41–50 of 227 posts
I'm a firm believer that anyone who gets caught driving under the influence should lose their license permanently. You drink and drive? You don't get to drive. Period.
Unfortunate how many humans we have driving cars at various levels of impairment. It's killing so many people. Drunk driving in suburban areas is rampant and feels almost inherent without real public transportation options at last call. I think most of Seattle's public transit options stop right around midnight.
Cars are pretty safe, but I'm always a little shocked that we don't have governors built into cars with sane limits. How is it even possible to do 100mph and why should that speed be allowed? Cars should top off at 75. Not to mention, why are cars dumb machines? If someone is going crazy fast in an area where there is no safe way to decelerate, then the car should not allow that speed to be reached. Freeway speeds sh…
Why is it even possible? Because a car that can't do 100mph is going to have terrible performance 0-75
There's long stretches of highways in rural areas with speed limits higher than 75
>Not to mention, why are cars dumb machines? If someone is going crazy fast in an area where there is no safe way to decelerate, then the car should not allow that speed to be reached.
There are sometimes legitimate reasons to be going quickly. I have, at times, needed to have bursts of speed into the 90s to safely get around a drunk driver going 70.
You're now asking for cars to behave unpredictably based on their determination of the road conditions.
And you set the limiter to 75. Now someone is driving 75 in a 25.
Most highway deaths are rural[1] and involve a single car - they veer off of narrow lanes into a ditch or trees, or hit a large animal. The difference in reaction time needed to avoid said animals or other obstructions is not that different from 75mph to 90mph - low visibility is the underlying problem there, not speed.
The idea that we're suddenly safer on roads if we limit speeds is also not necessarily true.
In 2013, German autobahns accounted for 31% of the countries traffic, yet only 13% of the deaths. They had a rate of 1.9 deaths per billion kilometers travelled, while urban roads had 4.7, and rural roads 6.6.
I don't think there's really evidence to support the idea that limiting our cars to lower speeds will be beneficial.
[1] http://www.npr.org/2009/11/29/120716625/the-deadliest-roads-...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not that it's any more or less tragic, but I've always been astonished that Silicon Valley is so car-dependent. We've concentrated the most brilliant minds in the world in this small area... and then force everyone to pilot two-ton bullets to pick up groceries? Not all workers can demand decent living conditions, but you'd think the competitive draw for workers in Silicon Valley would entice company towns to, I don't…
Redmond, Washington isn't in Silicon Valley...
Ey would have been killed long ago if he dared to ride a bike to work. If Redmond had been planned after Copenhagen's model, he would still be alive to make the world a better place.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I assure you that there are stupid people outside of America. In fact, the majority of stupid human beings are not American.
Of course the majority of stupid people will be outside of America (statistically speaking), the world is huge, you stupid :-), in comparison with your 'Murica! But I am inclined to believe that the ratio of stupid people in 'murica might as well be higher than in the rest of the world.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cars are pretty safe, but I'm always a little shocked that we don't have governors built into cars with sane limits. How is it even possible to do 100mph and why should that speed be allowed? Cars should top off at 75. Not to mention, why are cars dumb machines? If someone is going crazy fast in an area where there is no safe way to decelerate, then the car should not allow that speed to be reached. Freeway speeds sh…
>Cars are pretty safe, but I'm always a little shocked that we don't have governors built into cars with sane limits. How is it even possible to do 100mph and why should that speed be allowed? Cars should top off at 75. Why is it even possible? Because a car that can't do 100mph is going to have terrible performance 0-75 There's long stretches of highways in rural areas with speed limits higher than 75 >Not to mentio…
Not convinced by this one. Surely reducing the kinetic energy in this scenario is the safest course of action?
Säd. Coindidentally the same happened to one of the Oculus founders. http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/01/oculus-vr-co-founder-andrew...
Not that it's any more or less tragic, but I've always been astonished that Silicon Valley is so car-dependent. We've concentrated the most brilliant minds in the world in this small area... and then force everyone to pilot two-ton bullets to pick up groceries? Not all workers can demand decent living conditions, but you'd think the competitive draw for workers in Silicon Valley would entice company towns to, I don't…
Given that I don't drink very much and then only at home (a sixer lasts me about a season, sometimes half a year) that means my car is incredibly safe and will almost certainly never kill anyone. Odd how there's no anti-alcohol hate here on HN, yet its the alcohol doing the actual killing.
If you subtract out deaths due to drunkenness, cars kill less people than bathtubs. Perhaps we need a war on bathtubs. Because nothing is ever a drunk's fault.
Säd. Coindidentally the same happened to one of the Oculus founders. http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/01/oculus-vr-co-founder-andrew...
Not that it's any more or less tragic, but I've always been astonished that Silicon Valley is so car-dependent. We've concentrated the most brilliant minds in the world in this small area... and then force everyone to pilot two-ton bullets to pick up groceries? Not all workers can demand decent living conditions, but you'd think the competitive draw for workers in Silicon Valley would entice company towns to, I don't…
Fuck. I feel shocked ... sick. I don't know what to say. I went to RIT with Mike. He was a seriously passionate developer and very clearly destined for great things. Finding out about this here makes me wish I had stayed in touch. This is unreal, and makes zero sense. Too many emotions that I don't know what to do with, so I'll end my comment there. Just hope the rest of his family and friends are doing okay. RIP, Mi…
A shame. People are killed in preventable road collisions with shameful frequency, in the usa compared to civilized nations. Go read the comments on HN threads about speed and red light cameras and then think about the tens of thousands of people dead in America in preventable collisions.
> the usa compared to civilized nations Perhaps there could have been a legitimate point about traffic deaths, but whatever substance this comment might have had is more than squandered by that acerbic swipe. I feel ashamed of Hacker News to see a thread about someone's death abused like that.