OT: What Has The World Come To

[Roanon]

Originally posted by DavidG:
Oh sure the reason something unexpectantly appears in front of you could be cause the guy in front of you dozed off. but when you find yourself in this situation would you rather your car was going fast or slow?

I'd prefer not at all finding myself in that situation. For instance not among drivers nearly dozing off while travelling totally empty highways on cruise control.

[Roanon]

Originally posted by PvK:
In PvK's utopia, while the existing 1950-70 defined speed limits could apply as a baseline, I would allow drivers to take optional qualification tests (without high fees) and related courses which would train them in safe driving above typical limits, and give them clearances to drive in the tested vehicle in good conditions at a certain degree over the speed limit.

Start with regular, mandatory sight, hearing and reaction tests. Surprising how many especially older drivers who are blind as a mole insist that they do not need glasses, and especially not for driving.

[ April 05, 2004, 23:27: Message edited by: Roanon ]

[PvK]

Originally posted by DavidG:

quote:

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Originally posted by PvK:
their skill, they would be doing so in a situation where they could see the full field ahead of their stopping/dodging distance.

PvK

My God do people really drive like this were you live??? If so they are a heck of a lot better than the drivers around here. (PS the point of the driver names in my example was only to remove differences in driver skill from the example)

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Some do. Some don't. There are many bad drivers, and some outright dangerous ones. But the way to find the ones who need educating and perhaps punishment is not to measure their speed with a machine and apply it strictly to an out-dated speed limit that takes nothing else into account. The ones doing actually hazardous things are the ones who need talking to, and they are not so hard to detect.

Personally I think the speed limits around here are a nice approximation of the safe driving speed. I would say anyone going more than about 20km faster than that IS driving recklessly. ie people more often than not zip down the road near were I live at 100-120km/h. This is a non-divided highway with lots of driveways and side street that front on to it. Personaly I think anything that would slow these guys down and make them pay is a good idea.

You're probably right about your situation. I've driven in British Columbia and Alberta and I usually didn't think the limits were much lower than appropriate. But I also didn't notice much over-enforcement. I did notice a few maniac drivers, but generally they seemed pretty competant and safe. There are some radar/camera speed trap warnings, which I do think is generally a bad idea unless really necessary, but even there the traffic seemed to be courageously pushing past the limit to what seemed like a safe degree.

My impression is that in Canada the police are usually pretty good about giving you something like 10 kph + 10% of the posted limit leeway to exceed, which is usually pretty reasonable. A UK officer friend also says that's their guideline. There are many places in the USA though where 5 mph over will get you a ticket, even when the limit is inappropriate and the conditions are utterly harmless.

Again though, I'm not saying there shouldn't be limits at all, or that all limits should be increased. I'm mainly saying people shouldn't be cited for just exceeding a limit safely. Get the actually hazardous folks, and leave the letter-of-the-law-breakers alone.

PvK

[Beck]

Comparing traffic deaths as a percentage of a nation's population is flawed and leads one to wrong conclusion. One could probably find some third world country that would make Germany's fatality rate look as bad as the US's being compared to Germany's simply because so few of the population have cars. What is more relevant is the deaths per million miles driven. This puts everything on a more even playing field for statistical comparsion. I don't have the stats handy, but when looked at that way, the US fares much better. One factor in the US death rate is simply that the population puts itself at risk more than the rest of the world by driving more miles (the result of cheap gas and no public transportation).

[PvK]

How about we keep hazardous driving arrests, throw out speeding tickets, and just drive a lot less. Let's build beautiful medieval European style pedestrian oriented cities, and turn the sprawling suburban communities and strip malls back into wilderness!



PvK

[DavidG]

Originally posted by PvK:
My impression is that in Canada the police are usually pretty good about giving you something like 10 kph + 10% of the posted limit leeway to exceed, which is usually pretty reasonable.

yea that's probably about right. The rest of your post I pretty much agree with too.

Just in case it got lost in all the Posts I don't think we should have photo radar set to catch guys doing 105 in a 100 zone. It should be set at some point maybe 10-20 over the posted limit. Pretty much the same tolerances the cops use. And there are many places were setting it up would be an unjust cash grab (a 30km/h limit on a major downtown through road in Vancouver comes to mind. Clearly a case were the speed limit is set not for safty but to raise cash)

[Fyron]

But the US standard 55 mph on highways with little or no traffic are just ridiculous and unmatched, no other country with general speed limits has such a low limit.

It was 55 back in the 70s during that OPEC blockade, but it has been 65 for quite some time now, with 70 or 75 in some rarely traveled areas.

[Atrocities]

Oh but PvK these laws are in place to protect you from your freedoms.

In a society that has to have warning lables on electricle appliances warning people not to use them in the shower or bath should say it all.

A free society is a dumb one, so we need these laws to save us.

[ April 05, 2004, 12:57: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

[tesco samoa]

PVK that would be hard in many parts of NA.

Most of Canada is designed around the car.

I am lucky that I have only a 20 KM communite so I can ride my bike ( I wear a helmet )

But I know of one guy who has a 180 KM communite

[PvK]

Heh. Sure, but that's not exactly suburban sprawl. Living in the countryside is one thing. Replacing the countryside with non-stop pedestrian-hostile automobile-dependant clone housing is another.

I think downtown Vancouver B.C. is very nice, though the huge eastward expanse - Burnaby and (egad) Metrotown are pretty nightmarish.

Mainly I was thinking of what has happened around Seattle (where I grew up, and am currently) in the Last 20 years. The population multiplied, and many forests have been sacrificed to "developments" with attrocious modern clone housing in cul-de-sacs and strip malls - communities for automobiles. Dreadful.

PvK