I could be at risk or pose a risk to others. The only negative I can think of is that others will see me and my car as another person breaking the "stay at home" and thereby making that person feel less guilty about their choice.

Despite the closure of almost everything in NJ there were tons of people on the road today (I am an essential worker)
 
#24 ·
This Covid-19 puts an extra layer of considerations which did not exist before...

An accident, however small, can bring you into close contact with other people who may be infected, asymptomatic.

Case in poitnt:

My son's office had a major bid to be delivered on Monday (engineering) and this past weekend was all hands on deck. He clocked two 15 hour days, Sunday starting pretty late, so that he could do final reviews on a whole package of drawings and final corrections.

He came home at 230 this morning! We live in a small gated & fenced community and he parks outside. The neighbor's pit bull had somehow escaped the garage he was locked up and thought it was great fun to try to catch this guy at the other side of the fence.

We called the non-emergency police number and they gave us the animal control number. Animal Control did not work 230 in the morning and the non-emergency police gave up.

We called 911. It must have been a slow night (bars/restaurants are closed due to Covid-19) so, two police cars showed up. They put up a light and sound show trying to wake up the owners of the dog, but to no avail. Their sirens woke up just about everybody else though...

A neighbor that knows the dog tried to approach and distract the dog so my son could sneak in, and the dog had great fun chasing both of them along the front part of our community. The neighbor's roommate took advantage of the distraction and alerted the dog owners. By now it is 315 in the morning, there are 2 police cars in front of the townhouses, lights flashing, the owners are apologizing profusely to anyone in sight and I had the fine idea to ask for their phone number for future reference.

Close contact with 2 neighbors, two police persons and a hyperactive but leashed pit bull.

9 days of self quarantine compromised. YMMV
 
#26 ·
NY is on lockdown. But nobody's on the road. And no cop is going to pull a random car over without cause, even a Porsche. Regardless, you can always cook up a good cover story. You're certainly not going to infect anyone or catch the flu driving around solo in your 718, that's for sure. But here the weather still kinda blows and it will be warmer and nicer in a couple of weeks; by then let's hope this has all calmed down.
 
#27 ·
In NC, so far, we can be out there driving (although hooning should be avoided). No rhyme or reason for what’s open or allowed. But for all the doom and gloomers, try to think a bit more optimistically. Stress isn’t good for your health. News and social media paint a bleak picture but what can you truly know or believe? Stats are skewed and made to look dismal. The virus has been around longer than you think. But this guy thinks we will be ok sooner rather than later and he’s got some cred supposedly Nobel Laureate Accurately Predicts Coronavirus Slowdown Do we need to be cautious? Absolutely. Panic? Never.
 
#29 ·
Here in New Zealand I have been working from home since Monday. Our government introduced a COVID 19 Alert Level system on Saturday and put us at level 2 (Reduce). Yesterday we went up to Level 3 (Restrict) and were told we would be moving to Level 4 (Eliminate) at 11:59PM on Wednesday 25 March. This is basically a national lockdown that entails:

  • People instructed to stay at home
  • Educational facilities closed
  • Businesses closed except for essential services (e.g. supermarkets, pharmacies, clinics) and lifeline utilities
  • Rationing of supplies and requisitioning of facilities
  • Travel severely limited
  • Major reprioritisation of healthcare services
We will remain at Level 4 for four weeks. At that time, the situation will be assessed and the lockdown extended if required.

We have basically been told we can go out locally (to parks, walking the dog, exercise etc.) as long as we remain in our self-isolation group and can only travel to essential services i.e. no non-essential car trips etc. That is pretty much it. The Police and Military have been called in to enforce the lockdown. So this means "no pleasure drives into the country", which I was hoping to do.

I think our government have been working for a while to devise the above plan, which they did the moment we had the first cases of in-community transfer. Last week they also announced extensive rescue packages for those affected (NZ$12 Billion and counting). The only thing they could have done sooner is close our borders to non-residents (they did this last Wednesday when they realised tourists had no intention to self-isolate for fourteen days).
Overall I think the strategy is unprecedented and bold but also what is needed. Lets hope it works and we come out the other side OK.
 
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