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Comments
So does anyone know how many laws they have to conform to on the local, state, and federal level? 2,000? 5,000? 10,000? more? And if the average person does not agree with some part of just 10% of them, how would the average person find the time to get the laws changed?
How long did it take to get rid of Prohibition? Should the average person have waited that long to have a drink? You could continue on, and see that change rarely occurs without some people taking actions to show the stupidity or immorality of the incorrect laws.
And I suspect the only reason we got rid of the 55mph-law was that people ignored it, and the lawmakers after many years were forced to concede it was a poor law, because people did not want it.
People who take to the street and protest are a lot more effective then writing a letter to their rep. or waiting a few years to vote them out. And whether you vote Dem. or Rep. you're not getting much of a choice of the range of options. You're just getting someone who changes course a few degrees from the status-quo.
You need to live life based on your morals and what makes you happy, and not wait 30-years for a single law to be fixed, if it ever is fixed in your generation. Laws have been getting created and refined since the time of the Egyptians and after 5,000 years I don't see them being anywhere near correct or fair yet!
Elected officials look first to maximize their own profits and power. The next election takes priority over the benefit of their constituents. That's how modern democracy works.
Canada might have been founded on deferring to the crooked and inane laws of the thankfully dead British Empire, but to the south, a nation was founded in defiance of this.
I have never seen a study that suggested that. All the studies I have seen state that any speed between 0 and somewhere between 35 and 40 have the same possibility of an accident (studies vary and some give the speed in metric), but going over that 35-40 speed increases risk in proportion to the increase in speed. The only differences I have seen are at what rate the risk increases.
Sorry but there is greater risk with speed, don't fool yourself into thinking there isn't.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
PCGeek: The average auto burns a minimum of 1 pint of fuel for every 6 min. of running time.
(The sooner you can get to your destination the less you burn in the long run)
Umm, no. Your assumption that fuel consumption (relative to speed) is linear is incorrect, fuel consumption is exponential. The faster you go the more wind resistance (drag) you have, the more fuel is required to overcome this resistance. Drag quadruples with the doubling of speed.
GRBeck: Actually, studies have shown on limited access highways, those traveling above the speed limit have fewer accidents than those who drive the slowest. So your contention is incorrect.
That kind study needs a lot more detail. I remember a billboard that popped up several years ago by the insurance companies which said "1/3 of all accidents are caused by drunk drivers". I busted a gut on that one, because it implied that if you were sober, you were twice as likely to create an accident. The billboards disappeared soon after.
Either extreme of speed is going create more accidents, so what are the stats of high speed vs. speed limit?
Speed is safe. Slow kills.
Speed kills.
Most hysterical post of the day!
You ARE joking...
Aren't you?
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
We could rip out our 200hp engines and just get a 20hp engine to go 25mph. Great safety and great mpg right? Tell us why you think 55 mph is so great, when the government data showed that 55 mph SL was no safer than when SL's were raised?
If everyone gets on the interstate in neatly spaced intervals and travels at exactly 100 mph, how exactly would we have a crash? Stray dog, blowout? Maybe, but not the actual speed.
Now say everyone gets on the interstate in neatly spaced intervals and travels at exactly 80 mph, and some well meaning tool joins the party going 55 mph. Now we have a problem. People are slamming on their brakes, swerving around, etc.
Go 80 like everybody else, you sanctimonious dorks.
I imagine that the higher speeds trucks are allowed to go have had some effect on the increasing amount of road debris. I tend to see a lot of huge truck tires either in or on the side of the road. I can't see a 55 mph national speed limit but endorse a national limit of 65 for cars and 60 for trucks. It would make us less energy dependent in a market that is both elastic (when it comes to price) and volatile.
But it ain't gonna happen....Too many people with a "me first" attitude.
The studies I've seen looked at drivers, and those who were traveling at speeds ABOVE the flow of traffic (which, in turn, is usually above the speed limit on a limited access highway), have fewer accidents than those who drive the speed limit or slower. If speed really did increase the risk of accidents, those faster drivers would be having more of them. Which they don't.
snakeweasel: Sorry but there is greater risk with speed, don't fool yourself into thinking there isn't.
Except that it has not played out that way in the real world.
No, because that would require, out of all the drivers on the road at one time, 1/3 to be drunk and 2/3 to be sober. Drunk drivers represent a lot less than 1/3 of the drivers on any given road, yet they cause 1/3 of the accidents, thereby showing that they are causing accidents far out of proportion to their numbers. The message of the billboard was correct.
