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Speeding Slows You Down (By a Lot)

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Re: Speeding Slows You Down (By a Lot)

#81

Post by danaris »

lsllc wrote: post #72
jcgrillo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "flying by on the right" thing feels like a recent (within the last ~decade?) phenomenon. Am I imagining it?

There's a total lack of "lane discipline" (as Clarkson would say) in the US. In fact I'd argue that it's not a lack of discipline, but just a lack of understanding of how you should drive on a highway. People tend to migrate to the "fast" lanes (the left), so you naturally end up with people either passing on the right or tailgating them. Of course, you should always be in the right lanes except for passing. I do won…

> Of course, you should always be in the right lanes except for passing.

First, I should note that I 100% agree.

However, as the highways have become more crowded, it has become less practical to actually adhere to this.

If I'm going 70MPH (the prevailing speed on the NYS highways where the legal speed limit is 65MPH tends to be somewhere between 70 and 78MPH), and there are a half-dozen cars going 60MPH in the right lane, with just barely enough room between them to safely get in (ie, there's sufficient stopping room between the rear car and me, and between me and the front car), then technically I could pass the first car, pull back into the right lane, pull almost immediately back into the left lane to pass the next car, and repeat several more times. But that's not merely tedious, it's dangerous.

It's even worse when instead of a half-dozen regular cars going 60MPH, it's three tractor-trailers. Particularly since "safe distance" for them is much longer due to visibility issues.

...And, of course, sometimes when I'm doing this, some yahoo going 80MPH will zip up behind me, pass me on the right (completely ignoring the aforementioned safe distances) and then zip back into the left lane to careen onwards.

Re: Speeding Slows You Down (By a Lot)

#82

Post by giantg2 »

konschubert wrote: post #78
giantg2 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do agree that empathy plays a big part. However, just like with drivers, often times the cyclists have negligent (or reckless) factors against them as well, which is often used to downplay the contribution of any reckless or negligent actions of the driver. For example, about 20% of cyclist-vehicle fatalities involve cyclist DUI. About 60% of cyclist fatalities are not wearing a helmet despite recommendations and a…

I am sure you don't mean it this way, but this suggests a false equivalency. If a cyclist does not wear a helmet and gets killed by a driver running a red light, it is still 100% the driver's fault. A kill is still a kill even if the victim didn't wear a bulletproof vest.

You may want to look into what I said about contributory negligence instead of strawmanning in this comment thread. It seems this is a pattern with you as you strawmanned in another thread here too.

Re: Speeding Slows You Down (By a Lot)

#83

Post by giantg2 »

jachee wrote: post #77
konschubert wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am fairly emotional about this but I don't think my comments are off-topic or unfair. I find it incredibly frustrating how we as a society have accepted the high number of traffic deaths as a fact of nature. Imagine we had the technology to reduce childhood cancer rates by 50%, but chose not to use it. Traffic accidents kill more children than cancer. And we have the technology to reduce them: GPS-based speed limit…

> red light cameras I’m all for everything else on your list, and I’m all in favor of protecting the children, but I draw the line at increasing the surveillance state. Big Brother gets to watch enough of what we do, already. Let’s not give him even more eyes.

I'm surprised you draw the line at cameras but not at GPS enforced speed, which of course includes location data for jurisdiction purposes at least.

Re: Speeding Slows You Down (By a Lot)

#84

Post by screye »

toast0 wrote: post #73
screye wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ballpark of 32x safer That number (edit: rail deaths) feels too high. Other than major train collisions/derailments, is it even possible to die because of trains ? > In 2022, more than two-thirds (69 %) of these fatalities in the EU were caused by 'accidents to persons by rolling stock in motion', typically involving persons who are unauthorised on the railway tracks and are hit by a running train. Together with le…

> That number (edit: rail deaths) feels too high. Other than major train collisions/derailments, is it even possible to die because of trains ? Pedestrians and others are struck by rail vehicles regularly. Additionally, where rails come into contact with other pathways, they are a hazard to pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists and sometimes even cars when railway is poorly designed or implemented.

Genuine question. How ?

A train is something you can see coming from a mile away. It doesn't blindside you. 'Deer in headlights' events occur, but it not like the person couldn't have foreseen it coming. It's like blaming parkour deaths on walls.

A pedestrian crossing a street can be 'struck' by a car, because a car can actually come out of nowhere. There is a reason that most car deaths in cities occur on a 'unchecked turn right on red'. It is an accident that occurs because of occlusion.

Trams have a risk profile that borrows some of the risks of cars. But, grade separated rail requires active fault form the pedestrian/cyclist to be in fatal accident.

Re: Speeding Slows You Down (By a Lot)

#85

Post by toast0 »

screye wrote: post #84
toast0 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That number (edit: rail deaths) feels too high. Other than major train collisions/derailments, is it even possible to die because of trains ? Pedestrians and others are struck by rail vehicles regularly. Additionally, where rails come into contact with other pathways, they are a hazard to pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists and sometimes even cars when railway is poorly designed or implemented.

