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Great thread, this has explained quite a few things I didn't quite get about why roads are how they are. Here's one I encounter pretty regularly which I haven't been able to understand:  This is the intersection of I-71 and I-271 south of Cleveland, OH. You'll notice that NB71 connects to NB271 and the same with the SB sides, but anyone going south on either and wanting north on the other has to either cut over through some country roads as noted in red or go about two miles south of this shot to the SR18 exit to turn around. Is there any "good" reason for this design, or is it likely just the result of compromises on costs, property, etc? I will gladly admit that the traffic needing to take that path is pretty light, but anyone like me who often needs to go from Brunswick (a few miles north of the shot on I-71) to Macedonia (similar positioning on I-271) or vice versa in the winter where that route is not plowed often absolutely hates it.
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Apr 6, 2010 16:53
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GWBBQ posted:Back to traffic, a few months ago, I called the state police from I95 (it says something about driving in CT that I have their dispatch on speed dial, and probably not something good,) and said "I just passed mile marker ..." "I'm sorry, sir, we don't use mile markers anymore. Can you give me an exit number or approximate location?" Fortunately, I could. Too bad enabling location doesn't transmit for non-emergency calls.) Wait...they're switching AWAY from mile markers? WHY? And to then ask for an exit number, as if there was any logical way to number exits that didn't also correspond with mile markers... I thought we got rid of sequential exit numbering and moved to mile markers as the standard since it makes it so much easier to figure out how far you are from the exit you want.
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Apr 9, 2010 17:06
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Cichlidae posted:Germany, though, has variable speed limits, and some roads in the States have done the same. They change based on traffic conditions. Where are they in the States? I hope they're proving successful, as I'd love for them to be implemented around D.C. There are some areas with 4+ lanes of what seems like perfect asphalt to an Ohioan like me in each direction where the speed limit is 55 MPH. That's just absurd and I'm told it's due to traffic during rush hour, so there's a perfect candidate for variable limits. At night those roads are so empty and smooth that I don't think there should be a limit at all, but sure enough there are plenty of cops out taking advantage of the lack of radar detectors in the area.
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Apr 16, 2010 01:41
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Another "why the hell do they do this?" post: Dorr and North Byrne in Toledo, OH  Link Dorr is the east/west road, Byrne obviously comes in from the south. The problem is that there's a fairly long protected left for those coming in from the east on Dorr. Unfortunately, there's a "No Turn On Red" sign for those waiting in the right turn lane on Byrne. Now there's a dedicated light for the right turn lane, but for some reason I can not understand it is red through not only the Dorr left but also a portion of the Byrne left. I turn right at this intersection almost every time I'm in Toledo and it pisses me off to be waiting there for 30-90 seconds while there's as far as I can see absolutely no reason I shouldn't be able to at least right on red. The University of Toledo campus is about 1000 feet east as well, so police presence is always heavy as well.
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Jun 26, 2010 04:50
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Cichlidae posted:Out of curiosity, why wouldn't you cut through the adjacent residential area on the right? The western entrance isn't signalized, and Secor Road north of its intersection with Dorr looks like it carries some heavy volumes, so the Secor Road phase should come in often. I actually hadn't thought about that way. I'll give it a shot next time I go through there since my route takes me up Secor to the highway.
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Jul 2, 2010 18:07
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Phanatic posted:There are so damned many intersections where one flow of traffic should just have right-of-way and intersecting traffic should get a yield sign, it's ridiculous. There's one neighborhood in my area I have to visit every now and then which has yield signs everywhere you'd usually expect to see a stop sign. I think it's awesome and that every residential neighborhood should be that way. If two low speed low volume roads intersect and there's plenty of visibility, there's no reason I should have to stop if there isn't traffic.
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Aug 13, 2010 20:22
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IOwnCalculus posted:Steer-by-wire is already in place too, at least on some luxury cars. Look at all of the ones that can park themselves (albeit, badly). It's not just a matter of an electric motor moving the mechanical steering column and wheel, either. Either Lexus or Honda had to do a recall of their vehicles equipped with it because in a specific situation, the steering wheel would actually be 45* or more off of center while driving straight, until the computer recalibrated itself - that's a car with no default mechanical link between the wheel and the steering rack. It was the Lexus LS. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVxGH4zl6zU Can you tell me what these are that have started showing up on I-71 and I-480 (at least)?  They seem to be radar drones of some sort, as I've started getting a lot of K-band falses on the highways where these are which correspond with where the obvious directional antenna is pointed. What's odd is that they're shooting at very strange angles, often aimed from a sign on the NB side pointing at the SB lane 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile south of the sign.