Except that this scenario isn't resulting in more fatalities or accidents, despite higher speeds.
In which case, you need to advocate more money for clean-up details along limited access highways, as opposed to, say, cops sitting alongside the road pointing radar guns at oncoming traffic.
golfman4: But it ain't gonna happen....Too many people with a "me first" attitude
No, too many people are well informed, meaning that they are much less likely to be swayed by bogus and hysterical "speed kills" nonsense, and realize that turning the highway patrol into the "energy police" by making them enforce artificially low limits is a waste of law-enforcement resources and bad public policy.
2019 Kia Soul+, 2015 Mustang GT, 2013 Ford F-150, 2000 Chrysler Sebring convertible
The old disappearing-license-plate trick ...
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK - New York authorities didn't see this one coming.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says the driver of a tractor-trailer rigged the front license plate of his vehicle so that it would "disappear" as he drove through a toll plaza, allowing him to avoid paying the $40 fee.
The Port Authority says driver Orlando Payano ran a cable from the license plate to the dashboard cigarette lighter inside the cab of the vehicle.
Pulling on the lighter flipped the plate under the truck. Cameras are used to capture images of license plates to identify fare beaters.
Police have charged Payano with toll evasion and license plate destruction. He told the Daily News that he didn't have "any cable or anything" and that "it's not true."
Exactly my point, I knew what they wanted to say but the way they said it was incomplete and gave the wrong message,
If we don't know how many miles are driven above the speed limit vs at the speed limit then the assertion that going faster is safer is a meaningless statement. If 10% of miles driven are above the speed limit and it results in 20% of the accidents then the fast drivers have a disproportionate number of accidents per mile driven but overall there are fewer accidents by those driving fast. One could say that people with pink and green hair are safer drivers than people with blond hair since then number of accidents involving the former is much lower than the latter.
So, where is a link to this study you keep harping on that it is safer to speed than to obey the speed limits???
Trip from southwestern PA to the Outer Banks, NC driving a 2005 Grand Cherokee 4X4, avg speed around 80 and still getting just over 20mpg which wasn't bad for that POS.
Southwest PA to Bozrah, CT, 2004 Nissan Maxima avg speed 85 and 28+ mpg (this is a fun car to so these figures would likely be higher without the occasional on-ramp blast, without any nearby traffic of course).
And the most mpressive back to OBX on fiances 08 Trailblazer, avg 75-85 mph, 23.5 (YES YOU'RE READING IT RIGHT) mpg. EPA highway rating is only 20. :shades:
So as far as fuel consumption is concerned, I see no case. Not to mention I got to my destination a lot less fatigued. Based on what I have seen if people would just show a little courtesy, there would be a reduction in accidents. Thats not to say that it should be taken advantage of. It's definitely a very complex issue. A way I guess that I could put my opinion is if you're going to speed just don't "speed stupid". When it's pouring down buckets of rain for example, you can find me in the right lane generally with several other vehicles, with headlights on of course.
The Associated Press
LITTLETON, Colo. - A 27-year-old man was being held on $10,000 bond in the Arapahoe County Jail after allegedly speeding up Interstate 25 in a Volkswagen Beetle. An Arapahoe County sheriff's deputy arrested the man on Monday after the deputy said he was clocked driving 115 mph.
The deputy attempted to pull over the vehicle, but said he abandoned the pursuit when the driver wouldn't stop. The deputy found the VW crashed on an offramp a few minutes later and saw the suspected driver running through a nearby parking lot.
The man and a passenger were taken to a hospital to be examined but were released with no injuries.
The man was booked into jail on suspicion of driving under the influence, driving under restraint, reckless driving and vehicular eluding.
The Associated Press
WENDOVER, Utah - A 47-year-old record-setting motorcycle racer from Montana has died when he lost control and crashed while traveling at 239 mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats.
Investigators weren't sure what caused Cliff Gullett, of Bozeman, Mont., to lose control of the motorcycle Wednesday during a time trial.
The American Motorcyclist Association said on its Web site that Gullett was competing in the 500cc Streamliner class at the Salt Flats, where drivers go for speed records every summer on the flat, open space just east of the Nevada state line.
Gullett owned Team Bozeman Motorsports, a motorcycle and snowmobile dealership. He had set a handful of world land-speed records and wanted to eventually become the first to reach 400 mph on a two-wheeled Streamliner, according to an interview last week with The Billings Gazette.
