I drove by about 30 minutes ago, on the 1-week anniversary, and to my amazement Old Faithful is still in full effect, its still spraying a huge quantity of water directly onto traffic headed up the onramp.
I was held up in Long Beach, and didn't get to San Clemente until 10:38PM; I got off at the next exit, doubled back on the freeway, and parked in the much wider breakdown lane on the I-5, next to the onramp. I got out, looked down, and sure enough the sprinklers were enabled, and the single defective sprinkler was pouring water across both lanes. I went back to my car to grab the camera, tripod mount, and tripod, and just as I was setting up, literally as my finger was pushing the shutter button, the sprinklers stopped.
I did take this picture, to show the level of water present - this is approx 1 minute after the sprinkler's turned off, there were visible ripples in the water, a 'current' if you will, so its reasonably deep, and moving down the ramp. My accident occurred at 10:34PM, this picture is around 10:40PM; the cops showed up at my scene at 10:55PM, when the entire onramp was covered in a thin layer of water.
Note how the water is flowing down the hill, when my accident occurred, it was 6 minutes before the time when this picture was taken, so there would have been no water visible _at_all_ - what water was present was shrouded in darkness further up the hill, closer to the sprinkler.
I am amazed nobody seems to consider repairing this any kind of priority
As far as how many cars travel this on-ramp, while I was there, for around 5 minutes, I counted 4 cars that drove up the ramp; the sprinklers are only enabled certain days of the week, as they were disabled when I went by last Sunday; if its on a similar pattern as my local on-ramp, its enabled for 5 minutes 3 days of the 7.
The sprinkler has been broken for the last month, so there have been, assuming this pattern, 12 total days of sprinkler use, at 5 minutes per day, so a total of 60 minutes of sprinkler pouring water across the ramp during this time. The tow truck driver that picked me out of the ice plants said he had pulled two other cars from the same ramp, in the same situation, with my car that makes 3 vehicles that have crashed off here, at least in large part as a result of this broken sprinkler, that is one accident every 20 minutes, all based on a SINGLE tow truck driver, perhaps there are more accidents, with different tow trucks, or cars that spin and are still in drivable condition.
I don't think an intersection with this kind of record would be allowed to operate for very long, I am amazed that any public road is allowed to remain open with this kind of safety record, and what floors me is THE PROPER PEOPLE HAVE BEEN CONTACTED, not once, but several times, and still nothing is being done. I am tempted to buy a toro sprinkler head at Home Depot and repair it myself
