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If I worried about being rear ended before every U-turn I made, I'd probably be the type to wear a helmet while driving.
A good concept on paper, if they can ever make it work right.
2020 Acura RDX tech SH-AWD, 2023 Maverick hybrid Lariat luxury package.
So as a result, I guess, I look at a person who has to pre-cock their wheels to make a left turn (not a U-turn where you need the tighter turning circle) as an inexprienced driver. I mean, c'mon. If that school bus in front of you and the UPS guy riding your rear can make that turn without doing it, then pre-cocking your wheels in a car isn't going to make you get across the intersection any quicker.
Once I'm at speed, I love manual steering. It's fun, and anything more modern that I try driving feels numb to me (haven't tried a BMW or Porsche though - out of my league for now). But I parallel park all the time, and this side of Berkeley is all hills.
Somehow Toyota made the Tercel pretty easy to turn even with a properly-sized steering wheel, but Nissan did a bad job with the Sentra. Huge steering wheel that hits my knee, and it's STILL much harder than the Tercel (the tires are only slightly wider on my Sentra).
The whole parking thing brings up another topic - inconsiderate parkers!
There are SO MANY half-spots around here. Only metered spaces have those crosshairs, so on regular sidewalks where I leave my car parked, people park pretty haphazardly. You can tell who's fresh out of the suburbs.
Somtimes they simply leave half a car length in front and behind of their vehicles. Or they might park with their tail sticking a couple of feet out, which makes it impossible to back into a tight spot. When they've left me a spot just about as long as my car, I don't feel all that guilty parking "by touch" (softly though - as softly as my stupidly sticky clutch will allow). I have those black vynil (is it vynil?) bumpers anyway. And thanks to the hills, you can tell who doesn't know how to park by how they've turned their wheels. If they've done a good job but haven't left me any space, I assume that they weren't the ones who determined the current geometry of the available spaces.
The really nice guys let their car's overhang extend into red-curb zones to maximize space. Kudos to them.
"Or they might park with their tail sticking a couple of feet out, which makes it impossible to back into a tight spot."
A business opportunity. Those who have to park near sidewalks and curbs need curb feelers. Does anybody make these? With curb feelers, the parkers can feel and hear when they get to within maybe 8 inches of curb. I think there were various length feelers that one could buy. But, then today, with all the plastic on cars, not sure where you could mount these. If feelers were adopted by the hip-hoppers, would be a very hot item and be very in to have. This would help solve parking problem and help inconsiderate, maybe incompetent, parkers.
Secondly, you put 9 16-24 year olds in a vehicle and have a 19 year old boy for a driver, it's a safe bet his concentration is NOT 100% focused on the road!
Third, and this is probably the biggest, is driver inexperience. At this stage in life, he's only had maybe 2-4 years tops experience behind the wheel of a car, and let's face it, even though they might feel like it sometimes, SUVs do NOT handle like cars! When you're driving something that's taller than it is wide, you have to pay a little more attention!
Throw all those together, mix in a little excessive speed (not exceeding an arbitrary speed limit, but driving too fast for road conditions/vehicle capability), and you get a deadly combination.
Sometimes they actually do some accident reconstruction to determine the true cause, but such investigations are expensive and often inconclusive. Besides, if there was speeding or alcohol involved at all it ends up written off to those causes anyway, so why bother.
Hard to tell what happened in this case with the facts given, but I'd guess too much speed for the experience-level of the driver combined with driver distraction had more to do with it than just driving too fast.
I'm heading north on a three-lane freeway. There is a slowpoke in a minivan (probably doing just a bit under the limit) in the middle lane up ahead. Left lane is full of fast cars moving to pass the minivan and since I'm already in the right lane, I continue my speed to pass him on the right.
When I'm about sixcar lengths from him (still approaching), his right blinker suddenly comes on. I immediately nail the brakes to give him room and let him in. but he just stands there for about six seconds or so. Irritated I start to speed up. He turns OFF his signal and then suddenly changes lanes over in front of me anyway and slows down even more.
Very annoyed I change lanes to the middle and speed up to pass him. Good bad driver that he is, he immediately speeds up to prevent the pass. I don't play these games, so I let him go. He flys off away from me, I switch back to the right lane, and he later exits a few miles later.
In conclusion, I have a new standard to proclaim:
Thou shalt not use they turn signal on the freeway unless:
A) You really are about to change lanes (like in a few seconds)
How often have you sat waiting to turn onto a main road, waiting for an oncoming car, just to have him slow and turn onto your street without a signal? Aside from the obvious discourtesy it slows traffic, makes people wait unnecessarily.