Curt Lance, Team Bozeman's general manager, said "Cliff always told me that if anything happened on the Salt, he wanted it to be quick and not lingering. He died doing the thing he loved to do most , racing at Bonneville."
This is where common sense and powers of observation come into play.
Do you really believe that 1/3 of all drivers on the road at any given time - even at midnight - are drunk?
It stands to reason that if drunk drivers constitute a relatively small number of drivers on the road at any given time, but they are causing 1/3 of all accidents, they are huge problem out of proportion to their numbers.
cdn_tch: So, where is a link to this study you keep harping on that it is safer to speed than to obey the speed limits???
According to the Institute of Transportation Engineers study, those driving 10 mph slower than the prevailing speed are six times as likely to be involved in an accident. That means that if the average speed (note - not the speed limit, but the AVERAGE SPEED OF THE TRAFFIC, which is usually higher than the posted speed limit) on an interstate is 70 mph, the person traveling at 60 mph is far more likely to be involved in an accident than someone going 70 or even 80 mph.
Perhaps 99 percent of the people mostly drive on local roads or usually take the subway can't handle those speeds, but, amazingly enough, there are lots of people who are quite experienced at driving on limited access highways.
If you can't handle 80 mph, then stay in the slow lane. That is your perogative. But don't try to slow everyone else down to your level, or somehow suggest because you apparently can't handle those speeds, or just don't like to drive at those speeds, neither should anyone else.
So if a top-heavy truck with crappy retread-tires ... can safely drive the SL, then cars in general should be able to drive that same road at a higher speed, safely. Cars and vehicles in general and tires and brakes have been improved over the years such that they can now handle the same roads at much higher speeds then they could 15 or 20 years ago.
My current car has 4-wheel disk brakes, sticky Z-rated performance tires, AWD, stability control, ABS brakes, HID headlights, and multiple airbags, all which my car of 20 years ago didn't. And the technology on my car makes it much more efficient. And I'm supposed to drive the same speed as 20 years ago? Maybe we should all have to use nursing-home-walkers too, because some people don't want to walk fast?
I've combed through the ITE.org website and cannot find the study you like to quote. The site is not particularly easy to navigate so why don't you give us a link to it so we can all read what it says.
I did find a page there titled Vehicle-Related Fatalities which has a few pointers for safety on the road and one of them is "Drive the speed limit. Avoid speeding to avoid accidents."
A link there sends one off to the NHSTA web site which also has a few reports and publications regarding vehicle accidents and fatalities.
From Traffic Safety Facts;
"Speeding reduces a driver’s ability to steer safely around curves or objects in
the roadway, extends the distance necessary to stop a vehicle, and increases the
distance a vehicle travels while the driver reacts to a dangerous situation."
Lack of vehicle control, Usually highly correlated to speed, kills.
In the business world, time is money. You'll have a VERY hard time convincing the business traveler to do 55.
Have you seen these ads, including those aired by T. Boone Pickens as well as two different industry associations?
Is it possible that CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) is the answer?
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
In one ad, the narrator cites the lower cost of CNG compared to gasoline. But that doesn't tell you how many mpg you get from compressed gas. Same as Ethanol -- it costs less, but contains fewer BTUs, which means it yields less power -- the mpg is terrible.
CNG sounds like another feel-good boondoggle -- a few special interests are drumming up public support for something that won't really work, won't really get us off oil, and won't really help the environment. But the s.i. folks will make a lot of money in the process, and the government will claim that it's doing something.
Hybrid (gasoline/electric) cars are the answer for now. They're the stepping stone to fully-electric automobiles, recharged by cheap, clean, and efficient nuclear power.
Why go digging and drilling, developing huge new dependencies on some other commodity that traders will use to rip us all off, and will eventually run out, just like oil? We have had the technology for 50 years to generate power without environmental consequences.
Canada has used nuclear power for decades. France gets almost all its electricity from nuclear plants. Hey, if the French can do it, so can we.
It's time to pat the alarmist "no nukes" children on the head, send them to their rooms, and get a late start on the world's most efficient source of energy.
Drive as fast as you want. Tell that set of reasons you should be able to drive above the speed limit to the state patrolman. Report back on his reaction!
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
"As a responsible citizen, ensure safety on the road by following these driver safety tips:
"Avoid aggressive driving. Concentrate, relax, drive the posted speed limit, identify alternate routes, or use public transportation
"Drive the speed limit. Avoid speeding to avoid accidents."
Also on the page are two mentions of improving safety utilizing red light cameras. Is this group connected to the red light camera people?
