Edmunds Members - Cars and Conversations (Archived)

snakeweasel

fordfool said:

thebean said:

There will never be a law passed to ban handheld phone use in cars.  The cell phone lobby will stop that.

I'd favor an electronic signal that would disable a cell phone in a car unless the
transmission was in Park and the same with the visual display of a GPS.

Actually I do believe that would be a violation of federal law. Also how would you keep it from disabling nearby phones?

Mr_Shiftright

I believe there is already some tech in place to block out illegal cell phones used in prison. But these cover a fairly wide area.

berri

You don't really need to insert all kinds of high priced technology, just impose very stiff fines and possible blacklisted from owning a cell phone for repeat offenses.

stever

Hm, kind of sounds like how DWI is handled. The crackdown years ago worked pretty well overall, except for the repeat offenders that continue to make headlines.

oldfarmer50

stever said:

Hm, kind of sounds like how DWI is handled. The crackdown years ago worked pretty well overall, except for the repeat offenders that continue to make headlines.

Don't know about that. The police are always "cracking down" on both DWI and cell phones and the next week they are doing another "sweep". Seems like the problem is never ending.

Darn humans.

graphicguy

stever said:

Hm, kind of sounds like how DWI is handled. The crackdown years ago worked pretty well overall, except for the repeat offenders that continue to make headlines.

Agreed....earmark that MADD PAC money to focus on curbing the usage of a cell phone or texting device while driving and it wouldn't take long to put a stop to it....except as you rightfully point out, not with the habitual cell phone while driving users.

graphicguy

oldfarmer50 said:

stever said:

Hm, kind of sounds like how DWI is handled. The crackdown years ago worked pretty well overall, except for the repeat offenders that continue to make headlines.

Don't know about that. The police are always "cracking down" on both DWI and cell phones and the next week they are doing another "sweep". Seems like the problem is never ending.

Darn humans.

Follow the money!

imidazol97

berri said:

... just impose very stiff fines and possible blacklisted from owning a cell phone for repeat offenses.

We can see how poorly that has worked out with controlling speeding. NOT. And with controlling the driving under the influence people. Same.

I can just hear the hew and cry when a law is proposed to effect cell phone control in moving cars. Hands free doesn't work. I can't tell you how many drivers of Odysseys I've tooted at when they sit after the light turns green talking away on their hands free system oblivious to traffic--or they don't do a right turn on red because they'd rather concentrate on their discussion. It's like heroin addiction.

Mr_Shiftright

No joke. They are studying kids right now who are so "hooked" that the word "addiction" is not a hyperbole.

berri

Well, I see that the Ford recall on doors popping open is expanding. That used to be a problem in the 1950's. I suspect pure cost cutting. I still think Fields in taking Ford backwards to the old Detroit ways. He's lucky Japan hasn't been able to break into the big pick up truck market. Sure seems to me that Barra is quietly moving GM back to head of the class for Detroit automakers.

ab348

berri said:

Well, I see that the Ford recall on doors popping open is expanding. That used to be a problem in the 1950's. I suspect pure cost cutting. I still think Fields in taking Ford backwards to the old Detroit ways. He's lucky Japan hasn't been able to break into the big pick up truck market. Sure seems to me that Barra is quietly moving GM back to head of the class for Detroit automakers.

I agree totally. I've never been a Ford fan but they do some things well, like pickups and the Mustang. But so far the Fields tenure has not impressed me much.

snakeweasel

imidazol97 said:

berri said:

... just impose very stiff fines and possible blacklisted from owning a cell phone for repeat offenses.

We can see how poorly that has worked out with controlling speeding. NOT. And with controlling the driving under the influence people. Same.

The reason it has worked out to well with speeding is lack of enforcement. You can impose heavy fines but if you rarely enforce the law no one will follow it.

imidazol97 said:

I can just hear the hew and cry when a law is proposed to effect cell phone control in moving cars. Hands free doesn't work. I can't tell you how many drivers of Odysseys I've tooted at when they sit after the light turns green talking away on their hands free system oblivious to traffic--or they don't do a right turn on red because they'd rather concentrate on their discussion. It's like heroin addiction.

To be fair there are plenty of other causes of people sitting at green lights or not turning on red. Could be talking to a passenger, addressing unruly children or other things that don't have anything to do with cell phones. I have seen accidents cause by someone distracted by talking to the person in the seat next to them.

andres3

snakeweasel said:

imidazol97 said:

berri said:

... just impose very stiff fines and possible blacklisted from owning a cell phone for repeat offenses.

We can see how poorly that has worked out with controlling speeding. NOT. And with controlling the driving under the influence people. Same.

