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About Breaking Rules
The people who set the legal speed limits on our highways and byways are, presumably, experts. They are familiar with the various correlations between traffic speed, traffic density, accident rates, and accident fatalities. They have a wealth of data to draw upon, since Americans drive literally trillions of miles each year and we’ve been monitoring traffic fatalities for decades. So, assuming they aren’t simply diversity hires, our traffic engineers probably know a thing or two about speed limits and safety.
Despite all that, some significant number of my fellow Americans seem quite willing to exceed the legally posted speed limits. I’ve seen them do it, so I know this is true. I’ve watched drivers run just a couple of miles over. I’ve watched drivers set their cruise controls a full nine miles over the speed the experts have determined to be right and proper.
To be perfectly honest, there have been times, in my 45 years of driving, when even I have exceeded the legal speed limit — but never by more than 85 miles per hour, and that only on a motorcycle and not in a very, very long time.
I no longer exceed the speed limit. For the past twenty years, I’ve been the guy in the big vehicle plodding along at the legal speed limit, always in the right lane, passed at every opportunity by people who live their lives more urgently, apparently, than I live mine.
The people who impose mask mandates are power-obsessed politicians presumably informed by a political calculus that includes, somewhere deep in its Machiavellian equations, a variable representing the contributions mask mandates make to public safety. That variable is a bit problematic, as The Science (and no, that isn’t a pseudonym for the pompously mendacious little guy on TV) really hasn’t established so much as the sign of mask mandate efficacy, let alone its magnitude. Unlike, say, speed limits, we don’t really know if mask mandates contribute to public safety.
I was in a convenience store last night, unmasked. As usual, no one said a word; only once, so far, has anyone in this mask-obsessed state commented negatively on my ruggedly handsome and totally uncovered visage. The next time someone does, I’ll be tempted to respond that “I never exceed the legal speed limit, but I don’t wear a mask. Just think of it as me going nine over. Now give me my change, and have a nice day.”
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David, I’m being charitable. But I do assume that, somewhere back in the process, someone was thinking about traffic safety when they suggested the appropriate speed for a given stretch of road.
And I don’t speed because I don’t like getting pulled over.
Yes @henryracette, you are being charitable. My direct experience with municipal government suggests otherwise. Sometimes it is to create a speed trap for revenue purposes. Government is not to be trusted, unfortunately.
I don’t like following orders. Maybe I’ll start complying. Not today, though.
I started this comment earlier and then I decided maybe I was too negative and stopped. I’ve been driving for over 65 years and never had an accident where I was at fault so I have never filed an insurance claim except to repair a windshield. I’ve had some speeding tickets, one in 1963, one in 1976, and one in 1982. Paid a fine and that was it. Got one here in Arizona by a radar and camera. I paid s substantial fine, thought I was done, but then had my annual insurance premium go up over a thousand dollars.
So, yes, not only is government not to be trusted but we may assume that there are many corporate allies in the behaviors causing that distrust, they may even be engaged in financial joint ventures..
Of course I knew that. My point was that it was never about safe speeds on those roads, which as far as I know were always designed for at least 75.
I’ve read that roundabouts are the safest kind of intersection. I used to think it was four way stops.
I’m not convinced. People can be just as inattentive etc in roundabouts as anywhere else.
I also like roundabouts. One of their advantages, I think, is that they inherently limit the speed of traffic, thanks to the need to maintain traction in a curve, and so probably spare us the relatively high-speed side-on collision of an overlooked stop sign or rushed traffic light. Also, I think they’re just cool.
But they’re not environmentally friendly, because they take a lot more land than a regular intersection, especially if they’re supposed to be able to handle large trucks including emergency vehicles.
And they tend to limit speed only for people who are already paying attention and being careful.
The first time I saw one was in Massachusetts and I’d already been driving elsewhere for years. Went around it backwards, much to the delight of the drivers already in it. I was mostly paying attention and being careful – just painfully ignorant.
Oh, and it was Boston. So as you can imagine, the other drivers calmly, and with great reserve and patience, explained why it was generally recommended to drive in the other direction in a traffic circle.
