Another slow driver ticketed

[JacobAziza]

I will never understand that.

Even when I was younger and used to street race and drift corners and go 100+ on the highway, even then I realized it was pointless to get to a red light at fast as possible.

[MadisonMPG]

Originally Posted by JacobAziza

I will never understand that.

Even when I was younger and used to street race and drift corners and go 100+ on the highway, even then I realized it was pointless to get to a red light at fast as possible.

Yeah lol, i'm still a teen so I do some dumb stuff.

I saw a woman, who rammed her Suburban (an '09 of course) into the back of this 18 wheeler because she was yelling at me for coasting. Women around here are crazy.

[fidalgoman]

For a number of years I worked as a Forest Warden (you know the guy who's supposed to save the forest from fire hazards). Anyway, one of the things we state employees had to do was take a defensive driving class. It was very interesting and the instructor made the point of letting us know the difference between legal and wise. The bottom line was this. When you drive in such a way as to create turbulence in the flow, too fast or too slow in relation to other traffic, or anger other drivers you set yourself up to be the focal point of an accident. It's just how it works regardless of what we feel about it (being legally right will not take away the bent sheet metal or crushed bodies). Even if everyone is going over the speed limit, if you create turbulence you create problems. Pull over and let them pass then proceed. In the same way the YAM who wants to drive his Acura eighty-five+ down the freeway is looking for an accident as well.

[JacobAziza]

Originally Posted by fidalgoman

When you drive in such a way as to create turbulence in the flow, too fast or too slow

I hear that a whole lot, but do you know of any source to corroborate it?

Because from what I have read, studies actually show that the slower you drive, the safer you are.

"risk of involvement in a casualty crash, relative to the risk for a car traveling at 60 km/h, increased at an exponential rate for free traveling speeds above 60 km/h"
Speed and Crash Risk - Executive Summary

“First, the probability of a crash is approximately proportional to the square of the travel speed. Second, in a crash, injury risk is approximately proportional to the impact forces on a person, which in turn are proportional to the square of the impact speed. These two effects can be summarized in a general rule of thumb: When travel speed increases by 1%, the injury crash rate increases by about 2%, the serious injury crash rate increases by about 3%, and the fatal crash rate increases by about 4% “
Traffic Safety Center Newsletter Winter 2008, Volume 5, No. 1: Traffic Safety Culture: the role of speed

These studies were looking at overall statistics, and therefor should inherently take traffic flow into account.

And while it may seem counter-intuitive at first, I think this is the results we should expect.

For going slow to cause an accident, it would mean someone coming up behind another car, at a low relative speed (if car A is going 55 and car B is going 70, their relative speed is only 15) and somehow fail to notice they were getting closer all the way until impact. I suppose if cars are passing in other lanes, it makes slightly more time that a car could sideswipe another. In either case, if it did occur, it would make for a relatively minor accident.
On the other hand, any additional speed, regardless what other cars are doing, will increase the risk of head-on and intersection collisions, which are both far more common and far more deadly when they occur. Matching the speed of other cars going your direction isn't likely to have any effect on the likely hood of, for example, someone turning left into your path.

For another thing the relationship between speed and stopping distance (just like with speed and air resistance) is non-linear - 2x speed = 4x the stopping distance.
Should an impact occur, the force of impact has the same relationship to speed.

[MadisonMPG]

I feel 100x safer in any vehicle when I, or the driver, drive the speed limit or slower. Even 75 you can tell how the time to react is slower, and stress levels go up in the car. I am a firm believer, "We Can Drive 55".

[nahtanoj]

Originally Posted by MadisonMPG

I was EOC up to a red light, and this woman honked and waved at me to move and I didn't even check up again. I pulled up beside her in the turn lane and gave her the finger. (The big thumbs up that is) and said "Hey we got here at the same time, the light is still red, and I saved gas my way." Then smiled and drove off. She was in a big ole Jeep.

one of my favorite things to do in my daily commute. i drive the speed limit on a 25mph road, most people are trying to do 40mph, yet we end up at the highway at the same time, and i didn't have to swurve all over the 3 available lanes, slam on my brakes, or floor it to get there.

[drewwitlin@hotmail.com]

Is a real pain for hypermiling. Everyone street races from one light to the next not realizing that they are not getting anywhere fast. I am constantly getting flicked off, yelled at, and why do people think they can push their bumper through my car. I just try to smile when I pass them because they pick a wrong lane. I smile when I know you are getting piss poor gas mileage. I smile when I hear someones brakes grind. My 200,000 mile honda accord getting 35mpgs and 550 miles per tank is getting to the same place you are with out the stress, with lowered maintenance, with less gas! I have to drive for a living, and I thought at one point I could win all the races, that was 26mpg ago. Thanks for this forum. I have totally changed my ways and I am completely reformed. I will start ecomodding next, running some experiments on lowering the drag coefficient of the Honda.

Note. my spell checker doesn't know what to do with "hypermiling" and "ecomodding". Funny

[NeilBlanchard]

Hi,

Every traffic study I have seen shows that slow(er) and steady beats accelerate and stop every time; it's better for the number of cars that moves on the road, and we all know it helps in the FE, too.

Each time a vehicle stops, it causes the vehicles behind them (who are not ecodriving!) to also stop and the effect ripples backwards up the road from the point where the original stop occurred. Someone who is ecodriving comes along and helps smooooth it all out again...

[fidalgoman]

Sorry I don't have the exact statistical source, it came from Washington State Patrol data and I suppose you could resource it if you felt led to. But to play it forward you might say the guy going a hundred weaving in and out of traffic is creating turbulance. It's the dynamics of human interaction.

Here's an a video by a gentleman (uber science tech) I know that you might find interesting. Though I don't think he's a hypermiler, it certainly fits in with the mindset.

Link

[JacobAziza]

Wonderful!
I think I will spread that video along.

I noticed that a stalled vehicle or accident in one lane at the beginning of an area that usually has a traffic jam smooths out the traffic enormously and actually speeds it up overall, just by slowing down traffic the way on ramp red lights do.

I still think the way to deal with lane "cheaters" is just to put down concrete barriers at the point where the striped line turns solid, so it is simply physically impossible to force one way in at the last moment.