The reason it has worked out to well with speeding is lack of enforcement. You can impose heavy fines but if you rarely enforce the law no one will follow it.

imidazol97 said:

I can just hear the hew and cry when a law is proposed to effect cell phone control in moving cars. Hands free doesn't work. I can't tell you how many drivers of Odysseys I've tooted at when they sit after the light turns green talking away on their hands free system oblivious to traffic--or they don't do a right turn on red because they'd rather concentrate on their discussion. It's like heroin addiction.

To be fair there are plenty of other causes of people sitting at green lights or not turning on red. Could be talking to a passenger, addressing unruly children or other things that don't have anything to do with cell phones. I have seen accidents cause by someone distracted by talking to the person in the seat next to them.

I don't think it is lack of enforcement that makes people speed. I think it is natural moral behavior to disregard unjustified laws not based on anything but a corrupted money-grab.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/columns/tony-messenger/messenger-speed-trap-highlights-policing-for-profit-dilemma/article_6acba9a1-a618-5fa0-af5e-b9256966b841.html?mode=comments

snakeweasel

andres3 said:

snakeweasel said:

imidazol97 said:

berri said:

... just impose very stiff fines and possible blacklisted from owning a cell phone for repeat offenses.

We can see how poorly that has worked out with controlling speeding. NOT. And with controlling the driving under the influence people. Same.

The reason it has worked out to well with speeding is lack of enforcement. You can impose heavy fines but if you rarely enforce the law no one will follow it.

imidazol97 said:

I can just hear the hew and cry when a law is proposed to effect cell phone control in moving cars. Hands free doesn't work. I can't tell you how many drivers of Odysseys I've tooted at when they sit after the light turns green talking away on their hands free system oblivious to traffic--or they don't do a right turn on red because they'd rather concentrate on their discussion. It's like heroin addiction.

To be fair there are plenty of other causes of people sitting at green lights or not turning on red. Could be talking to a passenger, addressing unruly children or other things that don't have anything to do with cell phones. I have seen accidents cause by someone distracted by talking to the person in the seat next to them.

I don't think it is lack of enforcement that makes people speed. I think it is natural moral behavior to disregard unjustified laws not based on anything but a corrupted money-grab.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/columns/tony-messenger/messenger-speed-trap-highlights-policing-for-profit-dilemma/article_6acba9a1-a618-5fa0-af5e-b9256966b841.html?mode=comments

It is your view and not fact that the law is unjustified. And to disregard a law simply because you disagree with it is not moral.

Now I will bet that if you got a ticket every time you speed you would be more incline to keep the SL.

berri

Not condoning deliberately ignoring laws, but I think I've seen more than a few artificially low speed limits and obscured signs posting them over the years. Then there are deliberately short yellow lights tied into photo radar. I believe your home town of Chicago got caught at that one. I don't know if there is any truth to it, but I recall once reading that an ideal speed limit is one that reflects where about 85% of drivers would be driving without a posted limit. Traffic and parking fines are a significant revenue item for many towns.

fintail

When the brave ones who set and enforce speed limits can justify the numbers, then we can talk about the morality of observing them. It's time for that demographic to put up or shut up. In so many cases (not all, of course, but many), it is a cash grab. It'll also be the biggest stumbling block for autonomous cars - how will so many corrupt should-be-dissolved little craphole municipalities keep their revenue streams going without traffic enforcement?

Submitting to a law simply because those without real world accountability make it law isn't "moral" either.

Those who shortened lights to aid in the crony capitalist light cameras should have their careers and pensions destroyed, and put behind bars. If the brave class would spend as much time going after distracted drivers, crosswalk violators, and non-signalers as they do speeders and non-violent drug offenders, it'd be a lot different on the road.

berri

Speeding is an easy court case - just submit the radar record. Those other areas can involve more judgement and lead to more litigation time pulling the officers from the radar guns. I believe in Finance, that is called turnover

andres3

Fighter jets are allowed radar jammers, why not cars?

Michaell

andres3 said:

Fighter jets are allowed radar jammers, why not cars?

Because it's not life and death with the police. And, the fighter jock maxim is "speed is life".

snakeweasel

berri said:

Not condoning deliberately ignoring laws, but I think I've seen more than a few artificially low speed limits and obscured signs posting them over the years. Then there are deliberately short yellow lights tied into photo radar. I believe your home town of Chicago got caught at that one. I don't know if there is any truth to it, but I recall once reading that an ideal speed limit is one that reflects where about 85% of drivers would be driving without a posted limit. Traffic and parking fines are a significant revenue item for many towns.

First off red light cameras are a different subject.