Genuine question. How ? A train is something you can see coming from a mile away. It doesn't blindside you. 'Deer in headlights' events occur, but it not like the person couldn't have foreseen it coming. It's like blaming parkour deaths on walls. A pedestrian crossing a street can be 'struck' by a car, because a car can actually come out of nowhere. There is a reason that most car deaths in cities occur on a 'uncheck…

Light rail is rarely grade separated. Heavy rail often has at grade crossings as well.

In most heavy rail, there's no chance of timely stopping if someone trips and falls on the tracks at an inopportune time and is unable to make their way away from the tracks in time. You can blame that on the pedestrian, but it's still a rail death in my book.

Re: Speeding Slows You Down (By a Lot)

#86

Post by jachee »

giantg2 wrote: post #83
jachee wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> red light cameras I’m all for everything else on your list, and I’m all in favor of protecting the children, but I draw the line at increasing the surveillance state. Big Brother gets to watch enough of what we do, already. Let’s not give him even more eyes.

I'm surprised you draw the line at cameras but not at GPS enforced speed, which of course includes location data for jurisdiction purposes at least.

GPS-enforced speed could be done fully internal to the vehicle. THe jurisdiction data would have to be accurately stored internally, but that’s not incredibly difficult; e.g. Apple Maps has speed limit info for something north of 90% of US roads.

Re: Speeding Slows You Down (By a Lot)

#87

Post by bratwurst3000 »

screye wrote: post #84
toast0 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That number (edit: rail deaths) feels too high. Other than major train collisions/derailments, is it even possible to die because of trains ? Pedestrians and others are struck by rail vehicles regularly. Additionally, where rails come into contact with other pathways, they are a hazard to pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists and sometimes even cars when railway is poorly designed or implemented.

Genuine question. How ? A train is something you can see coming from a mile away. It doesn't blindside you. 'Deer in headlights' events occur, but it not like the person couldn't have foreseen it coming. It's like blaming parkour deaths on walls. A pedestrian crossing a street can be 'struck' by a car, because a car can actually come out of nowhere. There is a reason that most car deaths in cities occur on a 'uncheck…

How? Easy. Drunk people or kids that Don’t pay attention or it is very crowded.

I looked it up and there are 140 people or so that get killed by train by year here in Germany. Could be a lot of suicids.

Re: Speeding Slows You Down (By a Lot)

#88

Post by kragen »

jethro_tell wrote: post #27
kragen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i just spent three hours on the bus today and i would much rather have spent an hour in a car instead, though my risk of dying would surely be higher there are a lot of places within 100 km of my house that i'd enjoy visiting but where public transport doesn't go. if i had a car, i could go there easily. if that means shortening my life expectancy by 20 minutes, that seems like a worthwhile tradeoff. the risk i'd be…

I'd you shorten your life expectancy by 20 min but get 2 hours back today it seems like a fair trade. And that's why public transit in the us is such a mess, if you want people to use it, you have to make it fast and frequent before people need it, so when you do use it, you thin, huh, that's not too bad.

well, i wasn't actually dead on the public transit, although on the bus whose air conditioner was broken it felt like it part of the time

Re: Speeding Slows You Down (By a Lot)

#89

Post by jstarfish »

lsllc wrote: post #72
jcgrillo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "flying by on the right" thing feels like a recent (within the last ~decade?) phenomenon. Am I imagining it?

There's a total lack of "lane discipline" (as Clarkson would say) in the US. In fact I'd argue that it's not a lack of discipline, but just a lack of understanding of how you should drive on a highway. People tend to migrate to the "fast" lanes (the left), so you naturally end up with people either passing on the right or tailgating them. Of course, you should always be in the right lanes except for passing. I do won…

> Of course, you should always be in the right lanes except for passing.

I used to adhere to this but it does not work in practice.

Right lanes have the highest churn-- people getting off, people getting on. If you're not planning to do either, you have no business being on that side of the road.

This idea about left lanes only being for passing only ever works when you're overtaking a tractor doing 15mph on a country road. The concept does not scale to freeway speeds or traffic. You're not legally passing anyone already doing 70.

Re: Speeding Slows You Down (By a Lot)

#90

Post by jstarfish »

konschubert wrote: post #78
giantg2 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do agree that empathy plays a big part. However, just like with drivers, often times the cyclists have negligent (or reckless) factors against them as well, which is often used to downplay the contribution of any reckless or negligent actions of the driver. For example, about 20% of cyclist-vehicle fatalities involve cyclist DUI. About 60% of cyclist fatalities are not wearing a helmet despite recommendations and a…

I am sure you don't mean it this way, but this suggests a false equivalency. If a cyclist does not wear a helmet and gets killed by a driver running a red light, it is still 100% the driver's fault. A kill is still a kill even if the victim didn't wear a bulletproof vest.

If we're talking US law, you are absolutely incorrect and making a false equivalence yourself. A murder victim is not a MVC victim.

Only the collision is 100% the driver's fault (in most states).

The death is up for debate. If you die because you weren't wearing a seatbelt/helmet, you were negligent, so fault is shared.

There is no law mandating everyone wear bulletproof vests. All states have seatbelt laws, and most have helmet laws.

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