341–350 of 449 posts
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Hard disagree. Time savings from speeding comes from discontinuities like beating traffic lights. Also 3 minutes is huge if you’re almost late to a 30 minute private lesson.
> discontinuities like beating traffic lights Sometimes you beat them, sometimes you don't. It's not always in your favor, it averages out.
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I'm not denying any of this. I'm just observing that there's a faction in the US which seems to say "speed is a leading factor in car deaths" (which it is) and then insists on everyone never going 1mph over our often-arbitrary-and-politically-set speed limits. When what you're describing as "non-adapted speed" is exactly the actual problem . . . driving beyond one's capabilities or the capabilities of one's vehicle.…
So let everyone decide to decide for themselves what a safe speed should be on any given stretch of road and see what happens? In other words, let evolution find the 'safe' speed.
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So it's a bad driver then, because matching flow of traffic is more important and safer than stubbornly following the exact speed limit
It's a bad driver for adhering to the speed limits? I'm having a hard time understanding how that makes sense. I understand that matching the flow of traffic is important, but more important than the speed limit? They're there for a reason. If the speed limit is 30km/h and everyone is driving in 50km/h, you're saying you'll opt for driving at 50km/h? Besides, if there is multiple lanes, you take the right lane and fo…
Yes absolutely. Speed limits are cooked up in a room somewhere and do not reflect the actual conditions of the road. The real world situation you find yourself in when on the road is too dynamic to suggest a number on a sign should be the ultimate authority
It's very understood that when it's raining or snowing or foggy you should slow down because you drive to the conditions of the road because that's safest.
If everyone around you is speeding then that's also a condition of the road, which you need to adapt to
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https://waymo.com/blog/2024/05/fleet-response
Interesting. This is about a month and half old, so they are getting more transparent. I am not reassured though because based on my reading, it appears the fleet response can't actually take over and drive the car in an emergency. I double checked with Claude AI Me: "does it appear the remote operator can take over and drive the car if needed." Claude: "Based on my reading of the document, it does not appear that th…
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If they're really safer than human drivers, like the Google-funded studies claim they are, then this seems like a positive rather than a negative. Perhaps we humans should be slowing down and driving more carefully? But I'm not sure if we can trust these studies. I'd really like to see a completely independent evaluation, of how the safety of Waymo cars compares to human drivers, and to the safety other companies lik…
I imagine people will be more tolerant of a slower ride if--as a passenger--they can be engaged reading a book or watching a movie or whatever. Not just because it's easier to pass the time, but also because there's no push to make the experience of driving "more interesting." (Too much, and someone drives unsafely, too little, and they aren't really paying attention.)
Given how commonly understood this situation is, I wonder what fraction of the population can read a book or watch a movie while riding in a car without getting fairly sick.
they should move away from the shitty jaguars and chryslers they have in their fleet though. Maybe Honda would make a good partner as they have the only US autonomous level 3.
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> Anecdotally they can be 10-25% slower than the rest of traffic I don't know anything about USA, but my understanding of other humans tells me that "Waymo is 10-25% slower than the rest of traffic" actually means "Waymo drives at the legal speed limit for that location, without surpassing it".
> "Waymo is 10-25% slower than the rest of traffic" actually means "Waymo drives at the legal speed limit for that location... Probably 100% safer too Speed is the most dangerous aspect of motor vehicles
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> Explain to me what makes them faceless and detached from the situation? The fact that they’re not there. The idea that the same speed is appropriate at 9am when kids are crossing the street going to school and 2am when there’s noone there and no cars parked on the side of the road, is insane beyond belief. Speed limits are generally repressive and mostly just a tax collection scheme (though I strongly support most…
What are you proposing? No speed limits outside cities in the day time? Or speed limits that change based on circumstances? Don't we already have school zones which are 20mph when kids are around and higher otherwise?
If you want people to drive slower you just design the road to slow them down.
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This is evidence that most speed limits are too low. The proper speed limit on any given road is the 85th percentile of what drivers actually do.
No, the proper speed limit is one that is decided based on traffic engineering safety factors such as sight distances, and who else uses that road. Cities aren't dropping their speed limits to 25 mph for shits and giggles. They're doing it because the odds of a person on foot or bike surviving being hit by a car goes up dramatically when speed drops from 30 to 25. Fatalities drop to nearly zero at 20mph, which is why…
Hard disagree. It is simply an observation of reality, and a very useful reminder to anyone who wants to waste time and resources putting different numbers on signs. You have to actually engineer the roads for the speeds you want, and I get that it's more expensive than just painting new signs and telling your constituents how much you're trying to help.
We have neighborhoods where cars cannot pass without one giving way and pulling off into the parking area. Is it inconvenient? Sure, sometimes, very much so. But you know what? People drive damn slow. Nobody cuts through the neighborhood to save time when traffic on the arterial road is congested. It matters not one bit what the speed limit signs say (there aren't any, actually), because road design solved the problem neatly.
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Oh please. Let's assume people are going at a speed that the road is designed to handle, since that's usually the case. In that situation, the behavior you're calling out as unsafe is simply "going faster". Now, in a technical sense that's true, but it's always true. Going faster reduces safety when you're above the speed limit. Going faster reduces safety when you're at the speed limit. Going faster reduces safety w…
> Let's assume people are going at a speed that the road is designed to handle Let's not, because most of the speeding I see is from people who very mistakenly think they know what speed the road's designed to handle, because they don't give a crap about pedestrians, bicyclists, visibility, other vehicles, or really, anything but getting to the next red light faster. Perhaps you drive in a utopia that's solely popula…
A sign doesn’t really change behaviour but narrowing roads , separated bike lanes, pedestrian controlled crossings, roundabouts, and generally making the road “feel slower” does