now if only somebody published a similarly powerful defense on "traffic control device violation" :)
The Lowdown on Lidar
201–210 of 284 posts
Re: The Lowdown on Lidar
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
The title I first saw was: Josh Bloch Fights a LIDAR Speeding Ticket (with Science) Which is much better than the currently edited version.
I submitted the link with the title you note for the following three reasons: 1. Josh Bloch is an author of particular interest to this community. 2. When I searched to see if the page had already been submitted, I noted that recent HN posts on LIDAR were on technical laser ranging (e.g. in mapping applications), not on speed enforcement. 3. I thought it was an article that would be of interest to HN readers, so I th…
I saw the title after it was changed and I definitely thought that this was going to be a technical article about LIDAR in its 3D mapping application.
Re: The Lowdown on Lidar
#203LIDAR sucks and there is no judicial notice on it in California. If you ever get a LIDAR ticket, do a trial by written declaration (or TBD). Just state that you dispute the validity and accuracy of the LIDAR reading and they'll usually throw it out. Remember to ask the officer(after he has given you your ticket) what model laser/radar detector he was using, and at what distance he measured you at. Anything over 800/1…
Lawyers can also challenge the officers experience/training with the device as well as the last time the device was calibrated to be accurate.
Re: The Lowdown on Lidar
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are some crosswalks, 8 blocks away from each other. No lights for at least a mile. In WA state, every intersection is automatically a legal crosswalk with pedestrian right of way (unless marked with a "No Pedestrian Crossing" sign), but the lack of enforcement combined with the high speeds makes that right of way effectively meaningless.
I walk a lot in CA. Not long ago I saw a cop not yield to a pregnant woman pushing a baby in a stroller, in a 4 lane road. She was in the crosswalk, clearly marked. There was no light or stop sign, but she was in the middle of the 4 lanes when the cop drove past her in the closest lane. I really couldn't believe what I was seeing. When the cops don't even respect the laws, the laws are meaningless.
This doesn't surprise me. I walk a lot too, and I constantly see cops flip their lights on for the few seconds required to make an illegal left turn, run a red light, etc., and then turn them right back off.
Re: The Lowdown on Lidar
#205Why do HN mods keep changing the title from meaningful ones, which make the reader interested in the content, to generic, vague ones? You'll see that there's definitely a correlation between the moment that HN mods change the title and the post dropping off the top frontpage spot.
I would assume such changes come from a desire to be accurate. But accurate how? In what way? That depends on the purpose of the title.
As I see it, our differences of opinion on this topic stem largely from misunderstanding it. I think it's not at all clear what we're even talking about, so we wind up arguing about slightly different things and fail to come to a consensus.
I think that we need to really understand the purpose of these titles, and to also understand that different people mean different things by the word "title". In fact, I think we're talking about three distinct but related ideas: titles, names, and summaries.
A name is a word or phrase that identifies a thing. A name isn't necessarily descriptive and often has no more meaning than being a word or phrase denoting the thing it names. My name is Adam. That tells you very little about me. All you can do with that is to identify me.
A summary describes a thing. I am a software developer with a penchant for pedantry. That's a summary. It actually tells you something about my nature, which the name "Adam" does not.
A title is first and foremost a kind of name. Ideally, it's also a descriptive summary, though that's not required. As a name, the important thing is that it is as short and as unique as reasonable. That's more important that descriptiveness.
In my opinion, Hacker News links should not be titles, i.e. names, but rather short summaries. Using a title is fine, but only as long as it's also a good summary.
The point of the front page is to link to things that are new and fresh. Ideally, most people won't have seen most things, meaning few will be familiar with their names. A page of new names that nobody recognizes is pretty pointless. You might as well use randomly generated words for the links. Or numbers. Like item?id=8114336.
Instead of titles, I think links should be summaries. When they are summaries, they can provide some real information about the thing that is linked. That can be used to decide whether to invest time in clicking through. When a link is just a name, you have little information to base that decision on, so you have to click most of the links to know which are the interesting ones.
But, if all HN links are summaries, how will we know what to call the articles they link? Well, if the summary is interesting enough to want to talk about, you'll click the link and see the actual title. Names are unimportant on the HN front page. They only become useful in the comments, and by then you should have at least read the title of the article, if not the whole thing.
The original summary here was useful and information-packed without being too long: "Josh Bloch Fights a LIDAR Speeding Ticket (with Science)". I care that it's Josh Bloch. I care that he's using science, in court. I care that it's about LIDAR and not RADAR. The fact that it's Josh Bloch, and that he's using science to fight a ticket means he was probably wrongfully ticketed, implying weaknesses in LIDAR speed guns that I want to understand. I got all that from a good, short summary.
The new summary is just the title of the linked article, which in this case is mostly just a name: "The Lowdown on Lidar". So, it's about LIDAR generally? Or as opposed to RADAR? Given the use of "lowdown", it's probably it's about some stuff that isn't commonly known. Maybe. Or maybe it's a boring, entry-level article on range finding in general that happens to talk about LIDAR rather than RADAR or SONAR. The title tells me very little and is not helpful in deciding whether to click the link, though it is a good name that's short and easy to use when talking about the article. I enjoyed reading "The Lowdown on Lidar".