On a busy freeway failure to use signals properly can be just plain dangerous.
Yep, case closed.
The design flow problem is that the vast majority of entrances and exits on freeways are all on the right; this means that regardless of how many lanes the road has, all traffic is forced onto the right side of the road eventually.
I agree with you though that mis-using turn signals is extremely annoying/dangerous and makes for very inefficient traffic flow.
Some consequences are worse than others, when one chooses to disobey the traffic law.
One is the definition of "accident" itself. So for arguments sake in theory, in an easy to see example; say Kdshapiro rear ends me. I am by definition and practice and precedent blameless. So in that sense me complying with the law did NOTHING to bring down the so called ACCIDENT RATE. Being the innocent party, if his accident indeed needed or was destined to happen. I being the "blameless one" would probably rather he hit a tree or a bridge imbutment, etc. Lawyers of course due to cost, cost containment, marketing, fees, win/loss concerns etc etc (which has almost nothing to do with me being blameless) will try to affix any up to all to the blameless . On the other hand, if I was going 10 miles faster (over the limit) in this same example, the likihood of me being a victim of his accident actually DECREASES as I would not have been there for him to run into.
He is also not factoring in that accidents happen also when both sides are in strict compliance with the law. ie, if parties are going at or under the speed limit- getting into accidents. A for example: ( the 108) multiple vehicle, interstate, tule fog, pile ups. Some times it takes week's month's year's to ascertain who flung dung.
But this dovetails into a post earlier where I postulated there are degrees to which not following traffic regulations or common sense will potentially result in a catastrophy. While I can argue that rolling stops rarely if ever result in anything, you have shown a case where a fatality accrued. While you can argue that it is your given right to speed and that speed limits are political/financial in nature, I showed a case where speed played a real role in tragedy.
Breaking the law and then disguising it as a blessing in disguise is a fringe case, is simply irresponsible. That is: "I ran the red light, if I hadn't I would have been t-boned and killed if I didn't." With that type of thinking anarchy on the road would reign as people would do all sorts of crazy things, the justification being, I'm saving "my own hide".
edit - one final thought. I'm trying to understand the notion that speeding is a victimless traffic infraction. There was another case in my neighborhood in the last few years, where a car was speeding and left the roadway into someones living room. Thankfully no one was injured. I'll bet that person thought getting to his destination faster was perhaps not a great idea after all was said and done.
I'd just like to see some real basis in safety behind traffic laws. Too many have no such basis. Too many traffic laws are generally ignored by public and police alike.
I'd like to see realistic and meaningful laws, and then see them enforced.
Except that the discussion of speed limits on this thread has centered on limited access highways, and the story you highlighted begins with this sentence:
A 20-year-old woman died and eight people were injured when a teenage driver lost control of a Chevy TrailBlazer on a country road and rolled several times before hitting a utility pole. (emphasis added)
This story is irrelevant to this particular discussion of speed, as we are talking about limited access highways. So is the other one you highlighted about the car crashing into the living room, unless the New Jersey Turnpike runs right through the middle of your subdivision.
Speed limits on limited access highways are set for often arbitrary reasons that have nothing to do with safety. No link has been established between higher speeds and increased fatalities on limited access highways.
But this dovetails into a post earlier where I postulated there are degrees to which not following traffic regulations or common sense will potentially result in a catastrophy. While I can argue that rolling stops rarely if ever result in anything, you have shown a case where a fatality accrued. While you can argue that it is your given right to speed and that speed limits are political/financial in nature, I showed a case where speed played a real role in tragedy.
Breaking the law and then disguising it as a blessing in disguise is a fringe case, is simply irresponsible. That is: "I ran the red light, if I hadn't I would have been t-boned and killed if I didn't." With that type of thinking anarchy on the road would reign as people would do all sorts of crazy things, the justification being, I'm saving "my own hide".
edit - one final thought. I'm trying to understand the notion that speeding is a victimless traffic infraction. There was another case in my neighborhood in the last few years, where a car was speeding and left the roadway into someones living room. Thankfully no one was injured. I'll bet that person thought getting to his destination faster was perhaps not a great idea after all was said and done."