As for the 85% rule, there are issues with it. First is that it is an arbitrary rule, there is no real science behind it and it could just as well be 80% of 90% or 84.7%. Secondly there are roads where it does produce a good speed limit, and there are roads where it produces a slower speed limit then the road is designed for and there are roads where it produces a speed limit to high. What happens is that you find what that 85% speed is the round it up to the next multiple of 5, so if the 85th percentile is at 41 MPH you set the speed to 45. Finally if you are building a road there is no 85 percentile to determine what the speed limit should be.

I used to know a traffic engineer who used to work for a town near me. We were talking about this and he mentioned a road that I usually go down. he said that using the 85% rule that road would have a 45MPH limit however due to the terrain and such 45MPH is not a safe speed. There are a few spots where the line of sight makes it near impossible to stop within the amount of road that you could see down.

As for revenue, while it is a significant stream of revenue it is also a significant expense in enforcing those laws. You have the policemans salary and benefits and well as the office workers who process the tickets, the court clerks and judges in the courts and their office workers that support them. Add to this the buildings they work in equipment they use and the people that support those and it is a significant drain on resources.

Outside the relatively few jurisdictions that write wholesale tickets it's really not the money grab most people make it out to be. Think about it, how many people do you see pulled over in a week or a month? How many times have you passed a parked police car doing 5 or 6 or so over the limit without being pulled over?

imidazol97

fintail said:

Those who shortened lights to aid in the crony capitalist light cameras should have their careers and pensions destroyed, and put behind bars. If the brave class would spend as much time going after distracted drivers, crosswalk violators, and non-signalers as they do speeders and non-violent drug offenders, it'd be a lot different on the road.

Amen.

imidazol97

snakeweasel said:

As for revenue, while it is a significant stream of revenue it is also a significant expense in enforcing those laws. You have the policemans salary and benefits and well as the office workers who process the tickets, the court clerks and judges in the courts and their office workers that support them. Add to this the buildings they work in equipment they use and the people that support those and it is a significant drain on resources.

Just think how many of those could be laid off or moved to a productive position if the unnecessary tickets were abolished.

However, I am in favor of enforcing the laws, equally, for everyone. I like to notice the speeds the policemen drive on duty as well as off duty on the same roads where they give out tickets. For quite a while, the obnoxious speeders and tailgaters around this area had the little FOP metal badges on their rear license plate. And they drove like bats out of hill often in ego cars.

All of us may know someone who has a get-out-of-jail free card because of a law enforcement relative or political position relative.

However, I am in favor of stern enforcement of speed limits on the part of the obnoxious folks. Arch examples are those who treat the high speed lane as their personal diamond lane and expect anyone else to be out of that lane before they speed up on their rears. IOW, the "little people" should follow the laws and be in "their" lanes crowded as they may be, to allow the special folks to flagrantly speed past in lane #4 of 4 on I75 south, e.g..

fintail

"it is also a significant expense in enforcing those laws"

Exactly, it's a make-work project, an industry disguised as being "for your own good", as the praetorian class would have us believe. Kind of like the crooked court and prison industry. It keeps people employed, people who might be able to be utilized for more productive means than dealing with the administration of arbitrary traffic penalties. The expense excuse doesn't fly, when the expenses come from the dopey laws themselves. However, people who derive a meal ticket from such revenues will defend it to the end.

fintail

In WA, it is the "Law Enforcement Memorial" special license plate that is used as a get out of jail free card, rather than the classic FOP sticker seen in many areas. You'll see it often on the no doubt hard-earned supercars that sometimes fly around on city streets.

Gotta enforce the LLCs, too - in truly developed parts of the world, they are a lot less common than here, and being a slowpoke in the wrong place is as much of a social faux pas as it is breaking a law.

imidazol97 said:

Just think how many of those could be laid off or moved to a productive position if the unnecessary tickets were abolished.

However, I am in favor of enforcing the laws, equally, for everyone. I like to notice the speeds the policemen drive on duty as well as off duty on the same roads where they give out tickets. For quite a while, the obnoxious speeders and tailgaters around this area had the little FOP metal badges on their rear license plate. And they drove like bats out of hill often in ego cars.

bwia

That's been my experience this week after my office move from one building to another. Enjoy!

ab348

fintail said:

"it is also a significant expense in enforcing those laws"

Exactly, it's a make-work project, an industry disguised as being "for your own good", as the praetorian class would have us believe. Kind of like the crooked court and prison industry. It keeps people employed, people who might be able to be utilized for more productive means than dealing with the administration of arbitrary traffic penalties. The expense excuse doesn't fly, when the expenses come from the dopey laws themselves. However, people who derive a meal ticket from such revenues will defend it to the end.