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Oct 4, 2010 03:56
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Cichlidae posted:That's a permissive left, and they're pretty common in most places. They're not quite as safe as protected lefts, but they offer higher throughput and less delay, especially when volumes are light and cycle lengths are long. I'm surprised they're rare where you are; pretty much any signal with one- or two-lane approaches here has permissive lefts, albeit with a green ball rather than a flashing yellow arrow. I can honestly say I've never seen that in about a dozen states over the last few years. I wish they were in use in Ohio though, there are two lefts I sit at for way too long with no traffic I'd love to have that at. Hell, almost everywhere could use 'em.
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Oct 21, 2010 02:10
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Let's say you have a T intersection of a low volume road (entry to a small neighborhood) with a high volume road (main path from the center of town to the highway). Currently there is a stop sign and dedicated lanes for left and right turns. This works well for the majority of the day where the volume on the main road is reasonable, but between about 3 and 7 PM turning left becomes a game of timing and liberal application of throttle. Is there any lighting configuration which could allow free flow on the main road with a stop sign like ability for the left turners to jump out when there's an opening for the majority of the day, but could also detect when someone's been waiting to turn for a long time and give them a short period of right-of-way? The way I imagine it, it could be done with a normal set of lights that would basically be in yellow blink for the main road and red blink for the residential road the majority of the time, then switch to a "normal" mode of operation if it detected a vehicle in the left turn lane for more than some X time before going back to blink. Unfortunately I'm sure this goes against a number of standards and simple driver expectations.
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Nov 30, 2010 16:47
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Illinois certainly has those all over. Freaked me out the first time too, I overestimated a yellow and ended up stopped about 5 feet over the line, so seeing a strobe flash made me think I was going to be seeing a ticket in the mail in the near future.
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Jan 31, 2011 19:45
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Frinkahedron posted:All of Virginia is subject to be checked by aircraft, they have signs at every major road entering the state saying so. OHP does this on the Turnpike a lot, but they also have the marker lines intermittently on all the Interstates so I assume they use it all over. From their perspective it seems like a good system, looking down it can't be hard to pick out a car moving notably faster than the rest of traffic.
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Feb 2, 2011 16:39
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GWBBQ posted:Cichlidae, is this what your nightmares look like? Is it just me or would this have been a lot less hosed up had it gone to flashing red in all directions? With what looks to be decent traffic levels in all directions, having yellow flashing for one road and red for the other means that those on the red road are pretty much hosed, thus they eventually just start driving out whenever they see a gap.
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Jun 20, 2011 01:48
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Sam. posted:Why is Dead Man's Curve in Cleveland so dangerous? It doesn't really seem that sharp, on the map or on the ground (except for the skid marks on the barriers), but there's still a lot of accidents there. As far as I can tell from driving it regularly, people are stupid. I can take it without drama at 65 MPH in a company Kia Spectra on Wal-Mart tires, so it's not like any passenger cars should have any problem with the corner (though I'm sure it could be hairy for a truck or bus that ignored the signs). Just combine a decent amount of traffic with a much tighter corner than you'd expect on an interstate, add idiots and you have a recipe for accidents. The first time I drove it I actually thought I had somehow ended up on the wrong road because I couldn't see how it could have earned its name.
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Jun 29, 2011 22:35
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We could sure use you in Ohio, but I'm sure you've seen how Kasich is on a mission to gently caress our public servants, so I wouldn't blame you for keeping your distance.
