The Lowdown on Lidar

Post by coldpie » Fri, Aug 01, 2014, 12:51 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #204

e40 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Post by colanderman » Fri, Aug 01, 2014, 1:50 PM UTC

ihaveajob wrote: post #12

Speed radars are good for speed traps, but not so great to prevent speed related incidents. They share the same fatal flaw with all other single-point speed meters: You can just slow down for a minute, while you pass by the speed trap, and then speed up for the rest of your trip. Instead, a 2-point speed meter (i.e. license plate readers every few miles, measuring time between matching reads) system is superior becau…

Post by colanderman » Fri, Aug 01, 2014, 2:08 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #249

ylhert wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In France they have a system that sort of works like this, most/many highways are toll based. There are toll booths at regular intervals(every 100 miles or so). If your time between toll booths is below a certain time, they know you were speeding at some point. To get around this, my always speeding grandpere would just have us stop for gas, un cafe, etc right before each toll booth.

> To get around this, my always speeding grandpere would just have us stop for gas, un cafe, etc right before each toll booth. That sort of defeats the point of speeding. Why endanger your lives and the lives of the others if you even don't get faster to your destination as you make additional stops to "defeat" anti-speeding systems?

Post by colanderman » Fri, Aug 01, 2014, 2:18 PM UTC

grndn wrote: post #70

gonehome wrote: post #28

Earlier 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…

> the current limits on most roads don't represent what speed ... people could safely drive at. If there's a sidewalk or any t-junctions, that's about 20mph tops. Anything faster, and you can't stop in time, plus in a collision, kinetic energy goes as the square of the speed. For local trips, with stoplights that slow you down anyway, driving slower adds only a few extra minutes to your journey time. Personally, I'm…

Post by Alupis » Fri, Aug 01, 2014, 2:41 PM UTC

Arjuna wrote: post #150

curtis wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd really like to see more transparency when it comes to title changes. The most recent case where one of my submissions had a title change mirrors what kudu is describing here: a meaningful (and I think accurate) title changed to a generic and vague one -- followed by a rapid decline in the rate of upvotes. I think there are legitimate reasons for title changes, and I think that the Hacker News mods generally do go…

"I'd really like to see more transparency when it comes to title changes." I think dang is working hard to be transparent about this topic. You can see a number of examples of this by reading through the following search result [1]. Cases in point: He has reverted titles to their original form... "Ok, we'll change the title back again." [2] He is open to suggestions... "If anyone suggests a better title, I'll change…