What you have described is what much of government is designed to do. What we have seen in Canada is unprecedented government growth and with it much bloat. One local example last week was a communication to parents from the school board on what should and should not be considered an acceptable school lunch for your kids - a detailed, graphic-intense missive that probably required a staff of 4 or 5 people plus an ad agency to put together. The best non-police example I can think of is what Public Health has become the last few years. What used to be a profession that did good things like ensuring safe drinking water, food safety and immunization has become essentially an in-house lobby group hectoring governments to make laws to save us from ourselves with things like taxes on soda, anti-booze laws, etc. Whether there is any real science behind a lot of those positions is highly questionable in many instances. But we just keep growing the payroll to do more and more of it.

andres3

snakeweasel said:

berri said:

Not condoning deliberately ignoring laws, but I think I've seen more than a few artificially low speed limits and obscured signs posting them over the years. Then there are deliberately short yellow lights tied into photo radar. I believe your home town of Chicago got caught at that one. I don't know if there is any truth to it, but I recall once reading that an ideal speed limit is one that reflects where about 85% of drivers would be driving without a posted limit. Traffic and parking fines are a significant revenue item for many towns.

First off red light cameras are a different subject.

As for the 85% rule, there are issues with it. First is that it is an arbitrary rule, there is no real science behind it and it could just as well be 80% of 90% or 84.7%. Secondly there are roads where it does produce a good speed limit, and there are roads where it produces a slower speed limit then the road is designed for and there are roads where it produces a speed limit to high. What happens is that you find what that 85% speed is the round it up to the next multiple of 5, so if the 85th percentile is at 41 MPH you set the speed to 45. Finally if you are building a road there is no 85 percentile to determine what the speed limit should be.

I used to know a traffic engineer who used to work for a town near me. We were talking about this and he mentioned a road that I usually go down. he said that using the 85% rule that road would have a 45MPH limit however due to the terrain and such 45MPH is not a safe speed. There are a few spots where the line of sight makes it near impossible to stop within the amount of road that you could see down.

As for revenue, while it is a significant stream of revenue it is also a significant expense in enforcing those laws. You have the policemans salary and benefits and well as the office workers who process the tickets, the court clerks and judges in the courts and their office workers that support them. Add to this the buildings they work in equipment they use and the people that support those and it is a significant drain on resources.

Outside the relatively few jurisdictions that write wholesale tickets it's really not the money grab most people make it out to be. Think about it, how many people do you see pulled over in a week or a month? How many times have you passed a parked police car doing 5 or 6 or so over the limit without being pulled over?

You miss a key point. The money grab is to self support in a very selfish way their own pointless salaries and jobs. They do the money grab to justify their worthless jobs. They pay for their fancy buildings, courtrooms lined with fancy wood, high salaries, and super benefits at motorists expense.

The 85% rule is proven statistical science. There might not be a study for every single percentile number, but numerous studies have shown that 85% is the safest sweet spot vs. say 80 or 95%.

The problem is that many jurisdictions don't round up!!!!! I know this first hand from pulling a few traffic engineering surveys (via informal discovery request) in my trials over the years. They often round down, or worse, round down, and then take away another 5 MPH for revenue generation reasons. The 35 MPH speed limit on infamous Lake Murray Blvd. in La Mesa is case in point; 85th percentile speed from over 10 years ago was 41 MPH. 45 would be appropriate as a speed limit (I agree with you.) Do they round down to 40; nah; they go down to 35! I've received 2 tickets in that zone! Defeated both; I think they know they are indefensible unjustifiable tickets and never show in court on those! Curious about the accident rate on that road justifying the 35, how is 1/6th or 1/8th of the average amount of accidents per vehicle mile traveled sitting with you!

It doesn't take too long to run a survey on a new road and figure out the appropriate speed limit. Not posting any speed limits will not lead to mayhem and carnage in the meantime. No need to waste tax payer dollars on signs with the wrong number!

One thing I agree on, everyone involved in the ticket writing process is a significant drain on resources and human capital. What an utter waste. Would be much better spent countering the real bad guys; crazy gunmen going on shooting sprees, white collar crime, thieves, crooked banks, crooked insurance companies, lousy auto body shops, and left lane campers and traffic impeders.

A wise person once said "The problem with more bad laws is they weaken and lessen the enforcement of the good ones!"

andres3

fintail said:

In WA, it is the "Law Enforcement Memorial" special license plate that is used as a get out of jail free card, rather than the classic FOP sticker seen in many areas. You'll see it often on the no doubt hard-earned supercars that sometimes fly around on city streets.

Gotta enforce the LLCs, too - in truly developed parts of the world, they are a lot less common than here, and being a slowpoke in the wrong place is as much of a social faux pas as it is breaking a law.

imidazol97 said:

Just think how many of those could be laid off or moved to a productive position if the unnecessary tickets were abolished.