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Jul 15, 2011 05:55
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Volmarias posted:Apparently NJ Transit loses money running the rail service, and wouldn't be able to operate without significant subsidies. The answer I keep getting as to why is All public transit loses money, or at best barely breaks even, as a whole. There may be some runs that actually do turn a profit, but they'll be balanced out by those that don't. If it was possible to run in a profitable manner, it wouldn't need to be public. The basic idea is that the net gain to the citizens and businesses of the area covered is greater than the cost of operation. I live in a city that's a bit far out to be considered a suburb of Cleveland, but is still roughly in the "metro area". If they were to extend the reach of the RTA down to my city, the idea would be that Cleveland would benefit from the fact that Medina residents could more easily get downtown to work and spend money, while Medina would also benefit from being a more appealing place to live to those who have to commute in to Cleveland every day. Both also potentially get the benefit of reduced need for personal vehicles to be used, thus reducing traffic and the need for more roads. Whether it actually works out like this is of course the important question that decides whether such an extension would be worth the cost. Looking at public transit from a simple dollars in, dollars out perspective always ends up with it seeming like a loser, thus why those who lean right tend to focus on that. edit: VVVVV I guess I should specify public transit as we think of it today, a network of road and rail transportation covering enough of the region to be useful as general purpose transportation. While I don't have hard numbers to back it up, I doubt we'd see many private routes even in the absence of no-compete laws outside of shuttle style service covering airports, sports venues, and shopping districts. No-compete rules allow the public transit carrier to partially balance their costs with these more profitable routes while still providing accessible transportation for those who may not be able to afford to drive. As for the private services in the 20s and 30s, back then cars were still in large part an expensive luxury, so you had a lot more interested riders. wolrah fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Nov 1, 2011 |
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Nov 1, 2011 21:40
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Volmarias posted:Alright, pretty reasonable explanations all. I understand the concept of public utility, I guess I'm just surprised that some lines aren't run more profitably (i.e. very large vehicles on mostly empty runs, etc). I would imagine in many cases the smaller options are not significantly lower in TCO, thus it makes more sense to run a homogeneous fleet and simplify maintenance while also allowing vehicles to be swapped between lines without problems.
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Nov 2, 2011 00:57
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They just installed a bunch of it on I-76 east of Akron, OH too. I don't recall seeing it anywhere else in the state, all the new barrier work along I-71 has been proper steel rail, so I'm not sure why they used it there..
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May 1, 2012 15:38
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My town of Medina, OH put up cameras on a few major intersections near I-71 when they redid most of the traffic lights a few years back. I can't say I've seen any problems with weather, and we're just barely outside of the Lake Erie snow belt so we get some good weather going in the winter.
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Jun 1, 2012 17:47
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Volmarias posted:I think the question was more of "Is there any legal weight to this?" Most states already have a general law covering this and you can be cited for "too fast for conditions". All that sign would be is a reminder. That said unless you wreck or do something stupid in front of a cop, it's practically unheard of to get such a ticket while driving at or below the posted limit. I have however had it tacked on to a ticket for 78 in a 55 because it started snowing as I was being pulled over. It's a judgement call without an associated wreck or loss of control making it easier to fight in court and it would require the officer to get out of their vehicle in what's apparently bad weather, so if you get it as the sole offense on a ticket you probably pissed off the cop somehow.
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Jun 3, 2012 16:43
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Munin posted:What's the general take on chains in the US btw? It depends on where in the country you are. The warm states sometimes ban chains and studs altogether, though that's generally where you can comfortably run summer tires year-round. In other places such as the Rockies, chains or studs may be legally required under some situations. In Ohio, studded tires are legal November through the 15th of April. Chains are legal any time there's snow or ice on the road. That said, I live just outside Lake Erie's "Snow Belt" and I've never seen anyone running chains or studs. Winter tires are rare enough unfortunately. Maybe one in twenty cars are on them in mid-January.
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Jun 3, 2012 22:12
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grover posted:Crossposted from AI's stupid poo poo thread: is this even legal? Speaking of which, why aren't speed bumps universally banned in favor of much safer (and less damaging) speed control measures? Wow that's bad. There aren't many legal standards for speed bumps and it looks like that's a private driveway which wouldn't necessarily be held to those standards anyways, so it's probably legal unfortunately (IANAL and all though). That said, a good lawyer would probably be able to make a case for damage to a lower-riding vehicle because it is an idiotic design. Whoever decided to put that in needs to never be allowed near a driving surface again though.
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Jun 15, 2012 20:13
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Airconswitch posted:Looking at that bridge makes me want to go back to Bridge Construction Set. You could make some bizarre designs in that. I love that series and really wish someone would continue on the idea.