"Stop. Red-light running has become a national safety problem and motorists are more likely to be injured in crashes involving red-light running than any other type of crashes.
"Install red-light enforcement cameras. Red-light-runners cause an estimated 92,000 crashes, resulting in about 950 deaths and 90,000 injuries annually. "
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Good question, you should ask it to the idiots out there racing through traffic so they can get where they are going 1 minute faster.
then why don't we set the SL's for 45mph which is better still? Or 35 mph? or 25 mph
All the studies I have read suggest that slowing down below a certain speed doesn't increase safety. So that 25 is really not safer that 30.
Tell us why you think 55 mph is so great, when the government data showed that 55 mph SL was no safer than when SL's were raised?
If you just look at raw numbers of traffic deaths it would seem to be. But if you really do some data mining and look at how many fewer traffic deaths during that time were attributed to increased use of seat belts, better designed cars and roads and other things you will see that maybe traffic deaths would have dropped at a much faster rate if the SL wasn't increased.
Now all that being said I will say that yes increasing speed increases risk but there is a trade off on risk vs benefit. How much risk are we willing to accept to receive a certain benefit? As an example, it would be safer for me to stay home than to drive through heavy traffic to get to work, but the benefit of working is the ability to continue eating, having a home etc.
My main contention is not that higher speed means more risk so everyone must slow down, its that we have to recognize that higher speed means more risk. If we make SL's high and we drive those high speeds we must recognize that risk, it seems that many people don't recognize those risks. Believe me the driver doing 80 thinking that it is a more danergous speed than 55 is going to be a safer driver than the one doing 80 thinking its a perfectly safe speed.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Here is the thing, if something should happen like that stray do those people doing 100 MPH are going to have less time to react and if they have to stop it would take 4 times as long as someone doing 50. Not only that but if they have to make any emergency moves to avoid something its much harder to do at 100 than at 50. Not to mention that it takes a lot more effort to control that car doing 100 MPH than 50 MPH. And lastly things that may have very limited effect on a car doing 50 MPH may have serious complications for a car doing 100 MPH.
Yes speed does increase risk.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
There is much greater chance of someone overlooking a car in the other lane as they make lane changes to get out of the way of the aggressive drivers tailgating them because they're only doing 100 in the left lane and the driver who really knows how to drive is going 120 because their car has better tires, better motor, better wind design, better doors, better windshield, and they are a better driver, etc.,well, you get the idea.
Lots more opportunity for terrible accidents. :P
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I have seen those studies too but they are flawed. They say that at higher speeds there are less accidents, but that is rather misleading because fewer miles are driven at those speeds. Say that 15% of all accidents are at speeds over X MPH does that mean that X MPH is a safe speed? Not if only 10% of all driving is done at above X MPH.
Except that it has not played out that way in the real world.
It does play out in the real world. Dismiss it at your own risk.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Yes thats sarcasm
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
while I can't speak for you I will state that I am just as alert regardless of the speed. I am just as alert doing 20 as I am at 80.
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
The fact is that there already thousands of vehicles running on CNG, due to the lack of infrastructure, most are in municipal vehicles, transit systems and commercial fleets. When I was in Mesa AZ (pop 432,000) I noticed that almost all city-owned vehicles were CNG including the cop cars.
The real question in my mind is exactly how large are domestic reserves? They aren't large in relative terms, most NG reserves are in Russia and the Middle East. There are plenty of non-vehicular uses for it, NG is the most common heating fuel in America and it powers the majority of our electrical plants where it's
favored because it burns cleaner than coal (I'll address nuclear later).
We do in fact already import a good deal of gas, every three months or so the USCG bars all movement in Boston Harbor in order to prevent sabotage or damage to gi-normous LNG tanker coming in from Algeria.
Tanker entering Boston Harbor with East Boston and Logan airport ahead, the Zakim Bridge to Charlestown behind>
Everett Ma, 6 or 7 miles from Downtown Boston> Nice view from those condos, eh?
I don't deny that CNG might be a part of any comprehensive energy solution but we'd better take a good look at it before we by the contentions of the industry at face value, It's the same-quasi-monopolistic industry that controls the gasoline, heating oil and diesel markets.
I feel similarly about nuclear and all-electric cars. Nuclear plants can be clean and safe. I know guys who've worked with it in US Naval warships but their are tremendous waste disposal problems associated with it. I support it for now but it's a deal w the Devil.
We are likely many decades away from all-electric cars as real alternatives to vehicles as we now use them.