However, I am in favor of enforcing the laws, equally, for everyone. I like to notice the speeds the policemen drive on duty as well as off duty on the same roads where they give out tickets. For quite a while, the obnoxious speeders and tailgaters around this area had the little FOP metal badges on their rear license plate. And they drove like bats out of hill often in ego cars.

in CA they allow personalized "I'm a Firefighter" license plates. They get some special discretion to avoid tickets too. However, the CHP doesn't care, a couple years ago there was a story of a CHP officer putting a fireman on duty trying to help accident victims in handcuffs because he wouldn't move his fire truck the way egomaniac wanted him to quick enough.

andres3

imidazol97 said:

snakeweasel said:

As for revenue, while it is a significant stream of revenue it is also a significant expense in enforcing those laws. You have the policemans salary and benefits and well as the office workers who process the tickets, the court clerks and judges in the courts and their office workers that support them. Add to this the buildings they work in equipment they use and the people that support those and it is a significant drain on resources.

Just think how many of those could be laid off or moved to a productive position if the unnecessary tickets were abolished.

However, I am in favor of enforcing the laws, equally, for everyone. I like to notice the speeds the policemen drive on duty as well as off duty on the same roads where they give out tickets. For quite a while, the obnoxious speeders and tailgaters around this area had the little FOP metal badges on their rear license plate. And they drove like bats out of hill often in ego cars.

All of us may know someone who has a get-out-of-jail free card because of a law enforcement relative or political position relative.

However, I am in favor of stern enforcement of speed limits on the part of the obnoxious folks. Arch examples are those who treat the high speed lane as their personal diamond lane and expect anyone else to be out of that lane before they speed up on their rears. IOW, the "little people" should follow the laws and be in "their" lanes crowded as they may be, to allow the special folks to flagrantly speed past in lane #4 of 4 on I75 south, e.g..

I understand the frustration with traffic, but I think you unfairly put too much of the blame on people trying to get where they are going in the "fast lane" as you put it. However, if the 4 lanes don't progressively move faster as you move to each lane to the left, the problem is the impeders, not traffic and not speeders. The fact that all lanes move the same exact speed or often have the right lane faster than the left lane is frustrating to people that have somewhere to be (time is money).

I could maybe support your wish for stern enforcement of the speed limits if these things were given priority first:

1. Abolish left lane camping and impeders. Left lane for passing only. Slower traffic move right. Enforce that until we are like a 1st world country.
   
2. 
   
3. Abolish speed limits not justified by the 85th percentile (essentially set speed limits correctly).
   
4. 
   
5. Greater punishment and enforcement to distracted dangerous driving and people that actually cause accidents (and traffic via accidents).
   

I think there are much bigger fish to fry than speeders.

oldfarmer50

Michaell said:

andres3 said:

Fighter jets are allowed radar jammers, why not cars?

Because it's not life and death with the police. And, the fighter jock maxim is "speed is life".

I think I'll make that my motto

oldfarmer50

imidazol97 said:

snakeweasel said:

As for revenue, while it is a significant stream of revenue it is also a significant expense in enforcing those laws. You have the policemans salary and benefits and well as the office workers who process the tickets, the court clerks and judges in the courts and their office workers that support them. Add to this the buildings they work in equipment they use and the people that support those and it is a significant drain on resources.

Just think how many of those could be laid off or moved to a productive position if the unnecessary tickets were abolished.

However, I am in favor of enforcing the laws, equally, for everyone. I like to notice the speeds the policemen drive on duty as well as off duty on the same roads where they give out tickets. For quite a while, the obnoxious speeders and tailgaters around this area had the little FOP metal badges on their rear license plate. And they drove like bats out of hill often in ego cars.

All of us may know someone who has a get-out-of-jail free card because of a law enforcement relative or political position relative.

However, I am in favor of stern enforcement of speed limits on the part of the obnoxious folks. Arch examples are those who treat the high speed lane as their personal diamond lane and expect anyone else to be out of that lane before they speed up on their rears. IOW, the "little people" should follow the laws and be in "their" lanes crowded as they may be, to allow the special folks to flagrantly speed past in lane #4 of 4 on I75 south, e.g..

The ultimate solution to all those traffic violations is to have the black box in your car rat you out to the cops. You speed, a ticket comes in the mail a week later.

Michaell

Or

oldfarmer50 said:

imidazol97 said:

snakeweasel said:

As for revenue, while it is a significant stream of revenue it is also a significant expense in enforcing those laws. You have the policemans salary and benefits and well as the office workers who process the tickets, the court clerks and judges in the courts and their office workers that support them. Add to this the buildings they work in equipment they use and the people that support those and it is a significant drain on resources.

Just think how many of those could be laid off or moved to a productive position if the unnecessary tickets were abolished.