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Jun 18, 2012 22:14
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DogGunn posted:I've seen some suggesting an insignificant change in non-casualty accidents and a notable change (decrease) in casualty accidents. <joke>Lives in Aus, defends red light cameras.....RedFlex employee?</joke> Seriously though, Toledo, OH put in cameras while I was there for college. My apartment backed almost right up to one of the camera'd intersections. I never once saw a T-bone crash there, but after the cameras went up there was a rear-ender at least once a week as people who were trying to clear a yellow slammed on the brakes and caught following drivers by surprise. Cameras do reduce red light running, but the same effect can be seen by increasing yellow time and in that case you don't get the increase in rear-enders. You also don't have the perverse incentive to try to increase the number of tickets to increase revenue, as almost every city that's installed red light cameras does. edit: You really like these cameras, don't you. *contemplates removing joke tag from Redflex accusation*
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Jul 5, 2012 15:57
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kefkafloyd posted:Pretty sure they probably have statutory limits on the books for just such an occasion... This is certainly the case. For reference, the relevant part of Ohio's law: http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/4511.21 Doing the armchair lawyer thing while reading that, in general it seems that on city streets no posted limit means 35 MPH, in the country it's 55, and on divided highways it's 65.
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Jul 23, 2012 19:24
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Jonnty posted:Here in the UK the real threat of getting caught speeding is not the fine but the three points you get on your license. Get 12 and you're automatically disqualified from driving for a while. It's the same here in the US. Most states have a point system and almost all of them share violation information now so an infraction in another state will usually get you whatever points the violation would have earned in your own state. In Ohio 12 points is a suspension, either 3 months or one year I don't remember. Speeding tickets are two or four points depending on how bad. Points (and the tickets themselves) fall off your record after two years.
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Jul 28, 2012 16:29
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Chaos Motor posted:You're telling me that multi-billion dollar intermodal transport owners are not accustomed to commplex issues? Or that we should just put lives at risk so that it's "easier" on the multi-billionaires that own the crossings? Wouldn't want to hurt their feelings? Maybe they'd get a case of the sniffles if they had to pay $0.003 per tonne more per crossing to improve its safety? You're not going to help your case much arguing this way. I don't disagree with you on the basic idea and don't know enough to go deeper, but having lived a lot of my life in rural areas where a trip to town involved a number of railroad crossings marked only by signs and occasionally lights it is a completely valid argument that many of these crossings do not make sense to light/gate. Once you put active signals at a crossing, you now have a responsibility to maintain these signals. If they are not operating properly, the crossing is more dangerous than it would have been with only a sign because people assume no active signal = no train. I'm not a lawyer but I'd imagine someone getting creamed after passing a failed signal would be a lot worse for the railway than someone who attempted to cross a sign-only crossing without slowing/stopping. This means that beyond the initial cost of installation the regular maintenance cost goes up significantly. There are also operational costs, now it needs electrical power. Another concern which is significantly higher for remote crossings is vandalism. We've all seen the road signs full of holes because Cletus was bored/drunk/methed up and spotted a shiny target. Anyways that's basically just going back to the same old equation, is the cost of the safety equipment over time less or more than the cost of injuries or deaths from it not being there. It sucks, especially when you know the victim(s), but that's reality. Emotion should not be involved here. Chaos Motor posted:What I hear from comments like that is, "They were here first, so we have to just deal with it, don't expect anything from them". I agree that problems exist but I also think they are eminently solvable if we really want to. And again, don't forget that I'm winging it here. No, that comment meant exactly what it said. Working in telecom, I'm aware of what's involved in getting right-of-way to run cables. It's not easy to get access to a continuous string of land between your desired start and end points which does not go so far out of the way as to defeat the purpose. That's just for telecom, where once it's installed those living/working nearby won't even notice its existence. Railroads require many times the property and make a fair bit of noise which makes them undesirable neighbors for many. The routes they have were in many cases laid out decades ago when there was a lot more area full of nothing but farm land. The challenge of rerouting rail traffic is significant. All that doesn't even factor for the costs involved, and last time I checked the rail industry wasn't exactly swimming in money. At some point it does come down to the fact that because of simple physics a train must logically (and does legally) have right-of-way at a crossing. If someone chooses to not slow down for a crossing where they can not clearly see that they can safely cross, that's their decision for which they are responsible. If the crossing is not clearly marked that's another matter and I'm sure that kind of bad crossing is out there, but in ten years of driving around rural Ohio as well as numerous cross-country trips I have yet to notice a single one. The plains have a lot of no-sign crossings, but they're on roads that might get a car a day and in places where there's literally nothing but fields in all directions, so if there's a train coming you know it 20 minutes before it gets there. Please note that I'm not attacking your overall idea, I believe there is a strong benefit to government (be it local, state, or national) of all forms of infrastructure where a natural monopoly is in play (roads, rails, utilities, telecom) due to the fact that competition in such environments is impossible or impractical. That's another thing for another thread though. What I am trying to point out is that taking the emotional position based on the values assigned to your friends lives is not only illogical but unhelpful to your argument. Apologies if that rambled a bit, it's been one of those days at work so my brain's a bit scattered. wolrah fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Aug 20, 2012 |
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Aug 20, 2012 23:47
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It's nifty to have the game there and all, but is there really a point to having a high-res color touchscreen for a ped crossing? I'm not seeing what this delivers that the standard button and walk/don't walk sign with countdown display setup doesn't, and those would seem to be a lot more durable.
