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Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

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Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#431

Post by perl4ever »

ddingus wrote: post #390
emptybottle wrote: post #73

A good reminder to keep some warm blankets/coats/gloves/hats in your trunk, along with some non-perishable snacks and a first-aid kit & flashlight. Water is harder to store in the winter since it will freeze and burst containers if full, but snow can be melted given a container to put it in. Also a good to refuel often. I try treat 1/2 a tank as empty and stop accordingly. On longer trips it lines up well with bathro…

Yes. We had a family incident a number of years back. Stuck on a mountain pass in the cold for the better part of a day. We've also seen a breakdown in the desert, and that one was a couple days. We always refuel before entering a risky part of travel. Never count on getting there. Make sure. And in a scenario like this that refuel could provide a days worth of heat, depending. No matter what, it's a lot more heat th…

>Rough metric is you get 1 hour of engine idle per gallon. Some cars do better than that.

I have a non-plug in hybrid, that gets almost 50 mpg consistently; I've got to experiment and extrapolate to see if it's much better. I would like to believe so.

I recently learned of the existence of:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_heater

and wonder how efficient they are.

These seem to be mostly outdated, but I guess that they are particularly useful with air cooled engines, where a conventional heating system doesn't have coolant to work with.

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#432

Post by DangitBobby »

snakeboy wrote: post #361
globalise83 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, didn't know that! In the UK and most of Europe it's standard practice.

It's also relatively standard practice in the US. Of course it's illegal "by the books" just like in France and some parts of the UK. At worst you'd probably get a fine if you get caught in a densely populated urban environment without a good reason. It's incredibly misleading to say that peeing on the side of the road in an emergency could put you on the sex offenders' registry. I'd be interested in an example of so…

Not exactly an "example" but apparently 13 states have laws on the books specifically requiring registration if you are caught urinating in public. Some stipulate "repeat offenses", some stipulate "in view of a child" (The Horror!!), but most do neither [1].

1. https://www.hrw.org/report/2007/09/11/no-easy-answers/sex-of...

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#433

Post by twoodfin »

tshaddox wrote: post #406
twoodfin wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and I’m suggesting they are, in fact, quite analogous in this context. If there’s latent, unsatisfied demand for healthcare, and you increase the supply, you shouldn’t be surprised or disappointed if the new supply is consumed. More people are getting the healthcare they wanted!

Yes, but people aren’t complaining that more people drove the route. They’re complaining that congestion was not reduced. And congestion is bad.

Same congestion, more demand being satisfied seems like a win to me—and to the marginal drivers, who decided to start driving when they weren’t before, or the new capacity would not have become congested.

This is such an oddball perspective: EDGE, 3G, LTE mobile networks all became increasingly congested as demand rose to meet supply. But nobody thought building out 5G was therefore pointless.

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#434

Post by panopticon »

fallingknife wrote: post #400
GlenTheMachine wrote: post #396

There are a lot of comments here about why public transit in the DC area doesn't work, but nobody that I've seen has put their finger on it. The biggest issue is that the area covers two states, at least ten counties depending on what you count as the “DC area”, plus the District of Columbia, which isn't a state, doesn't have control over its own budget, and has no representation in Congress. Oh, and in Virginia citi…

> And because unlike everywhere else in the US DC workers who live in Virginia or Maryland don't pay DC taxes I don't think that's the case. In my experience as a remote worker you always pay where you live, not where you work.

There are a patchwork of state laws (reciprocity agreements, the "convenience rule", etc) and other caveats that don't make this universally true, but generally you pay taxes to (1) the state you you work in and (2) the state you live in. Note that #1 means the location where the work is being performed--not where the employer is located.

So if you commute interstate for your job, you'll sometimes find yourself filing income tax forms for multiple states.

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#435

Post by mperham »

fallingknife wrote: post #400
GlenTheMachine wrote: post #396

There are a lot of comments here about why public transit in the DC area doesn't work, but nobody that I've seen has put their finger on it. The biggest issue is that the area covers two states, at least ten counties depending on what you count as the “DC area”, plus the District of Columbia, which isn't a state, doesn't have control over its own budget, and has no representation in Congress. Oh, and in Virginia citi…

> And because unlike everywhere else in the US DC workers who live in Virginia or Maryland don't pay DC taxes I don't think that's the case. In my experience as a remote worker you always pay where you live, not where you work.

Oregon requires commuting workers who live across the Columbia River in Washington to pay income tax.