However, I am in favor of enforcing the laws, equally, for everyone. I like to notice the speeds the policemen drive on duty as well as off duty on the same roads where they give out tickets. For quite a while, the obnoxious speeders and tailgaters around this area had the little FOP metal badges on their rear license plate. And they drove like bats out of hill often in ego cars.

All of us may know someone who has a get-out-of-jail free card because of a law enforcement relative or political position relative.

However, I am in favor of stern enforcement of speed limits on the part of the obnoxious folks. Arch examples are those who treat the high speed lane as their personal diamond lane and expect anyone else to be out of that lane before they speed up on their rears. IOW, the "little people" should follow the laws and be in "their" lanes crowded as they may be, to allow the special folks to flagrantly speed past in lane #4 of 4 on I75 south, e.g..

The ultimate solution to all those traffic violations is to have the black box in your car rat you out to the cops. You speed, a ticket comes in the mail a week later.

Or speed governors wired into the speed limits for the road - if the current speed limit can be displayed on your navigation system, how much harder would it be to simply restrict the top speed based on that information?

Oh wait, now we're going down the road to autonomous cars....

andres3

I imagine the market for "disabling" the black box that rats on you would grow tremendously if that were enacted. Speed governor disablers seem even easier. I remember doing that to a golf cart and having some fun.

Got stuck in a sand pit; no quattro AWD.

imidazol97

oldfarmer50 said:

The ultimate solution to all those traffic violations is to have the black box in your car rat you out to the cops. You speed, a ticket comes in the mail a week later.

I like that

imidazol97

andres3 said:

I understand the frustration with traffic, but I think you unfairly put too much of the blame on people trying to get where they are going in the "fast lane" as you put it. However, if the 4 lanes don't progressively move faster as you move to each lane to the left, the problem is the impeders, not traffic and not speeders. The fact that all lanes move the same exact speed or often have the right lane faster than the left lane is frustrating to people that have somewhere to be (time is money).

I could maybe support your wish for stern enforcement of the speed limits if these things were given priority first:

Aaaaah. The flaw in the need-for-speeders' logic. The purpose of a freeway is to move cars. The larger the total number of cars moved per hour the more effective it is. Reserving a lane for those who want to violate the law by speeding and cramming the remaining law-abiding traffic into the other lanes is wrong and contrary to the goal of moving the largest number of cars possible per hour during heavy flow periods.

When 3 lanes are used to move cars at say 1000 per hour per lane while the high speed lane moves 400 per hour for 1 lane gives a total of 3400 cars per hour for the 4 lanes. On the other hand let's postulate having all lanes move at a slower velocity than the speed of the preferred high speed lane: so we have 4 lane at 1000 cars per hour and we get 4000 people moving along the same stretch of highway with a lot less frustration for all because the right hand 3 lanes will be less densely populated than they are when crowded with the flotsam that the special drivers of speed from the speeding lane.

I've seen this first hand on interstates in cities where the HOV lane has a few people zooming by at 75 while the other lanes 3 or 4 are crowded and slowed because they are crowded with a high enough density that the speed slows from the 65 mph allowed on that stretch.

qbrozen

We have HOV lanes in some places here in NJ. I almost always witness traffic in the other lanes moving faster than the HOV. Mostly attributable to buses and transport vans.

fintail

It's getting that way here. A function of government is to provide employment, along with in many cases, bennies that don't exist in most of the private sector. They have to be funded somehow. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and all that. It's a lot worse in Europe than here or there, too.

The black box or speed governor idea would again work against the revenue generation component of traffic regulations and law enforcement, which would automatically limit their use. If autonomous cars can't violate laws, they won't be approved by the powers that be, who are looking out for all of us. Cash flows must be preserved. It's for your own good, your nanny says so, and their egos must be protected too.

Regarding traffic lane use, I think the context is open roads, not jammed roads at commute times.

ab348 said:

What you have described is what much of government is designed to do. What we have seen in Canada is unprecedented government growth and with it much bloat. One local example last week was a communication to parents from the school board on what should and should not be considered an acceptable school lunch for your kids - a detailed, graphic-intense missive that probably required a staff of 4 or 5 people plus an ad agency to put together. The best non-police example I can think of is what Public Health has become the last few years. What used to be a profession that did good things like ensuring safe drinking water, food safety and immunization has become essentially an in-house lobby group hectoring governments to make laws to save us from ourselves with things like taxes on soda, anti-booze laws, etc. Whether there is any real science behind a lot of those positions is highly questionable in many instances. But we just keep growing the payroll to do more and more of it.

andres3

imidazol97 said:

andres3 said:

I understand the frustration with traffic, but I think you unfairly put too much of the blame on people trying to get where they are going in the "fast lane" as you put it. However, if the 4 lanes don't progressively move faster as you move to each lane to the left, the problem is the impeders, not traffic and not speeders. The fact that all lanes move the same exact speed or often have the right lane faster than the left lane is frustrating to people that have somewhere to be (time is money).