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Sep 10, 2012 17:58
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Why might ODOT have chosen to do this with the signs for this particular road? All the signs for this exit in both directions look the same, but this is the only place I've noticed this being done with the inverted box over the road name.
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Oct 30, 2012 04:39
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Jonnty posted:Are there any rules about traffic backing up over level crossings? In the UK that would probably be questionable as the risk of traffic backing up over the crossing when trying to get onto the highway would mandate a crossing which allows signallers to check it's clear via CCTV before allowing trains to pass (which is more costly and is down for longer) and they might not even allow it at all. I suppose it depends how busy the highway gets and whether traffic actually does ever back up that far. Are you referring to small commuter-type trains, or are things a lot more different over there than I thought? The idea of someone watching a crossing and allowing or disallowing trains just doesn't fit with the usual sort of trains around here. They're massive machinery moving at a decent rate, they're not stopping for quite some time. If someone's on the tracks, they'd better move before the train gets there. Just a few miles from me there's a railroad that runs through the center of town. http://goo.gl/maps/YoII4 In about a half mile there are six grade crossings, three of which are very close to signals on roads that get a fair bit of traffic. While a few of the nearby signals recently got no-left lights which seem to be activated by the railroad, there doesn't seem to be any preemption or anything more complicated. More than once I've seen people have to drive off road or in to the oncoming lane because they found themselves on the tracks at a bad time.
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Jan 22, 2013 21:48
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Gat posted:No "full barried" crossings, ie 4 gates covering the entire road, are fully automatic in the UK, meaning that someone is always watching to see if its clear. This level crossing I found is on an very busy intercity route where trains reach 125mph and there is a good amount of freight as well. Here the barriers are usually two gates, four is usually only seen if there's a big problem with gate running. Here's a video I found taken from the east side of the South Broadway crossing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrpdFgNrma8 Even with that old show train taking it easy the lights and gates don't even activate until about 30 seconds before it's in the crossing. They're only fully down with about 20 seconds to spare. This is normal here. Few if any crossings are watched in real-time, and none I'm aware of in the freight network have any kind of signal indicating whether they're clear to the train crew. Some transit lines may have such things, but the freight world basically (rightfully IMO) runs on the "we're massive and will win in a collision" logic.
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Jan 23, 2013 03:56
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grillster posted:Back in 2006, a tanker traveling up Highway 6 in Utah didn't quite make it all the way to Happy Valley... Looked for some more info on this and I think you may have combined two separate crashes. The photos seem to be from a 2005 incident where a truck carrying 35,000 lbs of explosives flipped and exploded, then your description fits this one from 2006 where a tanker flipped and burned but didn't crater the road.
