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i drive between sf and la roughly every two weeks. most of these journeys involve taking interstate 5. its a two lane freeway with a 70 mph limit and on much of it the average rate of traffic is around 90 in the left lane and 75 in the right lane, which is always full of huge trucks. i do not like driving surrounded by huge trucks and i dont like to spend any more time on the 5 than i have to, so i spend my time in the left lane which means going 85-95 most of the trip. im not at all a sports car person, i drive a prius. and i dont spend much time angry at other drives, the only thing that pisses me off is when everyone is making space to allow a truck to pass another truck and then some rear end in a top hat comes up out of nowhere and cuts in front of the line or even worse tries to weave around passing truck before the truck completes their move - thats a dick move and really dangerous Grevlek posted:What is traffic? Ultimately, an individual experiences traffic when they want to go faster than the car in front of them. There are some arguments about the 'volume' of traffic, but really the issue is more about flow. If you consciously decide to go as fast, or slightly slower, than the car in front of you, you will never experience 'traffic'. this makes zero sense. many traffic jams occur because of accidents, breakdowns, or construction. also because of population growth outpacing the road capacity. even if everyone magically went the speed limit all the time, traffic would absolutely still occur. Earwicker fucked around with this message at 04:03 on Dec 8, 2021 |
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Dec 8, 2021 04:01
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 05:22 |
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Grevlek posted:If only there was some sort of number we could all agree to go, and then we wouldn't catch up to the rear end end of another car. Well if there isn't a way to find out this magic speed, we will just have to wait for a sign Grevlek posted:I totally disagree. My whole point was I'm not trying to adjust my speed while driving every 30 feet. your weird theory of driving relies on everyone else on the road wanting the same things as you and that's very unlikely to happen like in most places where ive lived the average rate of traffic on the freeway is about 10-15 mph faster than the posted limit. the average rate people actually travel is thus the "agreed upon" speed for most people on the road at that time, but of course it's not universal and you can't control what other people do. thus you should always be watching several cars ahead and adjusting yourself accordingly Earwicker fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Dec 8, 2021 |
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Dec 8, 2021 17:53
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i mean ideally every single person on the road is continually observing and adjusting based on the behaviors of everyone else on the road. that should always be the cause regardless of speed, but obviously it isn't - people get in conversations with passengers or on the phone, people get distracted by their gps or changing the music, people get hypnotized by the road itself and fall into a sort of trance - and thats just the normal poo poo not to mention the even more hosed up and stupid things people do at the wheel other than paying attention to the road. because of this you should absolutely never just turn your brain off and "chill" and stop paying attention and being ready to adjust what you are doing, because its practically guaranteed that in any given moment one or more of the drivers around you is not paying attention obviously its true that going slower makes accidents less severe. but deliberately going slower than the rate of traffic, in many situations, can also be dangerous. and it can also get you a ticket even if you are going the posted speed limit! also: the idea that speeding will always "attract cops" is also wrong. what attracts cops the most is when your behavior as a driver stands out from everyone around you, whether thats faster or slower. if the limit is 65 and normal rate of traffic is 80 and you are creeping along at exactly 65 making everyone weave around you, that attracts attention. in some cases you can even get a ticket for it! Earwicker fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Dec 8, 2021 |
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Dec 8, 2021 19:08
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Grevlek posted:"If this mother fucker doesn't go 2 miles an hour faster I will tailgate his rear end and then brandish a gun at him as I speed past him. I need to get to the home depot NOW!" - A totally sane and non-selfish person. do you seriously imagine this is the mindset of everyone going the normal rate of traffic like the walrus says you seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how traffic flow works
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Dec 8, 2021 19:09
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Grevlek posted:Traffic is almost always focused around onramps and offramps. im not just talking about heavy traffic or traffic jams, im using the word in the broader sense simply meaning the cars on the road in general, whether the amount of traffic is heavy or light there is often an average rate that everyone is going. drivers tend to form "clumps" where everyone is going more or less the same speed. in many, many cases this speed is faster than the posted limit. this can also be the case in times of even heavier traffic when there are too many cars for those kinds of groups to form but there is still enough flow for the average speed to be higher than the posted limit so please answer my question, if the average flow of traffic is 10 or 15 mph faster than the posted speed limit do you seriously imagine everyone else on the road is some kind of maniac? do you think the legal speed limit is the "agreed upon" speed that you mentioned above or do you think it's the one that almost everyone on the road is actually driving? Earwicker fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Dec 8, 2021 |
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Dec 8, 2021 19:23
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poverty goat posted:the moment you add 4 or 7 or whatever to the speed limit to decide how fast to go you are giving every cop a free pass to stop you, search your car, maybe murder you and it pretty much never pays off unless you're on a long highway with no lights cops always have a free pass to stop you and murder you entire regardless of what speed you are going. if they dont see a reason they will make one up again though, speeding in and of itself is not what attracts cops, it's standing out. obviously going faster than everyone will get you pulled over. but also if its rush hour and everyone on the road is going 15 over the limit and you are studiously creeping along at exactly the limit and everyone is weaving around you, that stands out and you can get pulled over for that too - especially if you are doing that anywhere other than the right lane personally when i am on long distance drives my strategy is to generally stay within groups and always make sure there is at least one car going slightly faster than me. the speeders that get pulled over the most are the ones who are weaving through everyone else
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Dec 8, 2021 19:48
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to me it all comes down to being aware of the people around you. if everyone else is going the speed limit, great. if everyone else is going 10 over the limit, it's far safer to do so as well because intentionally going slower than the rate of traffic causes more unsafe situations than going slightly faster than the legal limit. imaginary scenarios about "what if everyone just drove the speed limit" should have absolutely no role in your decision making on the road because that is a hypothetical with nothing to do with reality. sticking strictly to the speed limit no matter what the rate of traffic is like is not going to magically change the behavior of everyone around you, it's going to cause unsafe situations behind you.
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Dec 8, 2021 20:07
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ArbitraryC posted:t. To note, the speed limit for trucks was 10mph slower than the speed limit for cars on this road (a p standard 70/60) so even if I wasn't speeding at all, by nature of the truck being in the middle lane and me being in the right at that point I would have been "passing on the right". i dont know where you live but there are many places where passing a truck on the right is illegal in and of itself, entirely separate from speed
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Dec 8, 2021 20:38
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Play posted:They can't successfully enforce EVERY violation of the speed limit, it's impossible. So raising the posted speed limit, say from 70 to 85, and insisting that now you REALLY can't go above it, would likely just result in people going 95 to 100. the way to actually enforce every violation is not to pull people over at all unless they are doing something really extreme, and to use cameras and send tickets to every single person caught speeding on camera. obviously a few people will find ways to avoid or fight or ignore those tickets but far more people would face consequences than it being up to the discretion of a cop in a car in traffic and i think it would have much more of an effect on the rate of traffic. i think there are places in europe set up like this
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Dec 8, 2021 20:43
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 05:22 |
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i dont think street racing ever went away
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Dec 9, 2021 19:37
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