I could maybe support your wish for stern enforcement of the speed limits if these things were given priority first:

Aaaaah. The flaw in the need-for-speeders' logic. The purpose of a freeway is to move cars. The larger the total number of cars moved per hour the more effective it is. Reserving a lane for those who want to violate the law by speeding and cramming the remaining law-abiding traffic into the other lanes is wrong and contrary to the goal of moving the largest number of cars possible per hour during heavy flow periods.

When 3 lanes are used to move cars at say 1000 per hour per lane while the high speed lane moves 400 per hour for 1 lane gives a total of 3400 cars per hour for the 4 lanes. On the other hand let's postulate having all lanes move at a slower velocity than the speed of the preferred high speed lane: so we have 4 lane at 1000 cars per hour and we get 4000 people moving along the same stretch of highway with a lot less frustration for all because the right hand 3 lanes will be less densely populated than they are when crowded with the flotsam that the special drivers of speed from the speeding lane.

I've seen this first hand on interstates in cities where the HOV lane has a few people zooming by at 75 while the other lanes 3 or 4 are crowded and slowed because they are crowded with a high enough density that the speed slows from the 65 mph allowed on that stretch.

You are forgetting that if speeders had their way you could cram 3,000 cars per hour in that one fast lane as long as people didn't get in the way.

Think of it as a High-Pressure lane. You can increase the water flow in a water line by increasing the pressure. Works the same with higher speeds. The water flow is equivalent to the amount of cars coming through.

It also works when you look at the time-use of the roadway. If everyone shortens their commute by 20% by speeding, everyone will notice the roadways are 20% more empty 20% more of the time.

stever

What's a commute? One of those meatspace apps I read about now and then?

A reporter is working on a story about car shoppers who are only interested in buying cars that are made in the USA. If you're one of these shoppers, and you'd like to talk about your experience shopping for American-made vehicles, please reach out to PR @edmunds.com by no later than Thursday, September 15, 2016.

imidazol97

andres3 said:

You are forgetting that if speeders had their way you could cram 3,000 cars per hour in that one fast lane as long as people didn't get in the way.

It also works when you look at the time-use of the roadway. If everyone shortens their commute by 20% by speeding, everyone will notice the roadways are 20% more empty 20% more of the time.

Don't think that's the way it works on the I75 / I70 commute times here. I think we will have to just disagree agreeably. LOL

jmonroe

andres3 said:

Fighter jets are allowed radar jammers, why not cars?

That has to be the most idiotic post I have ever seen in here.

Hey MODS, can you guys set up a radar protector to catch these types of ramblings as a service to us sane posters. I know we have the "scroll" option but that post was so short, even without speed readings skills, my radar couldn't help but pick it up.

jmonroe

stever

Not an option with this software afaik. And besides, it says right in the Membership Agreement that we welcome all points of view here. Just like in real life - everywhere but your own living room. And perhaps certain relatives...

oldfarmer50

Michaell said:

Or

oldfarmer50 said:

imidazol97 said:

snakeweasel said:

As for revenue, while it is a significant stream of revenue it is also a significant expense in enforcing those laws. You have the policemans salary and benefits and well as the office workers who process the tickets, the court clerks and judges in the courts and their office workers that support them. Add to this the buildings they work in equipment they use and the people that support those and it is a significant drain on resources.

Just think how many of those could be laid off or moved to a productive position if the unnecessary tickets were abolished.

However, I am in favor of enforcing the laws, equally, for everyone. I like to notice the speeds the policemen drive on duty as well as off duty on the same roads where they give out tickets. For quite a while, the obnoxious speeders and tailgaters around this area had the little FOP metal badges on their rear license plate. And they drove like bats out of hill often in ego cars.

All of us may know someone who has a get-out-of-jail free card because of a law enforcement relative or political position relative.

However, I am in favor of stern enforcement of speed limits on the part of the obnoxious folks. Arch examples are those who treat the high speed lane as their personal diamond lane and expect anyone else to be out of that lane before they speed up on their rears. IOW, the "little people" should follow the laws and be in "their" lanes crowded as they may be, to allow the special folks to flagrantly speed past in lane #4 of 4 on I75 south, e.g..

The ultimate solution to all those traffic violations is to have the black box in your car rat you out to the cops. You speed, a ticket comes in the mail a week later.

Or speed governors wired into the speed limits for the road - if the current speed limit can be displayed on your navigation system, how much harder would it be to simply restrict the top speed based on that information?