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Jan 28, 2013 17:22
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Yeah, it seems that the tower has control if they're there, but the default mode is rail versus runway. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh-gL7_UgHs&t=159s
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Mar 3, 2013 19:43
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Cichlidae posted:Even in straightforward cases, there's no guarantee the guy next to you is going to stay in his lane. Ain't that the truth. This intersection at SR18 and I-71 seems pretty straightforward, does it not?  Google Maps Even with cat tracks and a bonus lane, coming off 71S on to 18W if I'm in the outside lane for the corner there's still about a 50/50 shot that someone from the curb lane will try to take the middle or even the far lane mid-corner. edit: After posting this I notice that even the GMaps view shows someone ignoring the tracks. You can see where the intersection was previously badly striped and following the tracks on the inside lane was basically impossible for large vehicles as well as putting them right back in to the turn lanes to get on the northbound side. wolrah fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Mar 13, 2013 |
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Mar 13, 2013 17:06
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Varance posted:The agency I work for is switching to CNG. Diesel is a terrible fuel for transit now that SCR systems are required and increase breakdown rates fourfold. Interesting, I wasn't aware of the DPF regen being an issue in city driving conditions. Now that we have a number of DEF-using consumer diesels on the market do you see this becoming a problem for vehicles that are primarily city driven? I agree entirely that electric is the endgame for transit, its such an ideal solution given the predictable range requirements and effectiveness of regenerative braking. Big, roughly squared off buses would also seem to be the ideal sort of vehicle for the often discussed idea of standard, swappable batteries which would allow a fleet to have a rapid "refuel" stop while recharging the batteries at a more reasonable rate for both cell life and power wiring constraints. I wouldn't be surprised to find that current battery technology can provide an acceptable range for many routes if the battery modules were able to be swapped in a matter of minutes rather than requiring a vehicle to go down for hours to charge, so at that point it becomes a matter of price. On paper electric should be much more reliable simply due to reduced moving parts to fail, though obviously in practice some of the hardware isn't as mature as we might prefer.
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May 29, 2013 22:04
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kefkafloyd posted:My understanding of Chiclidae's particular implementation they were talking about is that it only tracks when someone enters and leaves a work zone. Presuming that is all it does and it does not record a unique identifier, how could you be identified from that? It's an automation of old-school traffic counters. If it's limited only to work zones and the data is properly anonymized, unless you live very close to the work zone it's probably not a privacy concern. That said, Bluetooth fails as a reliable tracking method because it's a low-power protocol by design and doesn't tend to transmit unless it needs to. Unless your phone is in pairing mode or actively transferring data/streaming audio it's not likely to be emitting a BT signal. Basically you'd only see drivers who were talking on hands-free or streaming music/podcasts from their phone. I guess in some areas that might be a large portion of the population, but its hard to tell. WiFi might be better thanks to beaconing and devices trying to attach to any open APs, and of course cellular monitoring would be the most reliable but makes the privacy concerns of Bluetooth pale in comparison. It's also not as easy, a good high-power BT or WiFi transceiver and a few scripts on Linux can do the job there, where cellular monitoring involves a pile of radios across a number of bands. wolrah fucked around with this message at 14:57 on Aug 16, 2013 |
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Aug 16, 2013 14:52
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Carbon dioxide posted:It depends. If the limit is a hard enforce, what if you need to speed up for a short amount of time to overtake a truck, or even to prevent an accident? It would be horrible if the pedal just isn't responsive because you're driving at the limit. Totally with you on passing. I'm of the opinion that spending less time in the oncoming lane is more important than the speed limit, and by that logic I keep the pedal matted until I'm back in the proper lane. Of course I don't own anything with over 200 HP, so even a long pass usually doesn't exceed the low 90s. Obviously those with more power might have to back off mid-pass to keep things somewhat reasonable. The idea of speeding up to avoid an accident is sort of hard to come up with a situation for. It sounds great but I honestly can't come up with a single scenario where it would be useful that doesn't seem like a scene from a bad movie. Something death-causing (lava, mudslide, avalanche, tornado, monster, etc.) coming down a road right behind the vehicle or the Mopar v. Supra race scene from the original Fast and the Furious. I really do want that point to work, but it just doesn't seem realistic when you think about it. That said, maybe the answer would be a compromise of sorts. Put a tolerance on the limiter, basically making them exist to prevent excessive speeding rather than any at all. A warning or notification at 10-15% over and a hard limit at somewhere in the 50-100% over range maybe? Would there be any legitimate complaint against the car preventing you from exceeding 140 on a 70 MPH highway? What about 105 (50%)? Of course accuracy of speed information could be an issue no matter what the tolerance. If its based on GPS or similar, what happens when there's a highway built over (or under as the case may be in certain metro areas) an alley? Forget even the signal issue, how do you prevent vehicles on the highway legally traveling 65 MPH from deciding that they're actually in an alley with a 20 MPH limit, making the tolerance cutoff speed 40 and triggering the hard cut. If its based on road tags, they have to be so widely distributed and the encoding information so widely known that the Internet would eventually figure out how to make their own and all hell would break loose.
