Ok, so we really need Minority Report cars. We probably can already do them vaguely. Drives you where you need to go based on GPS. Picks up on obstacles and other vehicles via sonar/radar/allthatjazz. Also communicates with other cars near it to get their position, etc. If we ever manage to implement that, it'd be awesome. (And yes, with a manual override if you really want it)
Yeah having a hardware button you press to give you emergency speed seems silly. It'd be like a turbo boost button. I do like the idea of "average sustained speed above X for Y" and the car either slows down by itself, or beeps like mad.
Also, disabling the beep? Put it in the computer software. Link it to the stereo. There, now you can't drown it out, or remove it. The beep seems like an excellent idea, but again sometimes it's ok to go 90MPH, in rare circumstances. That's why we need our cars to start getting GPS systems with speed limit data on them. They need way more computers in them than there currently are basically. All you people that don't trust the technology to get you from A to B, you'll trust a 16 year old kid over a multimillion dollar computer system? Really? Because I wouldn't.
Also, Memphis drivers are the worst. You think I'm kidding. I AM NOT KIDDING. This is also the town that had kids named Lemonjello and Orangejello. (Pronounced "Le-monn-jello" and "Or-ahn-jello")
But that's not the standard everywhere. The same road (size, conditions, whatnot) in two neighboring states can be 55 or 65. That's why it's relatively arbitrary. I'm not saying "NO SPEED LIMITS", what I'm saying is that in reality the exact number decided on is pretty random. Heck, in MA it's determined by the number of lanes and number of people in the general vicinity (except the pike, which sets it's own limits) state wide, with no care for the actual road conditions. Which makes for some hilariously unsafe roads marked 45 that nobody goes over 25 on.
This is why you don't see a lot of RAGE against people going 70-75 in a 65. Because aside from how easy it is to slip 5mph up or down, it's also well within a pretty sane range that the road can handle. Sure, I'll look funny at people doing 100 in a 65, but that's because you're now well into crazy land.
So why not go 65? If you are just having trouble remembering, well that's why now you will get a very helpful beeping tone to remind you.
Maybe if people actually followed speed limits there would be some interest in setting them more reasonably.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
Braking is a complicated question. For example the math I can find says I will take 172 feet to go from 60-0. My car actually does that in 127 feet(stock parts), because this is heavily influenced by the brakes and tires on the car. edit: theoretically, the difference between 55 and 65 is about 50 feet. Realistically, I can't tell you the difference on various types of cars, given how inaccurate that math is with base braking distances.
But moreover: you don't ride someone's ass at any high speed because you need braking distance. That has little to do with adjusting the speed limit and more to do with "how does driving work?", it's also why people weaving is such a danger: it promptly jostles traffic because they rarely do so while leaving enough room for braking in the lane they merged into.
I'm saying it's relatively arbitrary because the method used is essentially "people will figure it out, then we paint it on a sign", likely because of the vast differences in car performance making it pretty much impossible to come up with decent numbers based on the math of their various acceleration braking and turning metrics.
Also the energy of an impact at 65 is going to be a lot more than one at 55.
I'm not really seeing what is so unreasonable about speed limits.
You start out with highways at like 70 because they are straight and wide and thus safe to go on at those speeds. They may also have side rails and medians and stuff for additional protection.
When you go down to major roads that are narrower and do not have these protections, you need to drop down to 55-65. Then even smaller roads, with lots of intersections and turns, are like 45. And finally residential roads and the like are 20-35.
Unfortantly there's a lot of places near me down south at least, that are like main throuroughfaires through the town with 35MPH speed limits. There's a 50MPH speed limit on the damn interstate in Memphis that not a SOUL follows.
But that's not the standard everywhere. The same road (size, conditions, whatnot) in two neighboring states can be 55 or 65. That's why it's relatively arbitrary. I'm not saying "NO SPEED LIMITS", what I'm saying is that in reality the exact number decided on is pretty random. Heck, in MA it's determined by the number of lanes and number of people in the general vicinity (except the pike, which sets it's own limits) state wide, with no care for the actual road conditions. Which makes for some hilariously unsafe roads marked 45 that nobody goes over 25 on.
This is why you don't see a lot of RAGE against people going 70-75 in a 65. Because aside from how easy it is to slip 5mph up or down, it's also well within a pretty sane range that the road can handle. Sure, I'll look funny at people doing 100 in a 65, but that's because you're now well into crazy land.
So why not go 65? If you are just having trouble remembering, well that's why now you will get a very helpful beeping tone to remind you.
Maybe if people actually followed speed limits there would be some interest in setting them more reasonably.
Because the feel difference between 65 and 70 is pretty much impossible to notice, especially if everyone else is speeding as well so you have no visual frame of reference. Personally, without installing beeping software in everyone's cars ever made, I'm fine with 70 because I'd much MUCH rather someone go 70 in a 65 over the alternative of someone staring at their dashboard instead of the road to make sure the needle says 65.
Unfortantly there's a lot of places near me down south at least, that are like main throuroughfaires through the town with 35MPH speed limits. There's a 50MPH speed limit on the damn interstate in Memphis that not a SOUL follows.
I like the constantly altered speed limits on highways myself. THIS straight line will be 45! And then 55! And then 50! And then 55! And now 65!
Note: the road hasn't changed at all in this span, it's the same nearly straight road it's been, same number of lanes, no sudden rash of crowded onramps. It's just that a committee somewhere decided that this stretch needed to be slower.
Really what I mean to say is: fuck Connecticut's stretch of I-95.
But that's not the standard everywhere. The same road (size, conditions, whatnot) in two neighboring states can be 55 or 65. That's why it's relatively arbitrary. I'm not saying "NO SPEED LIMITS", what I'm saying is that in reality the exact number decided on is pretty random. Heck, in MA it's determined by the number of lanes and number of people in the general vicinity (except the pike, which sets it's own limits) state wide, with no care for the actual road conditions. Which makes for some hilariously unsafe roads marked 45 that nobody goes over 25 on.
This is why you don't see a lot of RAGE against people going 70-75 in a 65. Because aside from how easy it is to slip 5mph up or down, it's also well within a pretty sane range that the road can handle. Sure, I'll look funny at people doing 100 in a 65, but that's because you're now well into crazy land.