So why in fact would you say it in such a way to indicate that I might disagree with your first paragraph?? In the scenario that I used, "YOU" would have been at fault. But you either ignore or do not understand the second part. That is of course that "MY" compliance with the law did NOTHING to AVOID the accident or in that case being the victim. As a matter of fact, in the same scenario, if "YOU" didnt have insurance "I" would be a 2 X victim! Not that I advocate breaking the law or even disputing your assumption, but as I have said, I think your assumption is flawed and truly does not account for the realities Be that as it may, the fact of the matter is it is VERY easy to avoid accidents, I have been doing it for 39 years of driving with over 1.3 M miles with no caused accidents..
We were both surprised when he pulled us over. The speed limit was 55 in construction, and it didn't seem like we were going very fast. My brother-in-law drives a souped up WRX. I thought maybe the officer was going to complain about the tint, exhaust, etc. etc.
officer: hi! Nice little fast car you have here. Any idea how fast you were going?
bro: Maybe about 65 (which I thought was a reasonable guess)
officer: I'd say more like 75 or 80. License and registration.
...anyways, the story only got uglier from there. This ***** ******* ******* **** cop claimed he was pacing us and we were doing 80. When my BIL asked whether or not the cruiser had a camera that showed us speeding the cop said, "If you don't agree, you can come to court" and then walked away without another word. Personally, I think the cop was using racial/age/gender/car-model profiling, but that's not the point of this posting.
Anyway, one of my in-law's neighbors happens to be the clerk of the Traffic Court. My BIL asked him for advice about fighting the ticket. The clerk basically admitted:
...the traffic court here was created primarly to make money. You can come in to fight it but they'll simply side with the cop and charge you more for court costs etc. There's really no point. Just pay up...
The clerk was able to at least get the fee dropped a little bit. I realize that this is PURELY anecdotal, but obviously there are many enforcement situations out there that are more about $$$ than public safety.
The driver therefore won't have any points from this ticket on his or her record (which can be used to raise insurance rates).
I think many of the current traffic laws are pure bunk that panders to special interest groups. However, we all know what the laws are. People caught violating them should save the moral posturing - just pay the penalty and go on. If you can't do that, just stay within the law. (Didn't Baretta say something like that?...)
I believe the ticket was for 20 over the limit. I would have tried to have gotten this charge reduced since that was a false charge.
As for showing up in court, in Maryland at least, I've found them to be pretty fair. I've gone in on three separate counts (two speeding tickets and one parking ticket), and didn't get any points on any of them. Only paid a fine on one of the speeding tickets. On the second ticket, the fine was only $70 or so...it was the points I was worried about. I got my speedometer checked and recalibrated, which ironically cost about $70, so since I made the effort, the judge changed my "guilty with explanation" plea to "Not guilty"
Just dreaming. Of course do not try this at home...
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
PF Flyer
Host
News & Views, Wagons, & Hybrid Vehicles
The Mazda Mania Chat is on tonight. The chat room opens at 8:45PM ET Hope to see YOU there! Check out the schedule
Regards,
Kyle
The rockets don't need to be explosive, just filled with nickolodeon slime or something from Fear Factor.
Now if you want to discuss "inconsiderate driver solutions" at the chat tonight, we CAN do that!
PF Flyer
Host
News & Views, Wagons, & Hybrid Vehicles
The Mazda Mania Chat is on tonight. The chat room opens at 8:45PM ET Hope to see YOU there! Check out the schedule
I know the idea would never be accepted for liability and safety reasons. IMO, a lot of road rage and bad driving simply comes from lack of communication.
Also, if I happened to own my own city (sort of like Sim City except with real people), I would try (as an experiment) to implement a system where drivers could reward or penalize "points" to other cars based on driving courtesy. These points would be displayed on the car somehow, perhaps through some kind of device that glows a different color depending on how high your standing is. There would be no other consequences (people with good standings do not get a tax break or anything like that), except for the ability to "show off" your standing to other motorists.
I think such a system would hold drivers a bit more liable. It would encourage drivers to let in other people more often, tailgate less, cutoff less, etc. etc. There would have to be all sorts of safeguards to prevent abuse and exploits (ie a given car could only dock or reward another car one point in a given hour)
Thanks for reading my mad-scientist ideas.
Of course such a scheme is inherently unworkable. How can drivers select and reward other drivers while applying make up, eating cereal and talking on the cell phone?
You'd have to automate it like in The Fifth Element. Your car computer would tell you where you stand. I guess that would require the addition of a check driver light.
:shades:
So PLEASE... enough of the revenge of the annoyed drivers stuff