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Sep 3, 2013 07:23
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Dominus Vobiscum posted:Very likely there used to be a toll booth in between where the ramps enter and exit. The Kentucky parkways were all built as toll roads with the tolls being removed when the original bonds were paid off. Wait, that actually happened somewhere? I mean they say that all the time, but I always figured there would be some Hollywood-style accounting in play from there on out to make sure the toll booths live forever.
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Nov 29, 2013 17:39
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Varance posted:Edit In Florida, wrong-way driving is the equivalent of a speeding ticket. Perhaps the laws should be changed to be more strict... Inadvertently turning down the wrong way, if you realize what you've done immediately and stop without causing harm, should be roughly like a bad speeding ticket. It can happen as an honest mistake. I've never done it myself but I've been in a few cars where it almost happened from some combination of weather-obscured lines, bad signage, and driver inattention. Taking a left turn on to a divided road at night when there was no other traffic on the road (thus no cars sitting at the light in the oncoming lane making it more obvious) accounted for two of the times. In all cases someone in the car realized what was happening and the furthest we got was a car length in before turning around. The dumb/drunk fucks who either don't realize or realize and panic, either way keeping going until something bad happens, they need to be taken off the road. Basically getting to the highway end of the onramp (or having wrecked on the way) is where I'd draw the line. wolrah fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Jan 16, 2015 |
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Jan 16, 2015 23:02
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Lead out in cuffs posted:But you're still at more risk riding on the sidewalk than you are on the road, even with the occasional psychopathic American driver. Vehicular cycling is a stupid but necessary hack around a broken system. Got any studies to support the risk claim? I can find the same claim made on a bunch of biking web sites but no one seems to actually provide sources. I don't doubt that there is a danger, particularly in urban environments where alleys combine with brick buildings and a total lack of grass area to make for effectively blind intersections where neither party has a chance to see the other until it's too late. I just don't see it as being as big of a risk as an actual on-road car vs. bike crash. The speeds and thus the forces involved are a lot lower. I'm of course willing to change with actual data, but right now all I'm finding is basically anecdotal. As someone living and biking in the suburbs, the occasional diversion on to the grass to get around a group of people walking side-by-side or some idiot pulling down their driveway without looking is no big deal and certainly a lot less of a concern than 1.5-3 tons of metal passing inches from my left at a 20+ MPH speed differential.
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Feb 5, 2015 17:53
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Two seconds of Googling brought up: http://www.bike.cornell.edu/pdfs/Sidewalk_biking_FAQ.pdf I did find both of those and a lot of other posts linking to the same data since they are some of the first search results, but neither really cover the points I'm making. More accidents do not necessarily mean more dangerous since "accidents" is a wide category. Neither differentiate by severity (the Canadian study does limit itself to ER visits, but that can be anything from broken bones/stitches to near-death), they just count overall accidents which would logically go up with more blind conflicts. I'm basically saying that some more scrapes and even broken bones are a reasonable trade if we eliminate some fatalities and life threatening injuries. Your second one actually seems to show less injuries for the sidewalk users compared to a marked but shared lane in the road. Nothing is indicated for just riding a bike in an ordinary unmarked street as far as I can see, but presumably would be equal to or worse than the marked shared lane. The sidewalk is more dangerous than bike-specific infrastructure of any kind, but I never argued that. quote:And yeah, the speed differential in a side-on collision (the kind of you risk by riding on the sidewalk) is also going to be 20+mph, since your sideways speed is zero. It's just more likely to happen. Other than one party running a red, in which case I'd argue that a person biking in the street is just as likely to get hit as coming off the sidewalk, where are you envisioning these 20+ MPH collisions? The driveway/alley situation would seem more likely to be in the 5-15 MPH range in the case of the car hitting the bike, and presumably there would also be a lot of the reverse case where the car pulls in to the path of the bike which is also going to be more in that range. Pretty much any bike on sidewalk vs. car collision is going to involve the car being in the middle of, about to start, or just completing a 90 degree turn just because of where such conflict points exist. That naturally limits the speeds at which they're likely to happen. wolrah fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Feb 8, 2015 |
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Feb 8, 2015 00:48
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