So why not go 65? If you are just having trouble remembering, well that's why now you will get a very helpful beeping tone to remind you.
Maybe if people actually followed speed limits there would be some interest in setting them more reasonably.
Because the feel difference between 65 and 70 is pretty much impossible to notice, especially if everyone else is speeding as well so you have no visual frame of reference. Personally, without installing beeping software in everyone's cars ever made, I'm fine with 70 because I'd much MUCH rather someone go 70 in a 65 over the alternative of someone staring at their dashboard instead of the road to make sure the needle says 65.
It is not that hard to actually look at your speedometer. That's what it's there for.
EDIT: You know, I'm pretty sure whoever sets speed limits is either an elected official, or works for one. So, maybe you should try paying attention to local elections?
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited June 2010
Someone point me to a study that shows that going 70 in a 65 actually causes enough accidents for us to spend billions, or trillions, on policing it more than we already do. For that matter, that going 70 in a 65 is some how more "deadly" when an accident occurs.
If we want severely strict speed limit enforcement, then we the people need more say in what those speed limits are, because there are a lot of really stupid speed limits in a lot of really dumb places. The jumping up down, up down speed limit crap being one of the worse offenses.
But that's not the standard everywhere. The same road (size, conditions, whatnot) in two neighboring states can be 55 or 65. That's why it's relatively arbitrary. I'm not saying "NO SPEED LIMITS", what I'm saying is that in reality the exact number decided on is pretty random. Heck, in MA it's determined by the number of lanes and number of people in the general vicinity (except the pike, which sets it's own limits) state wide, with no care for the actual road conditions. Which makes for some hilariously unsafe roads marked 45 that nobody goes over 25 on.
This is why you don't see a lot of RAGE against people going 70-75 in a 65. Because aside from how easy it is to slip 5mph up or down, it's also well within a pretty sane range that the road can handle. Sure, I'll look funny at people doing 100 in a 65, but that's because you're now well into crazy land.
So why not go 65? If you are just having trouble remembering, well that's why now you will get a very helpful beeping tone to remind you.
Maybe if people actually followed speed limits there would be some interest in setting them more reasonably.
Because the feel difference between 65 and 70 is pretty much impossible to notice, especially if everyone else is speeding as well so you have no visual frame of reference. Personally, without installing beeping software in everyone's cars ever made, I'm fine with 70 because I'd much MUCH rather someone go 70 in a 65 over the alternative of someone staring at their dashboard instead of the road to make sure the needle says 65.
It is not that hard to actually look at your speedometer. That's what it's there for.
EDIT: You know, I'm pretty sure whoever sets speed limits is either an elected official, or works for one. So, maybe you should try paying attention to local elections?
The various state DOT's are usually not elected officials, unless I've just lived in really odd states. Most legislatures set the maximum possible speed limits for road types (based on lane or proximity to residential areas), and then leave the exact limits on the roads to the DOT, which is pretty much not giving a shit about voters, as they shouldn't.
As for looking at my speedometer: as an experiment, we should go driving together. I'm going to put a screen over the speedometer so you can't see it, and alter speed between 55 and 75 mph. You have to tell me how fast I'm going.
It's a TRIVIAL amount of pressure difference in your foot to go 68 in a 65. Heck, it's actually within the tolerances of your speedometer's accuracy requirements that you could be going 68 and it would swear to you that it's going 65. People cannot tell the difference at that speed. The only way to verify that you're going 65 is GPS estimations and staring at it constantly to make sure you're not edging above or below it.
This is why cops tend to not give a shit about people doing ~70 in a 65: because it's less likely that they're speed demons, and more likely that they're using other traffic as an indicator of appropriate, or just happened to speed up a bit.
I don't get this. Normal practice in the UK is to move over to the middle (on a three-lane motorway) or right-hand lane (on a two-lane dual carriageway) well before a junction to let those merging come in. Obviously if it's really busy it's a bit different but that's how things seem to work normally.
This works at maybe 3am around here. You'd be surprised how busy the 401 is generally. I move over when I can, but usually, I'm boxed into a lane and have to adjust speed to help cars merge.
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firewaterwordSatchitanandaPais Vasco to San FranciscoRegistered Userregular
edited June 2010
No one says you have to speed. Unless you're in the left lane. Then you have to speed.
Also re: limiters, I doubt it'll ever happen on a large scale. I'm sure there's some product you can pop into little Jonny's Jetta to make sure he isn't speeding. It's cool that that's an option I guess.
firewaterword on
Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
But that's not the standard everywhere. The same road (size, conditions, whatnot) in two neighboring states can be 55 or 65. That's why it's relatively arbitrary. I'm not saying "NO SPEED LIMITS", what I'm saying is that in reality the exact number decided on is pretty random. Heck, in MA it's determined by the number of lanes and number of people in the general vicinity (except the pike, which sets it's own limits) state wide, with no care for the actual road conditions. Which makes for some hilariously unsafe roads marked 45 that nobody goes over 25 on.
This is why you don't see a lot of RAGE against people going 70-75 in a 65. Because aside from how easy it is to slip 5mph up or down, it's also well within a pretty sane range that the road can handle. Sure, I'll look funny at people doing 100 in a 65, but that's because you're now well into crazy land.
So why not go 65? If you are just having trouble remembering, well that's why now you will get a very helpful beeping tone to remind you.
Maybe if people actually followed speed limits there would be some interest in setting them more reasonably.
Because the feel difference between 65 and 70 is pretty much impossible to notice, especially if everyone else is speeding as well so you have no visual frame of reference. Personally, without installing beeping software in everyone's cars ever made, I'm fine with 70 because I'd much MUCH rather someone go 70 in a 65 over the alternative of someone staring at their dashboard instead of the road to make sure the needle says 65.
It is not that hard to actually look at your speedometer. That's what it's there for.
EDIT: You know, I'm pretty sure whoever sets speed limits is either an elected official, or works for one. So, maybe you should try paying attention to local elections?
The various state DOT's are usually not elected officials, unless I've just lived in really odd states. Most legislatures set the maximum possible speed limits for road types (based on lane or proximity to residential areas), and then leave the exact limits on the roads to the DOT, which is pretty much not giving a shit about voters, as they shouldn't.