2001 BMW 330ci/E46, 2008 BMW 335i conv/E93
Wow. There's nothing more to be said.
:surprise:
2011 Hyundai Sonata, 2014 BMW 428i convertible, 2015 Honda CTX700D
Wow. There's nothing more to be said.
I was in DC many many years ago and one night it started to rain, and then switched to freezing rain. I slowed down and tiptoed my way home and watched as for the next 4-6 HOURS there was absolute carnage on the beltway. Several of the local TV stations had thgeir mobile units by the side of the road giving live feeds. Too many people, not enough brain cells between them
So to answer your question; no, too many people didn't slow down until they hit something.
By doing so, we could scale back on buying foreign oil.
From THAT perspective, it's a good idea assuming the infrastructure could be put into place quickly.
Well my question wasn't that. My question is that the last time the SL was 55mph, there were 40K fatalities and many, many injuries. At 0 mph there would be no fatalities or injuries. So surely at speeds between 0 and 55 the fatalities and injuries increase at some rate - and it could be quadratic and not linear. So for all those who tout 55mph as being safer, I ask "Why stop at 40K dead"? Why not propose a SL that reduces the deaths to 10K, or 5K - whatever speed that is? And you answered that with
"Now all that being said I will say that yes increasing speed increases risk but there is a trade off on risk vs benefit. How much risk are we willing to accept to receive a certain benefit?"
So you are willing to have 40K/year dead for this benefit. So now if someone proposes a SL that results in 41K/year being dead, you somehow consider this to be immoral or crazy? This makes no logical sense to me. If you're going to argue the safety aspect then you should argue for a SL where a traffic fatality is much, much lower than 40K.
If we make SL's high and we drive those high speeds we must recognize that risk, it seems that many people don't recognize those risks.
There are people who don't recognize the risk whatever the situation. There are the teens who are totally distracted, the racers and the drunks who will still be on the road, to whom the rules of the road are inconsequential. So setting the SL at 55mph does nothing to lower the highest risk groups and behaviors.
That's a good idea. What speed do you suggest below 55?
Your arguement here is attempting to make a statement on behalf of others (40K fatalities in that year with those vehicles and those drivers) and show that you think differently. It doesn't work.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Well either they're rally drivers, traffic's light or fools. If people are foolish in their lives and kill themselves, I really don't see that as my issue.
People need to slowdown in bad weather. If they don't and they kill themselves, well there's not much I'm going to do to stop them; just hope they don't take anyone with them. SL's are supposedly are set for optimum conditions (of garbage trucks , I guess as I see even them negotiate the roads safely at the SL).
My argument here is that I don't see there is much a difference between choosing a SL where 39K, 40K, or 41K are killed. If someone is going to use a safety-argument here as if they really care - then they should be arguing for a SL where 500 or 1,000 fatalities occur. What SL that is, I don't know, but I'd guess it is around 15mph.
And if you don't want that SL to get that low fatality rate - then you're basically saying - it's okay to trade lives for convenience, but I'm only okay with it to 40K and not 41K. Why one is reasonable and one is unreasonable to some here, I have no idea.
http://www.intheagora.com/archives/2007/04/corzines_speedi.html
cdn-tch: I've combed through the ITE.org website and cannot find the study you like to quote.
I did find a page there titled Vehicle-Related Fatalities which has a few pointers for safety on the road and one of them is "Drive the speed limit. Avoid speeding to avoid accidents."
Just as the possession of at least a minimum of knowledge and common sense to interpret key facts are critical when viewing public service bill boards, it's important to possess the skills to divine politically correct pablum and boilerplate when one sees it. That way we won't misunderstand bill boards, or say that 99 percent of all drivers can't handle speeds over 75 mph (which suggests that someone has never been west of the George Washington Parkway).
Having worked in both government and private industry, I can assure you that "obey the speed limit" is the politically correct thing to say, as opposed to "speed limits on limited access highways have little to do with safety, and exceeding them is not an indicator of danger."
Even though informed drivers know that the latter is the truth.
I live in a lake area, the biggest lake in the US and more shore line than the length of California. We have mostly 2 lane roads. We have seen so many drivers take risks and pass on a hill, tempting death like fate was on their side. Every week there are several "one car accidents" because the driver went of the edge of the road. But why? Because some idiot was over the center double yellow line and ran the person off the road, and left the seen, and many die this way.
What is even worse is how often we see a beer in the hands of drivers!
Until a person has a family member or friend badly hurt or killed we tend not to pay to much attention to how much of a deadly weapon a vehicle is.
farout