I remember seeing traffic circles in Paris when I was seven or eight. But they had five or six roads connecting, and I stayed confused.
The first time I drove on ordinary roads in Australia I’d already been driving elsewhere for years. But I did it frontwards without error. Apparently the mental work involved in switching, for this simple case–driving down a road–is not very high, whereas the mind’s awareness of the importance of getting it right is ferocious. When even a mediocre mind such as mine is focused intensely and continuously on a single moderately challenging task, perfect performance is likely.
In contrast, approaching my first roundabout down there was in fact much more challenging, but rather than being even more focused on the danger and the need for getting it right, I was oblivious. I’d rarely been on a roundabout in the US, but I did know that it is extremely easy to do, and does not require any attention. You just bear right and merge.
To make a long story short, I am glad that speeds are so low on an Australian roundabout.
I know that if I studied the mathematical formalism of roundabouts for long enough, I would figure out the one most important thing you have to know as you approach one in a country like, for example, Australia. But I found out by experience.
I thought maybe you were younger and didn’t know the history. Sorry to misunderstand.
The engineering of roads took a back seat to safety, when they ‘realized’ how many lives could be saved by the speed reduction.
That’s where my skepticism of government and their lies about caring for our “safety” began. It’s now way past the boiling point.
Australian drivers are even more polite and circumspect than Boston ones. The average man on the street down there is convinced that ALL Americans are packing, ALL the time, and thus deserving of great courtesy.
Do they still believe that although guns are now apparently illegal there?
But it is true. Primarily because it is almost impossible to get T-boned in a circle. Sideswipes instead. But also because sight lines are forced to be expanded for a somewhat lower max speed. And drivers don’t have to swivel their heads back and forth.
This is part of what makes them safer. But it also makes them independent of electrical power. No crash-prone craziness when the power is out.
Oh, and they significantly reduce pollution due to the elimination of idling while waiting for a light to change. Also a reduction in the energy lost to braking to a complete stop.
Automatic stop/start takes care of that, as well as using electric cars of course.
Environmentalist whackos are also very sensitive about land taken up by roads in general, which is one reason many of them are against solar farms, and using roundabouts takes up a lot more space which also makes it basically impossible to put them in many existing situations since there are other things in the way. Especially making them big enough to accommodate fire trucks etc. They also take a lot more building materials, such as Gaia-injuring concrete, asphalt…
No, automatic start/stop doesn’t help with idle energy losses, except for a short time in spring and fall when neither heat nor AC is needed. No, you don’t get back all of the braking energy even in electric/hybrid cars, because chemical batteries are only 70-80% efficient.
Another environmental benefit is the avoidance of other road-building (including adding lanes), because the round-about raises the capacity of the existing road. A few acres in a round-about typically saves thousands of acres elsewhere. Not to mention all of the environmental damage avoided by not laying down miles and miles of concrete and asphalt.
Seriously, there’s no legitimate downside to round-abouts. Technically.
Now, you can have the opinion that round-abouts are ugly and annoying. I don’t agree with that either, but it is a valid point. The rest, not so much.
What about the additional distances traveled when using roundabouts? To make a left turn, instead of just making a left turn as you would at a normal intersection, you must go 3/4 of the way around the circle. And if you miss a merge or something, due to traffic, you may have to go around more than once.
Mwah ha ha ha! Grasping at straws?
I’ve never had to go around a round-about twice due to traffic. (In modern roundabouts, the innermost lane has the right of way.) I have gone around again for navigation failures. But even that is more efficient than making a u-turn at the next block, or a three-point turn in the middle of the road.
Fine, put roundabouts at every intersection and see what happens.
https://milwaukeerecord.com/city-life/milwaukee-roundabout-documents-the-drama-and-chaos-of-a-local-intersection/
“An armed society is a polite society.”
The local roundabouts can’t be more than a quarter of an acre.
Also, roundabouts slow down traffic all the time, even when there’s no need to. Such as, late at night.
Extra protection for the drunks wandering down the center of the highway late at night.
Ok, your turn.