As for looking at my speedometer: as an experiment, we should go driving together. I'm going to put a screen over the speedometer so you can't see it, and alter speed between 55 and 75 mph. You have to tell me how fast I'm going.
It's a TRIVIAL amount of pressure difference in your foot to go 68 in a 65. Heck, it's actually within the tolerances of your speedometer's accuracy requirements that you could be going 68 and it would swear to you that it's going 65. People cannot tell the difference at that speed. The only way to verify that you're going 65 is GPS estimations and staring at it constantly to make sure you're not edging above or below it.
This is why cops tend to not give a shit about people doing ~70 in a 65: because it's less likely that they're speed demons, and more likely that they're using other traffic as an indicator of appropriate, or just happened to speed up a bit.
My car has a digital speedometer, and it's still not perfect. Sometimes you know you're putting enough pressure to go, say, 70, but the speedometer swears you're doing 68. Or, I'll pass one of those "You're going this fast" road things the police setup, and my digital speedometer and that thing will be 3-7 mph off.
Someone point me to a study that shows that going 70 in a 65 actually causes enough accidents for us to spend billions, or trillions, on policing it more than we already do.
Considering no one here is advocating any such thing, I'm not sure why you would need this.
It's a TRIVIAL amount of pressure difference in your foot to go 68 in a 65. Heck, it's actually within the tolerances of your speedometer's accuracy requirements that you could be going 68 and it would swear to you that it's going 65. People cannot tell the difference at that speed. The only way to verify that you're going 65 is GPS estimations and staring at it constantly to make sure you're not edging above or below it.
This is why cops tend to not give a shit about people doing ~70 in a 65: because it's less likely that they're speed demons, and more likely that they're using other traffic as an indicator of appropriate, or just happened to speed up a bit.
But you can definitely tell the difference between 65 and 75. Or 80. Or more.
So really I'm not sure what your point is.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
The "you're going too fast" things are amazingly inaccurate, since they're just aiming at flat road and reporting. I've had them tell me I'm doing 55 in a 25 because the angle I was turning onto the road at confused it (I was doing 10 while turning)
But yeah: speedometers are not unerringly accurate. This is why cops are lenient. This is not why cops breeze past you doing 75 in a 55, however: that is because the cops know nobody is going to pull them over
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
Someone point me to a study that shows that going 70 in a 65 actually causes enough accidents for us to spend billions, or trillions, on policing it more than we already do.
Considering no one here is advocating any such thing, I'm not sure why you would need this.
It's a TRIVIAL amount of pressure difference in your foot to go 68 in a 65. Heck, it's actually within the tolerances of your speedometer's accuracy requirements that you could be going 68 and it would swear to you that it's going 65. People cannot tell the difference at that speed. The only way to verify that you're going 65 is GPS estimations and staring at it constantly to make sure you're not edging above or below it.
This is why cops tend to not give a shit about people doing ~70 in a 65: because it's less likely that they're speed demons, and more likely that they're using other traffic as an indicator of appropriate, or just happened to speed up a bit.
But you can definitely tell the difference between 65 and 75. Or 80. Or more.
So really I'm not sure what your point is.
You don't think putting speed limiters in every car wouldn't cost billions of dollars, from someones pocket? Who's going to pay to retrofit existing cars? If you put RFID speed checkers in street and highway signs (things proposed in this thread), where's that money going to come from? Is it going to save enough lives and health care costs to be worth the billions it costs?
Someone point me to a study that shows that going 70 in a 65 actually causes enough accidents for us to spend billions, or trillions, on policing it more than we already do.
Considering no one here is advocating any such thing, I'm not sure why you would need this.
It's a TRIVIAL amount of pressure difference in your foot to go 68 in a 65. Heck, it's actually within the tolerances of your speedometer's accuracy requirements that you could be going 68 and it would swear to you that it's going 65. People cannot tell the difference at that speed. The only way to verify that you're going 65 is GPS estimations and staring at it constantly to make sure you're not edging above or below it.
This is why cops tend to not give a shit about people doing ~70 in a 65: because it's less likely that they're speed demons, and more likely that they're using other traffic as an indicator of appropriate, or just happened to speed up a bit.
But you can definitely tell the difference between 65 and 75. Or 80. Or more.
So really I'm not sure what your point is.
I can't tell the difference between 55 and 65. Around 70/80 I start feeling the decidedly different handling, but that number will vary based on the car and the engine involved. My car personally gets unhappy over 75 and starts complaining about not buying the larger engine model. I'm pretty sure the larger engines will start whining closer to 85/90.
But seriously? I can't tell you the difference between all traffic moving at 55 and all traffic moving at 65 by feel on I-95. They're very very similar.
I'd like more accountability for cops breaking the law. Just because you're a cop doesn't mean you should be doing 75 on a highway where people aren't, or talking on your cell phone, that is clearly not your "radio." And I doubt your sergeant is telling that funny of jokes that you'd be laughing on the "radio."
I actually had a cop tail me for about a half hour yesterday for god knows what. Maybe he was trying to find a reason to pull me over, but it was pretty weird he'd follow every route I took from my house to my parents'.
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
Speed limits are important because of how speed effects how far your car travels from when you notice danger until the car actually stops. For example if you travel at 100 km/h and you spot danger then you will travel about 30 meters before you even hit the break and then another 50 meters before the car stops. That's 80 meters from when you spot danger until the car stops.
if you travel at 150 km/h the distance becomes double. 160 meters.
Speed limits serve a purpose. Going over the speed limit is dangerous and when doing the math you only end up saving a few seconds of time in the end. So what's the hurry?
I am however against the idea of speed locking cars. Speed limits are local. They are set based on the road you travel. On a private road there is no speed limit and in an emergency or just when passing another car you need the extra speed.
if you're on a 90 km/h road and a car ahead of you travels at 80 km/h you wont be able to pass him while doing the speed limit.
I'd like more accountability for cops breaking the law. Just because you're a cop doesn't mean you should be doing 75 on a highway where people aren't, or talking on your cell phone, that is clearly not your "radio." And I doubt your sergeant is telling that funny of jokes that you'd be laughing on the "radio."
