Yesterday afternoon Teri called me from her car, using her cell phone.  She was calling me, asking for my advice on whether or not it was safe for her to drive under a low-hanging cable that was spanning the road she was driving down.  She was afraid that it was so low that it might touch her car as she was driving under it and didn’t know what would happen if it did.  Well of course I told her to NOT drive under the wire, to back up the car until she could turn around and then take a detour to her destination.

The phone conversation brought to mind that most people don’t know which cable is the electric cable, the phone cable, and the cable television cable, and sometimes fire alarm and burglar alarm cables.  I used to work for a utility company’s construction department and I learned that the top cable is the electric cable, the one three feet below that is the telephone cable(s), below that is cable television, and below that is fire and/or burglar alarms.   And the cables that you see between poles that have a loop in them that look snowshoe shaped – those are fiber optic telephone cables!

Teri had told me that the cable across the road in her situation was the top cable, so I knew it was the electric cable.  Naturally no one should ever drive under ANY cable that they think is so low it might touch their car.  I just thought that anyone reading this post might like to learn a little bit of information about the placement of cables on the utility poles, just for their own information!  Maybe it will help someone in the future if they have to make a phone call, to know exactly WHAT cable is down!