Quote:
Originally Posted by Daox
I don't agree that we should take pressure off the mfgs. As we know, there are tons of things they could do to cars to make them more efficient.
I do agree about looking at stop lights though! These could really be looked at and optimized to decrease tons of waste as Phil stated. Out of the five lights I go through each day, there are two that are programmed horribly. One changes directions every 10 seconds, and only allows one way to go at once with a left hand turn light. There are ALWAYS people waiting there. The other light isn't quite as bad, but it changes after a long time (1 minute?) in each direction. It is a bit smarter and only uses the left turn lights when needed, but it still gets me often enough.
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I was hoping the post would provoke a discussion and certainly I'm fully vested in the notion of pushing the auto envelope.I've witnessed a number of fatal collisions here that were provoked by an innocent motorist who ventured out into an intersection as the light turned green,only to be creamed by somebody caught by the red light,sailing through.It's a tremendous safety issue that nobody around here discusses,and from my post,the economic and environmental impacts are obvious.With CAFE at 27.5mpg standard,the actual fleet mpg for the U.S. is only 22 mpg.Most of the difference is in congestion.A large chunk of the congestion is "caused" by traffic engineers.I think they should be held to the same standards as automakers.In fact I think the American Automobile Manufacturers Association should bring a class-action law suit against Texas D.O.T..and federal standards should be enacted for any state that thinks it can run a highway dept.The cost are too great to allow this thing to gain any more traction.Perhaps university-trained engineers should be banned from such positions,and we bring in 2nd-graders.They probably have the wherewithal to fix everything.Okay,rant over.