I actually had a cop tail me for about a half hour yesterday for god knows what. Maybe he was trying to find a reason to pull me over, but it was pretty weird he'd follow every route I took from my house to my parents'.
The cops around here are bad about it. I tend to speed a little, 5-10 over the speed limit, depending on flow of traffic, but the cops in Houston are crazy. I've seen several blow by me at 90+, no lights on, nothing. Just cruising along, because they know they are untouchable.
You don't think putting speed limiters in every car wouldn't cost billions of dollars, from someones pocket? Who's going to pay to retrofit existing cars? If you put RFID speed checkers in street and highway signs (things proposed in this thread), where's that money going to come from? Is it going to save enough lives and health care costs to be worth the billions it costs?
Except that going 70 in a 65 would be only a small fraction of the situations affected by such a system. It would come in to play in all situations with speeding, be it 5 miles over, or 30. So the real question is, what is the effect of speeding in general, and I think plenty of studies have shown that this is pretty significant.
And you don't need to do everything at once. Don't bother retrofitting old cars, just make it mandatory in new ones. 10 or even a 100 dollars extra on a new care won't even be noticeable.
As to the cost of retrofitting roads, just start with the most important areas that see a lot of speed related accidents, and work out. I doubt the costs would be all that high.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
I'd like more accountability for cops breaking the law. Just because you're a cop doesn't mean you should be doing 75 on a highway where people aren't, or talking on your cell phone, that is clearly not your "radio." And I doubt your sergeant is telling that funny of jokes that you'd be laughing on the "radio."
I actually had a cop tail me for about a half hour yesterday for god knows what. Maybe he was trying to find a reason to pull me over, but it was pretty weird he'd follow every route I took from my house to my parents'.
The cops around here are bad about it. I tend to speed a little, 5-10 over the speed limit, depending on flow of traffic, but the cops in Houston are crazy. I've seen several blow by me at 90+, no lights on, nothing. Just cruising along, because they know they are untouchable.
How would you even go about combating the problem? Even though citizens can have cops arrested, I doubt it'd do anything, or there's no active way for a citizen to pull a cop over. Can citizens have a cop de-badged or whatever?
bowen on
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited June 2010
Eh, beyond the costs, I just don't like it. It's a scary precedent. This is probably a very American sentiment, because we're all about "FREEDUMB" here, but I don't like the thought of the government putting RFID tags all over the place, and limiting how I drive the automobile I spent 20+ G's on. They already have a way to limit how crazy you are, they are called police.
I mean, what's next. Are we going to limit how often you can change lanes to deal with the crazy traffic dancers that are actually quite dangerous?
I'd like more accountability for cops breaking the law. Just because you're a cop doesn't mean you should be doing 75 on a highway where people aren't, or talking on your cell phone, that is clearly not your "radio." And I doubt your sergeant is telling that funny of jokes that you'd be laughing on the "radio."
I actually had a cop tail me for about a half hour yesterday for god knows what. Maybe he was trying to find a reason to pull me over, but it was pretty weird he'd follow every route I took from my house to my parents'.
The cops around here are bad about it. I tend to speed a little, 5-10 over the speed limit, depending on flow of traffic, but the cops in Houston are crazy. I've seen several blow by me at 90+, no lights on, nothing. Just cruising along, because they know they are untouchable.
How would you even go about combating the problem? Even though citizens can have cops arrested, I doubt it'd do anything, or there's no active way for a citizen to pull a cop over. Can citizens have a cop de-badged or whatever?
Fire the Chief of Police and maybe the next one will actually pressure his officers to not flagrantly break the law and actually keep each other in check?
Eh, beyond the costs, I just don't like it. It's a scary precedent. This is probably a very American sentiment, because we're all about "FREEDUMB" here, but I don't like the thought of the government putting RFID tags all over the place, and limiting how I drive the automobile I spent 20+ G's on. They already have a way to limit how crazy you are, they are called police.
I mean, what's next. Are we going to limit how often you can change lanes to deal with the crazy traffic dancers that are actually quite dangerous?
I thought everyone was in agreement that a beep system was a far better idea than actually having the car just not go faster.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
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GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited June 2010
Unless the beep was through the radio (and almost no car beeps are), I'd never hear it...I jam my ipod pretty loud when I drive.
I'm completely opposed to mechanical limits on speed. I guarantee that a lot of drivers will simply disable them. I've also been in situations where driving defensively meant accelerating quickly rather than braking - like when somebody is merging into my lane without looking and the only available space is ahead of me. Granted, I will admit that those are rather rare, but they do happen sometimes.
Honestly, the best thing we could do in the US is get cars off the road. It's demented that US culture pretty much pressures every adult to own a car, outside of a handful of urban areas. Every single problem being talked about in this thread (at least in the US) either stems from, or is exacerbated by, this cultural norm.
I agree. I'd like to see a hard push away from owning cars and into more public transportation and bike lanes. I'd like to see cars a pain in the ass to deal with except for long trips. I'd also like most of all major cities networked with a mono-rail type system.
I would use the shit out of a metro system like DC has if we had one where I live.
florida sadly will still be a shithole car wise. We tried to get rail systems put in, but we cant pay for them
and fuck riding a bike in 95+ degrees with 90% humidity.
I live a mile and a half from work but don't ride a bike because there isn't a shower for me at work to de-stink
I live right next to UCF, its about 10-15 minutes of bike riding. It takes about as long to drive a car, or to take the shuttles. But I would die of heatstroke if i attempted it
Hey, I walk up Alafaya to research park everyday and haven't died of heatstroke yet... today was close though, it's MISERABLE out. Anyways, I'm opposed to mechanical speed limits as well since it would be nearly impossible to implement without being trivially simple to bypass by those idiots who need to have it restrict them most. Outside of practical reasons, I'm fine with limiting, especially in learners vehicles so long as the cap is at least as high as 5 over the highest posted limit in the state or something like that. My high school was pretty far from where I lived, and I needed to spend about half an hour on the interstate (unless I wanted it to take a year to get there) and if I wasn't able to go at least 65 MPH on I-4 the other commuters would've eaten me alive.
I'd like to see less cops hassling people on the highways who may be speeding 6-10 over but not really doing anything to crazy and get on people who are speeding in residential areas where there are kids riding bikes and whatnot.
