91–100 of 173 posts
Nobody cares. Much much more people die from processed foods/air pollution in the world than from motorway accidents. Around 120x more people die from cardiovascular/cancer related disease than motorway accidents. And not every motorway accident is caused by excessive speeding.
"Fatalities per 1,000 kilometers of motorway" That doesn't seem like a very good metric to me. There's no way there's any single number that can properly compare driving deaths between countries, but shouldn't this at least be normalized to account for number of drivers? Like what if Finland just has a lot of long, empty roads? Also doesn't there need to be a comparison within the German data on deaths on roads with…
I come from Germany / Bavaria. I've been driving on the A8 autobahn between Stuttgart and Munich for many years. About 2.5 years ago, the maximum speed of 120 was introduced in a 10 km long section near Augsburg, from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. There are some many exits in quick succession. It is generally very dangerous when people traveling at very high speeds (i.e. people who are just driving there) meet people who are trav…
make perfect, immaculate highways and people will start getting bored and floor the pedal because even 130 will seem slow. "I can easily drive faster here"
Not a problem in 1970 when barely any car could reach that speed but in a modern automobile you can zip along. So they had to fix this problem with speed cameras every few kilometres to keep people in check.
Speaking as an American, I spent a summer in Germany, Austria and Denmark delivering cars shipped from California. They were largely turbo diesel and stick shift, and I loved every minute of it. My friend's business had us hunting in LA for good used deals that went under the "old-timer" tariffs. German roads are far superior in every sense: materials, construction, maintenance, drainage, etc. They pay a price in tax…
I asked him why he didn't enjoy driving fast. He replied that he'd firewalled Mustangs and SabreJets on the deck, and driving fast on the autobahn was boring in comparison.
If you vote for me for Governor of the state, I'll get some autobahns here in the US!
P.S. If you ever watch "The Battle of Britain" movie, in the first combat scene you'll see an Me109 flying balls-to-the-wall at about 10 feet off the ground. Incredibly fun, and incredibly dangerous. No model work with that shot.
P.P.S sometimes you'd see jets hedge-hopping over the countryside. I asked why didn't the citizens complain about that, he said they understood why the pilots had to train that way. Radar cannot see them, the flak gun crews cannot hear them coming, and they cannot move the gun fast enough to line up on the aircraft.
Given the advantages mentioned in the original article, it’s becoming silly that there’s still no speed limit. Why isn’t there? Probably because the minority who wants to drive fast is very vocal about it.
This has been compared to gun laws in the US, which also seem to be defended by a vocal minority (source: too lazy to look up).
Myth #1: is a non-reason to ban it. Non-usage of something is not a reason to get rid of something Myth #2: I've never met someone who is like: oh if I cannot drive 200kmph I'll be late to my meeting. That's not why people drive fast. They do because it's fun! Myth #3: Emissions are taxed. Car consumes more, so you pay more taxes. Myth #4: You cannot push everybody to electric cars and then yell: oh but the electrici…
Emissions are not taxed anywhere close to the cost of damage they cause. Electric cars still pollute (tires and brake pads). In general cars and car infrastructure is very heavily subsidized and the least we should expect for it is drivers not engaging in wasteful and dangerous behaviors.
I’m kind of tired of debunking it, so let’s try putting the onus of proof on the person claiming EVs burn brake pads at any rate even remotely comparable to gas cars. Is there anything out there that says that?
(My Nissan Leaf’s service manual says otherwise)
"The actual greenhouse gas emissions depend on the energy mix used for charging the batteries, but as long as we do not have abundant climate-neutral energy, it makes sense to save energy by driving at lower speeds." This argument (often also applied to the size of cars) is something I often read. It's an instance of the perfectionist fallacy. Electric cars are more harmful than gasoline powered cars if the energy th…
FYI https://www.wsj.com/graphics/are-electric-cars-really-better...
> Opponents of speed limits often claim that the majority of people do not regularly drive faster than 130 km/h, ... If we look at the data, however, the picture is quite different. > [graph showing 30% drive faster than 130km/h] So the data actually confirms the 'common myth'.
30% isn't a majority.
From my own experience driving there, I noticed that the average speed on the left lanes are usually around 160 with faster cars around 180.
But the truth is that with the traffic, it is very rare that you can go fast because when there start to be a reasonable amount of cars there is no way you can go too fast without doing slaloms. So speed is more low in real average.
I also noticed that people were driving more seriously and safely than in other countries because of the no speed limit:
In France for example, some people will go very fast in a dangerous way like an race, because of the thrill of being outlaw or something like that. Otherwise, everyone will try to be stuck to exactly 130 or a few km/h more to be exactly on the limit. Reluctant to slow down when needed and having difficulties to overpass cars that are just a bit slower without exceeding 130.
Another surprising fact is that, in Germany, when there are speed limits, they are usually lower than in France and very strictly enforced. Like driving at 30 km/h on streets crossing villages.
Speed doesn't kill, speed differential does. Any road where you have a big differential between speeds by various road users is just inherently dangerous. If everyone would be doing 250km/h, it'd be safe. Same if everyone would be doing 120km/h. But when you mix 250 and 120 on the same road, it's inherently dangerous.