Oh wait, now we're going down the road to autonomous cars....

That's a Brave New World I don't want.

oldfarmer50

stever said:

What's a commute? One of those meatspace apps I read about now and then?

A reporter is working on a story about car shoppers who are only interested in buying cars that are made in the USA. If you're one of these shoppers, and you'd like to talk about your experience shopping for American-made vehicles, please reach out to PR @edmunds.com by no later than Thursday, September 15, 2016.

Does that include used cars?

stever

Excellent question and the reporter didn't limit the search request that way as far as I know. I'm so used to tossing out book values for new cars, that angle didn't even occur to me.

Mr_Shiftright

jmonroe said:

andres3 said:

Fighter jets are allowed radar jammers, why not cars?

That has to be the most idiotic post I have ever seen in here.

Hey MODS, can you guys set up a radar protector to catch these types of ramblings as a service to us sane posters. I know we have the "scroll" option but that post was so short, even without speed readings skills, my radar couldn't help but pick it up.

jmonroe

Hey, I'm all for radar jammers on cars. If you're being chased by pursuit cars and helicopters, I rather doubt that your exact speed is the issue at hand.

jmonroe

@imidazol97 said:

All of us may know someone who has a get-out-of-jail free card because of a law enforcement relative or political position relative.

And Mrs. j used that card one time back in the late '80's.

I was out of town for a week and I usually called home after I got to where I was going to let her know that I was still alive so I called the first night after I got back from dinner. She tells me she got a ticket for driving down a street to get to our house that has a sign that says, "No Thru Traffic". They have this posted so that people don't cut through this street to avoid having to go to the light less than one block further down the main road and then make the turn there. Everybody was aware of this and I heard a lot of complaints from people saying, "it must be nice to have your own private street. I pay the same in taxes as they do but I don't have a posted street". I had commented several times that I thought it was a valid restriction because otherwise that street would literally be a highway for all of the cars that would travel it to get to the many streets from it just so they could avoid the light.

The reason Mrs. j got her ticket is because she could see road work on the main drag close to the light and saw cars backing up so she made the left turn to go down this restricted street. Sure enough a cop parked in the driveway of a house about 20 houses down this street pulls her over. She told the cop why she did it but he didn't care just said something like "that is not an excuse for making that turn". As she is telling me about it I can tell that she is furious. I told her to talk to my Mother whose next door neighbors were the parents of a lieutenant on the local force to see if that ticket could be disposed of. The son, who we had met a few times, called Mrs. j the next day to hear her side of the story first hand and after hearing it said, "the guy who gave you the ticket is usually a pretty reasonable officer but every now and then he gets a hair up his xxx and can be a totally different person. Don't worry about the ticket, I have it in my hand and it's going into the can when we hang up".

Like you said, all of us know someone and the higher up they are the better.

jmonroe

Michaell

I made a quick trip to the grocery store this afternoon. Saw an SUV with a license plate frame - Active Member Fraternal Order of Police

On a Cayenne GTS.

I think I just made @fintail's point.

ab348

stever said:

Not an option with this software afaik. And besides, it says right in the Membership Agreement that we welcome all points of view here. Just like in real life - everywhere but your own living room. And perhaps certain relatives...

Edmunds can welcome them, but that doesn't mean you need to force us to read them. Perhaps an amendment to the membership agreement is in order to prevent promotion of ideas contrary to public safety or some such thing?

imidazol97

jmonroe said:

@imidazol97 said:

All of us may know someone who has a get-out-of-jail free card because of a law enforcement relative or political position relative.

In this state at least apparently there's a card, like a triple AAA card, that indicates you're a member of an officer family. I'm guessing judges also have this and maybe prosecutors. E.g., a lady my wife was friends with said she was stopped by police for illegal left turn out of a gas station onto a busy street marked with no left turn sign. She didn't even have to pull out her card because officer knew her husband's name after he checked her ID.

I could have used that "go and sin no more" response from the officer a few times in my life--mostly for speeding. Although I did get accused by a rural township policeman of backing down the ramp to get to the crossroad to avoid a backup on the interstate. I could use the crossroad to take the backroad to home. Since I was on the berm, I thought it was the dumbest thing to stop me for. I wondered if he though I were drunk. This was a rural department that often has underqualified personnel.

Same department stopped a high school student for flashing his headlights at the officer to remind the officer to dim his headlamps. The officer was driving with his brights on to induce people to flash him so he could stop them. The case was dismissed. Officer thought he had the law down pat. The Science Olympiad students were one of several on their way to work a haunt Halloween attraction that pays for Science Olympiad group at their school. One of the parents was an attorney. Case dismissed. No get-out-of-jail card: sort of a get-out-of-jail parent. LOL