GnomeTankWhat the what?Portland, OregonRegistered Userregular
edited June 2010
I want to see cops do two things: Deal with the crazies that are traffic weaving more, and as you said, enforce speed in residential areas more. Going 70 in a 65, on a straight highway, with the flow of traffic is one thing. Doing 55 in 35 through a residential area to look cool with your stupid buddies is quite another.
Unless the beep was through the radio (and almost no car beeps are), I'd never hear it...I jam my ipod pretty loud when I drive.
Make it just like the seatbelt beep.
You'll hear it.
I actually can't hear my seat belt beep if the radio is loud enough, on my 2006 Honda. Not that it matters, because I'm a seat belt Nazi. If you don't want to wear one, no ride for you!
Most rural areas are semi-urban. I'm not talking the corn husk areas of Nebraska, I'm talking about the legitimate areas in between which could use something like a subway/train hub to bring them into the city. Which would reduce our dependencies on oil, reduce pollution, and get rid of our dependence on cars.
As for needing them in Nebraska, fine, they can have subsidized gas.
Plus, I can't think of a reason not to do it. Fuck the costs. Little good that does us when our oceans are filling up with crude oil because our world runs on cars and gasoline.
Ah, ok. I'd be down to at least consider that. Don't get me wrong, I love the light rail.
Unless the beep was through the radio (and almost no car beeps are), I'd never hear it...I jam my ipod pretty loud when I drive.
See... beeps+Increased enforcement.
after your third $200+ ticket for going 5mph over the limit, you'll learn to listen better and/or turn your stereo down.
works well for geese who disable their beeper mechanism too.
Except that will never happen in America, ever. Especially not while speedometers are 3-5 mph imprecise. There is a reason cops give a 5-10mph cushion, and it's not to be friendly.
Because every minute extra spent going somewhere by bus or train is [strike]an economic loss and a minute you'll never get back?[/strike] a moment you can spend reading or watching a DVD or playing a video game or talking to the person next to you.
Honestly, if you have the time to take public transportation, I don't understand why you wouldn't.
Commuting by car is the shittiest thing.
Maybe for you, but there are some people who actually take pleasure from driving.
Which brings me to my question - what kind of car do you drive?
I'd like more accountability for cops breaking the law. Just because you're a cop doesn't mean you should be doing 75 on a highway where people aren't, or talking on your cell phone, that is clearly not your "radio." And I doubt your sergeant is telling that funny of jokes that you'd be laughing on the "radio."
I actually had a cop tail me for about a half hour yesterday for god knows what. Maybe he was trying to find a reason to pull me over, but it was pretty weird he'd follow every route I took from my house to my parents'.
I once followed a cable van for about twenty minutes off of the highway, through town, to the outskirts, up a huge hill, into a suburban neighborhood, through several turns, and finally onto a dead end.
Turns out he was going to the house right next to mine. You might have just been on his route.
Because every minute extra spent going somewhere by bus or train is [strike]an economic loss and a minute you'll never get back?[/strike] a moment you can spend reading or watching a DVD or playing a video game or talking to the person next to you.
Honestly, if you have the time to take public transportation, I don't understand why you wouldn't.
Commuting by car is the shittiest thing.
Maybe for you, but there are some people who actually take pleasure from driving.
Which brings me to my question - what kind of car do you drive?
It's a rare, rare person who takes pleasure from the kind of driving that happens on your typical commute.
My observations have been more or less as follows: right next to nobody knows how to drive a car safely, and nobody who is a bad driver will accept that they are a bad driver.
I can't drive at all myself (too many things to pay attention to at once), so I don't fucking drive.
I don't think the solutions to driving accidents & fatalities can be found in licensing programs, either. People just cheat their way around it. I propose something very simple: make it illegal to manufacture any non-emergency vehicle capable of exceeding 60 mph. There are a few cons to be had with that, but the benefits of no longer having to deal with high speed collisions, high speed pursuits, or high speed shenanigans of any sort far outweigh them.
EDIT:
I'm completely opposed to mechanical limits on speed. I guarantee that a lot of drivers will simply disable them.
...You can't 'disable' your car's inherent inability to drive fast, unless you're an automotive engineer who prepared to break the proposed law & manufacture their own engine. And hey, maybe there's a few people who do have the technical expertise that would do that - but it's certainly not a significant bracket of the population.
How much do driving lessons actually cost in the US? Don't you get them free with school or something? Most people spend around $1800 or so in the UK.
Most schools have stopped giving them(insurance reasons), I think mine were ~$250, that was for I think 10hr of behind the wheel and 10 more of 'observation' aka other kids driving, and like 30 hours in a classroom. I remember reading something recently that there is a growing problem with poor/minority kids driving without a license because they can't afford the classes, which are required to get one.
Because every minute extra spent going somewhere by bus or train is [strike]an economic loss and a minute you'll never get back?[/strike] a moment you can spend reading or watching a DVD or playing a video game or talking to the person next to you.
Honestly, if you have the time to take public transportation, I don't understand why you wouldn't.
Commuting by car is the shittiest thing.
Not if it saves you vastly more time than public transportation, which in an area with a reasonable amount of density it always will. You can mitigate the waste of time somewhat, but true leisure time in my home is far superior to attempted leisure on a crowded public transport vehicle. I don't shell out for a data plan, so I can't argue on the internet from a bus or subway. :P
Also, fuck talking to strangers on public transportation. I don't want to interact with anyone while going from A to B, with rare exception.
Speed limits are important because of how speed effects how far your car travels from when you notice danger until the car actually stops. For example if you travel at 100 km/h and you spot danger then you will travel about 30 meters before you even hit the break and then another 50 meters before the car stops. That's 80 meters from when you spot danger until the car stops.
if you travel at 150 km/h the distance becomes double. 160 meters.
The purpose of anti-speed propaganda is to make this sound more dangerous than it is. 80m isn't a long distance at all for many road conditions. Straight, flat roads with good visibility, almost no traffic, and absolutely no pedestrians can support very high rates of speed very safely. I've driven on highways with a traffic density of like 1-2 cars per mile per lane. You pretty much have to try to collide with another person at that density.
Speed limits serve a purpose.
