331–340 of 954 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is this different from actual criminals that we lock up behind bars? Sometimes till the remainder of their lives. These aren't children, and the quicker we start treating them as adults, the quicker they'll learn to obey the laws before the real and life-changing consequences kick in.
Speed limits in the US have a particular problem. The speed limits are set too close to the speed people are expected to drive. If the typical traffic speed on some highway is 65 MPH and someone is driving 76 MPH, that... isn't much different. It's not some night and day distinction where you can objectively say that 65 is perfectly safe and 76 is recklessly dangerous. The variation in stopping distance between those…
> Speed limits in the US have a particular problem. The speed limits are set too close to the speed people are expected to drive.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there any correlation between speeding tickets and the probability of getting into an accident at a given speed ? If you have to exceed the speed limit by 20 MPH today, better the person who does it all the time than the person who isn't used to it, no?
speed limits, if majority of cases are not about public safety but generators of revenue. if we all started driving the speed limit the number of accidents would not be significantly reduced while many, many cities/counties/… would fully go bankrupt. I have spent more than a decade in state&local courts records management business and can tell you this first-hand. you can cool deals if you just pay the fine and don’t…
Its hard to find issue with applying it only to the biggest offenders, but if this does break out into all cars in 10 years we'll have yet another example of slippery slope regulations. Passing safely (single lane roads) for one would likely be more dangerous in this reality.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That seems like the result of a normal skill level distribution that allows some people to take more advanced actions at the same risk level. Interesting how there is never a push to punish people who actually cause wrecks with this technology.
Car insurance does that
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recall hearing about Japan putting speed limiters in all cars and using GPS to determine the road and therefore speed limit to set the limiter dynamically in vehicles. (Perhaps some details are wrong or confabulated; regardless, it’s a neat idea.) I’m in favor of such a system in theory; I’d be concerned about privacy issues but there’s no reason for such a system to require driver identification anyway.
My family rented a car in England last summer, and this was an optional feature of the car. I didn't want to try it out on my first time driving on the left, so I didn't turn it on. Moreover, the speed limits on the motorways were changing in real time. I observed very little speeding -- almost none.
And the maps are continuously outdated so lots of smaller roads simply do not work properly.
There are cars that can go way over 100 mph, and they almost all speed controlled by software. High performance cars are often speed limited by software to about 150 mph. How is this legal? Cars with speed limits that high belong to the track, not public roads, with a possible exception for emergency vehicles. There are some rare (emergency) situations where "superspeeding" might help, but I can think of many others…
I'm much more concerned about someone going 40mph in a 25 zone than someone going 110 in a 75.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your link is about Waymo. It doesn't imply the same is true for human drivers. When I search around whether driving too slowly is too dangerous, basically every source I see says it is. Random example: https://www.allstate.com/resources/car-insurance/dangers-of-... Anecdotally, I see people dangerously tailgate slow drivers too; it makes sense that everyone warns against slow driving.
Physics works the same whether you are Waymo or human.
But... so many people are practically forced to exceed the limit just to keep up with the rest of the traffic that's already blowing past the limit. If you force a few people to go at the limit, that's frustrating for everyone behind them in the best case at best... and I imagine possibly even more dangerous in the worst case, no? If they're going to enforce then shouldn't they try to enforce it as widely as they can…
> that's frustrating for everyone behind them in the best case at best... and I imagine possibly even more dangerous in the worst case, no? No. Waymo put the myth to bed [1]. Even if you might piss off a speeder, driving the limit in speeding flow remains safer as the handling advantage (frequency) and exponentially-lower energy in the event of a collision (magnitude) dwarf other effects. [1] https://waymo.com/blog/2…
Speed limiters built into cars. Anti-infringement technology built into general-purpose computers. And yet, guns and ammo freely available and unrestricted outside of automatic weapons and the like? Yeah. Can’t wait to move off-grid someday. (Yes, obviously American) I’ve got enough sense to keep it slow and safe in populated areas, yet occasionally open it up elsewhere when conditions are right. Guess that’s another…
Speeding kills much more people than guns. It also kills much more innocent outsiders (a lot of gun death are suicides or gang infightings). It also introduces atmosphere of terror on public roads making walking or cycling dangerous. It's a way bigger problem than guns.
Gun utility: small Car utility: large
(data from CDC and NHTSA for 2023)