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#436

Post by flavius29663 »

MandieD wrote: post #226
flavius29663 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rail transit still works in many non-dysfunctional countries. Define "works". Sure it can move millions of people each day, but those people live miserable lives most of the time. Have you lived in a city where commuting one hour each way by train is considered "very good" ? And some of the worse are around 1.30-1.45 hours each way, each day? Even if for a while the train is fine, if the city is growing it will bec…

Yes, our life in Franconia (northern Bavaria) is nothing but suffering, in our townhouse with a yard that’s a 600m walk from a subway station and a suburban rail station, either of which gets me to downtown Nuremberg in 20 minutes, because that place is a hellhole, and to the miserable corporate 35-hour-a-week job (the fault of IG Metall) that pays for said townhouse in 40 minutes. I especially resent the fact that I…

I was talking about cities (e.g. London) where commuting by train+buses takes 1-2 hours each way. Not sure why you thought I was talking about medium sized cities where you can drive anywhere in 20 minutes. Washington DC is just massive, the metro area is immense both area and population wise, public transport wouldn't do much there.

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#437

Post by lazyasciiart »

King-Aaron wrote: post #422
pengaru wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of how well prepared you are to comfortably hunker down in your vehicle, unless you're truly in no mans land without any reachable alternatives for shelter, it's best to lock up the vehicle with a note on the dash and make your way to a shelter out of harms way. Preferably by way of a route that is not along the road, even if it's more difficult. It's never safe to be arbitrarily stopped on a road, even if…

> it's best to lock up the vehicle with a note on the dash and make your way to a shelter out of harms way Just a note for varying geographical locations: If you do this in Australia, you will most likely die from exposure.

Just a note for locations actually not varying that much and this is generally terrible advice: people die of exposure doing this in the US and everyone ever asked from search and rescue will tell you to stay in your car unless it is actively going underwater or falling off a cliff.

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#438

Post by chrononaut »

gnopgnip wrote: post #417
SauciestGNU wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not, in some parts of the USA that can get you labeled a sex offender for life.

This is a myth

As ridiculous as it is, this is not a myth; It varies by state whether it's required.

> At least 13 states require registration for public urination; of those, two limit registration to those who committed the act in view of a minor;

https://www.hrw.org/report/2007/09/11/no-easy-answers/sex-of...

Now, it's probably unlikely (considering a normal person is also not generally trying to be purposely seen), but not out of the realm of possibility.

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#439

Post by flavius29663 »

seventytwo wrote: post #411
GlenTheMachine wrote: post #396

There are a lot of comments here about why public transit in the DC area doesn't work, but nobody that I've seen has put their finger on it. The biggest issue is that the area covers two states, at least ten counties depending on what you count as the “DC area”, plus the District of Columbia, which isn't a state, doesn't have control over its own budget, and has no representation in Congress. Oh, and in Virginia citi…

Sounds like DC needs to be made a state.

The whole point of DC was that it won't be in any state. That was the sole reasoning for creating those 100 square miles. Maryland could take back it's half like Virginia did https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_retrocess... , but creating a state out of a piece of land specifically designated as non-state doesn't make sense.

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#440

Post by kmeisthax »

nostromo wrote: post #87
whatshisface wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood how inducing demand doesn't count as success. That means people want to use the road, doesn't it? It's almost like saying that releasing new software doesn't do anything to help users, because it increases the demand for software by the virtue of its own utility more than it reduces the demand for software by keeping people busy.

Yeah, they're shifting the goal posts. Here in city (Seattle) most people drive because transit tends to be spotty and slow for most people. So, what's the solution? Make driving worse of course. Speedbumps everywhere . Change 4-lane roads to 2-lanes. Remove parking. Lower speed limits to absurd levels. Make through streets dead ends. Transit still mostly sucks, but now driving sucks too. Success! I love transit and…

You can't make transit great if cars are also great, because the two are mutually exclusive.

For cars to be good you need lots of space for parking lots and highways. Otherwise, the car is getting you nowhere fast, and there won't be anywhere to park it when you get there. But that also means those parking lots and highways need space. In all but the densest urban metros, that space is two-dimensional, which means all that car infrastructure is spreading out all the buildings.

Transit needs the exact opposite to happen: buildings need to be close-together so that a single line can aggregate more demand, and riders have to walk less when they arrive at their destinations. This is actually how pretty much all cities used to be built, because cars didn't exist yet, so you had to give that space to pedestrian infrastructure. Not coincidentally, those are also the cities with the best transit, and the absolute worst to drive in. You can't have both cars and people sharing the same space.

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