Revenue generating from arbitrarily low speed limits is a "purpose," but I would say an abhorrent one.
Going over the speed limit is dangerous and when doing the math you only end up saving a few seconds of time in the end. So what's the hurry?
If it only saves a few seconds, then you weren't meaningfully speeding.
Anyone driving under 110 on a 400 series highway in Ontario should have their flashers on and pull over.
I'd say that goes for anyone doing under 100. Anyone between 100-110 should stay in the right lane though.
I nearly flip my shit every time I'm stuck behind someone in an acceleration lane who a) doesn't accelerate, and b) merges onto the highway at 80kph
Same with people driving the speed limit on the left lane. Forget the speed limit, the left lanes are supposed to be for passing, right? If you're not passing anyone, gtfo
What if you are passing someone while going the speed limit.
I have absolutely no problems with that, and endorse it wholly.
Just for the record though, since I don't know if you're familiar with the 400 series or not, the posted limit is 100kph, but the "unofficial" limit is essentially 120. If there isn't a traffic jam (rare as that is), 120 is a pretty normal cruising speed.
Yeah, I generally will drive along side a cop while going 115ish and have no fear of being pulled over. Accidents happen from people changing lanes too often, which they do because they can't pass on the left. Or because someone merges onto the highway at 85 and forces everyone to brake.
I don't get this. Normal practice in the UK is to move over to the middle (on a three-lane motorway) or right-hand lane (on a two-lane dual carriageway) well before a junction to let those merging come in. Obviously if it's really busy it's a bit different but that's how things seem to work normally.
This is obviously the correct way to do it. The problem (anecdotal, I live in VA by DC) is that most people on the road are so absorbed in their own doings (phone calls, etc) that they pay no attention to what's happening on the road, or other people are just unable to focus on anything else besides driving THEIR car. I work with several people that are literally terrified of driving on the highway, to the point that they physically shake from fear while driving. They really have no business being on the highway at all, but how do you find that out before you give them a license?
It was mentioned earlier that speed cameras and such have been effective lately in reducing the road toll, but be careful not to ignore other factors that have made a significant impact on driver safety, like much improved ABS, ESC/ESP and so on. ESC especially is amazing, some of my friends have been working on its development in a lot of new cars. It makes them almost impossible to lose control of. Also, there's the trickle down of yesterday's technology... A new driver is now buying an "old" car equipped with basic ABS and maybe even air bags, compared with people of my generation and older for whom rear disc brakes were a luxury. These things are reducing the road toll, in my opinion, a lot more than speed cameras.
I'd also like add support to people that are pointing out that there are emergency situations where the safest thing to do is break the speed limit. They aren't common, but they exist. Furthermore, overtaking on a single lane road can be very dangerous if you *aren't* speeding. I'd rather not spend 30 seconds on the wrong side of the road because I'm only driving 10km/h faster than the semi I want to get in front of. Of course lots of people will point out that I don't *need* to get in front of it if it's only doing 10 under the limit, but perhaps they would like to try driving behind a slow sheep truck for half an hour.
Someone made an argument about the passenger limits on probationary drivers that I heartily agree with. I used to be a teenager. I know very well what happens when you take 4 teens out of one car and split them up into two cars... next to each other at the traffic lights. Doesn't matter if they're slow shitboxes, either. One of them still has a bigger penis and shall prove it by driving the fastest (We need race tracks so kids can do this safely and legally...). Also makes it more difficult to observe drink driving laws, since the ratio of designated drivers to designated drinkers is now 1:1. LOL at the idea of a party where I grew up having only 1/2 of the people there getting completely smashed.
As a final, less mature, and more emotional note, I built my car with my own two hands, from the ground up. I very much do NOT want some inexperienced assclown from the government fucking with my car (I'm suuure he'll be well paid and experienced).
Besides, contrary to popular belief, any system that can be put in place is trivially easy to circumvent to someone with a good amount of mechanical knowhow. How would they implement it on an old, carburetted car, anyway? A servo actuated throttle stop tied into the speedo? This can be circumvented by putting a reduction in the speedo cable, just the same way that an old car's speedo is calibrated. Newer systems could be fixed with an aftermarket ECU, or reprogramming the existing one, assuming they do it all with ignition and fuel cut... or maybe even by just messing with the wheel speed sensors, though this would knock out ABS and traction control. Otherwise, I guess they'd be replacing mechanical throttles with fly-by-wire... ugh, reliability issues, imagine getting stuck at WOT right when you're braking for a pedestrian... You could probably take the electric motor out of the casing and hide a throttle cam in there...
The point that I'm making is that you'll end up with a driving population where only the people who still have the limiters are the ones who wouldn't speed in the first place... Kinda like the argument where banning guns removes them from the people least likely to abuse them. Same with beeper thingies... And it doesn't take much know-how on the part of the population, either, all it takes is for someone to "know a guy" (And *everyone* "knows a guy")...
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Yeah having a hardware button you press to give you emergency speed seems silly. It'd be like a turbo boost button. I do like the idea of "average sustained speed above X for Y" and the car either slows down by itself, or beeps like mad.
Also, disabling the beep? Put it in the computer software. Link it to the stereo. There, now you can't drown it out, or remove it. The beep seems like an excellent idea, but again sometimes it's ok to go 90MPH, in rare circumstances. That's why we need our cars to start getting GPS systems with speed limit data on them. They need way more computers in them than there currently are basically. All you people that don't trust the technology to get you from A to B, you'll trust a 16 year old kid over a multimillion dollar computer system? Really? Because I wouldn't.
Also, Memphis drivers are the worst. You think I'm kidding. I AM NOT KIDDING. This is also the town that had kids named Lemonjello and Orangejello. (Pronounced "Le-monn-jello" and "Or-ahn-jello")
So why not go 65? If you are just having trouble remembering, well that's why now you will get a very helpful beeping tone to remind you.
Maybe if people actually followed speed limits there would be some interest in setting them more reasonably.
Unfortantly there's a lot of places near me down south at least, that are like main throuroughfaires through the town with 35MPH speed limits. There's a 50MPH speed limit on the damn interstate in Memphis that not a SOUL follows.