The most important and useful thing a main page link can do is to accurately and faithfully inform the reader about the contents of the link. Accurately naming the linked thing is neither important nor useful. That is especially not useful when the name given by the original author misrepresents the contents, as is sometimes the case.
Accuracy is important in general, but we must be clear about specifically which kind of accuracy matters most here.
Re: The Lowdown on Lidar
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
OR it could be because speeding isn't that dangerous and the current limits on most roads don't represent what speed people actually drive at or what speed people could safely drive at. It's different on residential streets, but on freeways I think the way Germany handles it is better. Speeding tickets (and most traffic violations really) are not about safety or curbing behavior they're about generating revenue for t…
Speeding is extremely dangerous. It's ludicrous to argue otherwise. A third of crashes (including fatal crashes) involve speeding, and the faster you are driving the more likely you are to die or fatally injure another. Also, changing the speed limits on roads have been studied and it doesn't make a humongous difference. The government usually sets the speed limit at slightly lower than the average speed people actua…
> Speeding is extremely dangerous. It's ludicrous to argue otherwise.
Actually, blanket arguments like "speeding is extremely dangerous" are ludicrous. "Speeding" is exceeding a semi-arbitrary speed threshold. If that threshold is, say, 70 mph I'm OK at 70 but if I go to 71 I am being "extremely dangerous"? 71 is speeding in that case, after all.
> A third of crashes (including fatal crashes) involve speeding,
If a third or more of all drivers speed, that statistic is meaningless.
> the faster you are driving the more likely you are to die or fatally injure another.
Indeed, and that statement has nothing to do with speeding. It is a continuum from 0 to whatever the top speed of a given vehicle is. This statement is equally valid when you are under the speed limit.
> Also, changing the speed limits on roads have been studied and it doesn't make a humongous difference. The government usually sets the speed limit at slightly lower than the average speed people actually drive.
I have seen that happen before, but in my experience that is the exception rather than the rule.
Re: The Lowdown on Lidar
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
A Dutch engineer once told me (back before 2004 I guess ) that they once raised the speed limit on the roads in Netherlands only to find average speed decreased. His explanation IIRC was that 1. once people broke the limit it didnt matter how much and 2. when speed limits felt more correct more people respected them. I'd love to know if anyone has any pointers to research on this as around here speed limits are weird…
I used to live in Los Angeles. On the freeways, the speed limit was 55mph but I read once that the actual average speed was around 17mph. My (unscientific) theory is that with higher speed limits, you get more traffic waves, and people try to change lanes more often, causing delays. If the speed limit on LA freeways was only 25mph, I would hope that people would chill out and the traffic would flow more smoothly, res…
Look up "rolling speed harmonization," an attempt to mitigate atrocious traffic to and from the mountains here in Colorado by using a pace car (effectively a strictly-enforced lowered speed limit).
Initial "tests" with lighter traffic conditions proved that the system helped stabilize closing speeds and volume, but in the actually troublesome heavier traffic conditions the state has been unable to figure out when and where to deploy the pace vehicles effectively.
Re: The Lowdown on Lidar
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
Possibly because the cost/benefit just isn't there. In the UK, the data shows that speeding (excessive speed for the conditions above the speed limit) is the primary cause in single digit percentage of accidents. I believe there's data from 1996 and 2007 for this, will dig it out when I'm not on mobile. If you want to spend money on accident prevention, there's much better things to target than speeding.
New Zealand keeps fairly good records which can be downloaded here: http://www.transport.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/Research/Documen... page 62 lists the percentage of crashes, crashes with injuries and crashes with fatalities. Speed is constantly found in around 30% of fatal crashes.
Saying speed is found as a factor in around 30% of fatal crashes doesn't really say much as to the effectiveness of these sorts of measures. I mean, right off the bat I have to ask - what is the overlap between "people in fatal crashes with speed as a factor" and "people who receive automated speeding tickets".
I think as a percentage it would be unimaginably tiny which supports the assertion that it is misplaced enforcement if safety is actually the goal.
Re: The Lowdown on Lidar
#209How does the officer confirm which vehicle the LIDAR selected? I have never been clear on this point.
Re: The Lowdown on Lidar
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
Possibly because the cost/benefit just isn't there. In the UK, the data shows that speeding (excessive speed for the conditions above the speed limit) is the primary cause in single digit percentage of accidents. I believe there's data from 1996 and 2007 for this, will dig it out when I'm not on mobile. If you want to spend money on accident prevention, there's much better things to target than speeding.
New Zealand keeps fairly good records which can be downloaded here: http://www.transport.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/Research/Documen... page 62 lists the percentage of crashes, crashes with injuries and crashes with fatalities. Speed is constantly found in around 30% of fatal crashes.
And when you consider that more than 30% of drivers are typically speeding on many/most roads...