Because the feel difference between 65 and 70 is pretty much impossible to notice, especially if everyone else is speeding as well so you have no visual frame of reference. Personally, without installing beeping software in everyone's cars ever made, I'm fine with 70 because I'd much MUCH rather someone go 70 in a 65 over the alternative of someone staring at their dashboard instead of the road to make sure the needle says 65.
I like the constantly altered speed limits on highways myself. THIS straight line will be 45! And then 55! And then 50! And then 55! And now 65!
Note: the road hasn't changed at all in this span, it's the same nearly straight road it's been, same number of lanes, no sudden rash of crowded onramps. It's just that a committee somewhere decided that this stretch needed to be slower.
Really what I mean to say is: fuck Connecticut's stretch of I-95.
It is not that hard to actually look at your speedometer. That's what it's there for.
EDIT: You know, I'm pretty sure whoever sets speed limits is either an elected official, or works for one. So, maybe you should try paying attention to local elections?
If we want severely strict speed limit enforcement, then we the people need more say in what those speed limits are, because there are a lot of really stupid speed limits in a lot of really dumb places. The jumping up down, up down speed limit crap being one of the worse offenses.
The various state DOT's are usually not elected officials, unless I've just lived in really odd states. Most legislatures set the maximum possible speed limits for road types (based on lane or proximity to residential areas), and then leave the exact limits on the roads to the DOT, which is pretty much not giving a shit about voters, as they shouldn't.
As for looking at my speedometer: as an experiment, we should go driving together. I'm going to put a screen over the speedometer so you can't see it, and alter speed between 55 and 75 mph. You have to tell me how fast I'm going.
It's a TRIVIAL amount of pressure difference in your foot to go 68 in a 65. Heck, it's actually within the tolerances of your speedometer's accuracy requirements that you could be going 68 and it would swear to you that it's going 65. People cannot tell the difference at that speed. The only way to verify that you're going 65 is GPS estimations and staring at it constantly to make sure you're not edging above or below it.
This is why cops tend to not give a shit about people doing ~70 in a 65: because it's less likely that they're speed demons, and more likely that they're using other traffic as an indicator of appropriate, or just happened to speed up a bit.
This works at maybe 3am around here. You'd be surprised how busy the 401 is generally. I move over when I can, but usually, I'm boxed into a lane and have to adjust speed to help cars merge.
Also re: limiters, I doubt it'll ever happen on a large scale. I'm sure there's some product you can pop into little Jonny's Jetta to make sure he isn't speeding. It's cool that that's an option I guess.
My car has a digital speedometer, and it's still not perfect. Sometimes you know you're putting enough pressure to go, say, 70, but the speedometer swears you're doing 68. Or, I'll pass one of those "You're going this fast" road things the police setup, and my digital speedometer and that thing will be 3-7 mph off.
Considering no one here is advocating any such thing, I'm not sure why you would need this.
But you can definitely tell the difference between 65 and 75. Or 80. Or more.
So really I'm not sure what your point is.
But yeah: speedometers are not unerringly accurate. This is why cops are lenient. This is not why cops breeze past you doing 75 in a 55, however: that is because the cops know nobody is going to pull them over
You don't think putting speed limiters in every car wouldn't cost billions of dollars, from someones pocket? Who's going to pay to retrofit existing cars? If you put RFID speed checkers in street and highway signs (things proposed in this thread), where's that money going to come from? Is it going to save enough lives and health care costs to be worth the billions it costs?
I can't tell the difference between 55 and 65. Around 70/80 I start feeling the decidedly different handling, but that number will vary based on the car and the engine involved. My car personally gets unhappy over 75 and starts complaining about not buying the larger engine model. I'm pretty sure the larger engines will start whining closer to 85/90.
But seriously? I can't tell you the difference between all traffic moving at 55 and all traffic moving at 65 by feel on I-95. They're very very similar.
I actually had a cop tail me for about a half hour yesterday for god knows what. Maybe he was trying to find a reason to pull me over, but it was pretty weird he'd follow every route I took from my house to my parents'.
if you travel at 150 km/h the distance becomes double. 160 meters.
Speed limits serve a purpose. Going over the speed limit is dangerous and when doing the math you only end up saving a few seconds of time in the end. So what's the hurry?
I am however against the idea of speed locking cars. Speed limits are local. They are set based on the road you travel. On a private road there is no speed limit and in an emergency or just when passing another car you need the extra speed.
if you're on a 90 km/h road and a car ahead of you travels at 80 km/h you wont be able to pass him while doing the speed limit.
The cops around here are bad about it. I tend to speed a little, 5-10 over the speed limit, depending on flow of traffic, but the cops in Houston are crazy. I've seen several blow by me at 90+, no lights on, nothing. Just cruising along, because they know they are untouchable.
Except that going 70 in a 65 would be only a small fraction of the situations affected by such a system. It would come in to play in all situations with speeding, be it 5 miles over, or 30. So the real question is, what is the effect of speeding in general, and I think plenty of studies have shown that this is pretty significant.
And you don't need to do everything at once. Don't bother retrofitting old cars, just make it mandatory in new ones. 10 or even a 100 dollars extra on a new care won't even be noticeable.
As to the cost of retrofitting roads, just start with the most important areas that see a lot of speed related accidents, and work out. I doubt the costs would be all that high.
How would you even go about combating the problem? Even though citizens can have cops arrested, I doubt it'd do anything, or there's no active way for a citizen to pull a cop over. Can citizens have a cop de-badged or whatever?
I mean, what's next. Are we going to limit how often you can change lanes to deal with the crazy traffic dancers that are actually quite dangerous?
Fire the Chief of Police and maybe the next one will actually pressure his officers to not flagrantly break the law and actually keep each other in check?
I thought everyone was in agreement that a beep system was a far better idea than actually having the car just not go faster.
Hey, I walk up Alafaya to research park everyday and haven't died of heatstroke yet... today was close though, it's MISERABLE out. Anyways, I'm opposed to mechanical speed limits as well since it would be nearly impossible to implement without being trivially simple to bypass by those idiots who need to have it restrict them most. Outside of practical reasons, I'm fine with limiting, especially in learners vehicles so long as the cap is at least as high as 5 over the highest posted limit in the state or something like that. My high school was pretty far from where I lived, and I needed to spend about half an hour on the interstate (unless I wanted it to take a year to get there) and if I wasn't able to go at least 65 MPH on I-4 the other commuters would've eaten me alive.
I'd like to see less cops hassling people on the highways who may be speeding 6-10 over but not really doing anything to crazy and get on people who are speeding in residential areas where there are kids riding bikes and whatnot.
Beep system seems pretty reasonable to me.
twitch.tv/tehsloth
Make it just like the seatbelt beep.
You'll hear it.
I actually can't hear my seat belt beep if the radio is loud enough, on my 2006 Honda. Not that it matters, because I'm a seat belt Nazi. If you don't want to wear one, no ride for you!
See... beeps+Increased enforcement.
after your third $200+ ticket for going 5mph over the limit, you'll learn to listen better and/or turn your stereo down.
works well for geese who disable their beeper mechanism too.
Except that will never happen in America, ever. Especially not while speedometers are 3-5 mph imprecise. There is a reason cops give a 5-10mph cushion, and it's not to be friendly.
Maybe for you, but there are some people who actually take pleasure from driving.
Which brings me to my question - what kind of car do you drive?
I once followed a cable van for about twenty minutes off of the highway, through town, to the outskirts, up a huge hill, into a suburban neighborhood, through several turns, and finally onto a dead end.
Turns out he was going to the house right next to mine. You might have just been on his route.
It's a rare, rare person who takes pleasure from the kind of driving that happens on your typical commute.
I can't drive at all myself (too many things to pay attention to at once), so I don't fucking drive.
I don't think the solutions to driving accidents & fatalities can be found in licensing programs, either. People just cheat their way around it. I propose something very simple: make it illegal to manufacture any non-emergency vehicle capable of exceeding 60 mph. There are a few cons to be had with that, but the benefits of no longer having to deal with high speed collisions, high speed pursuits, or high speed shenanigans of any sort far outweigh them.
EDIT:
...You can't 'disable' your car's inherent inability to drive fast, unless you're an automotive engineer who prepared to break the proposed law & manufacture their own engine. And hey, maybe there's a few people who do have the technical expertise that would do that - but it's certainly not a significant bracket of the population.
I'm pretty sure it was at least a couple hundred dollars for me.
Most schools have stopped giving them(insurance reasons), I think mine were ~$250, that was for I think 10hr of behind the wheel and 10 more of 'observation' aka other kids driving, and like 30 hours in a classroom. I remember reading something recently that there is a growing problem with poor/minority kids driving without a license because they can't afford the classes, which are required to get one.
Not if it saves you vastly more time than public transportation, which in an area with a reasonable amount of density it always will. You can mitigate the waste of time somewhat, but true leisure time in my home is far superior to attempted leisure on a crowded public transport vehicle. I don't shell out for a data plan, so I can't argue on the internet from a bus or subway. :P
Also, fuck talking to strangers on public transportation. I don't want to interact with anyone while going from A to B, with rare exception.
The purpose of anti-speed propaganda is to make this sound more dangerous than it is. 80m isn't a long distance at all for many road conditions. Straight, flat roads with good visibility, almost no traffic, and absolutely no pedestrians can support very high rates of speed very safely. I've driven on highways with a traffic density of like 1-2 cars per mile per lane. You pretty much have to try to collide with another person at that density.
Revenue generating from arbitrarily low speed limits is a "purpose," but I would say an abhorrent one.
If it only saves a few seconds, then you weren't meaningfully speeding.
This is obviously the correct way to do it. The problem (anecdotal, I live in VA by DC) is that most people on the road are so absorbed in their own doings (phone calls, etc) that they pay no attention to what's happening on the road, or other people are just unable to focus on anything else besides driving THEIR car. I work with several people that are literally terrified of driving on the highway, to the point that they physically shake from fear while driving. They really have no business being on the highway at all, but how do you find that out before you give them a license?
I'd also like add support to people that are pointing out that there are emergency situations where the safest thing to do is break the speed limit. They aren't common, but they exist. Furthermore, overtaking on a single lane road can be very dangerous if you *aren't* speeding. I'd rather not spend 30 seconds on the wrong side of the road because I'm only driving 10km/h faster than the semi I want to get in front of. Of course lots of people will point out that I don't *need* to get in front of it if it's only doing 10 under the limit, but perhaps they would like to try driving behind a slow sheep truck for half an hour.
Someone made an argument about the passenger limits on probationary drivers that I heartily agree with. I used to be a teenager. I know very well what happens when you take 4 teens out of one car and split them up into two cars... next to each other at the traffic lights. Doesn't matter if they're slow shitboxes, either. One of them still has a bigger penis and shall prove it by driving the fastest (We need race tracks so kids can do this safely and legally...). Also makes it more difficult to observe drink driving laws, since the ratio of designated drivers to designated drinkers is now 1:1. LOL at the idea of a party where I grew up having only 1/2 of the people there getting completely smashed.
As a final, less mature, and more emotional note, I built my car with my own two hands, from the ground up. I very much do NOT want some inexperienced assclown from the government fucking with my car (I'm suuure he'll be well paid and experienced).
Besides, contrary to popular belief, any system that can be put in place is trivially easy to circumvent to someone with a good amount of mechanical knowhow. How would they implement it on an old, carburetted car, anyway? A servo actuated throttle stop tied into the speedo? This can be circumvented by putting a reduction in the speedo cable, just the same way that an old car's speedo is calibrated. Newer systems could be fixed with an aftermarket ECU, or reprogramming the existing one, assuming they do it all with ignition and fuel cut... or maybe even by just messing with the wheel speed sensors, though this would knock out ABS and traction control. Otherwise, I guess they'd be replacing mechanical throttles with fly-by-wire... ugh, reliability issues, imagine getting stuck at WOT right when you're braking for a pedestrian... You could probably take the electric motor out of the casing and hide a throttle cam in there...
The point that I'm making is that you'll end up with a driving population where only the people who still have the limiters are the ones who wouldn't speed in the first place... Kinda like the argument where banning guns removes them from the people least likely to abuse them. Same with beeper thingies... And it doesn't take much know-how on the part of the population, either, all it takes is for someone to "know a guy" (And *everyone* "knows a guy")...