How do we educate our own ...

[Christ]

Originally Posted by blueflame

A lot of adrenaline or PCP can help with strength....

Originally Posted by blueflame

But alas if everyone took twice as long to get somewhere there would be twice as many cars on the road????

Or if everyone travelled twice as fast there would be half as many cars on the road, less congestion, reduced vehicle accident probabilities (not including speed related), less waiting at lights.....

I'm afraid neither of those things is true... And I'm only bothering to type this so that I don't hear some kid 5 years from now trying to speculate on traffic patterns based on people's speed.

If everyone in the world drove 2x as fast as they do now, there would be just as many cars on the road as at any other instant, but they'd all be there for a shorter time.

If everyone drove 1/2 the speed they normally do, there would also be just as many cars as any other instant, but they'd be there for a longer time.

The number of vehicles does not multiply/divide, only the time spent on the road.

I don't believe it has so much to do with the speed that some people drive, as everyone doing a constant speed. If everyone in your (not YOUR, generalized) area had the same, predictable driving style, we'd see less accidents, since we'd all know exactly how to react to each driving situation.

Since this isn't the case, and plotting driving styles on a scale would prove more erratic than Bush's speeches, there is less information when it comes time for a person to decide what maneuvers will avoid a crash situation.. less information == less informed decision == more "I hope" and less "I know".

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Christ

If everyone in the world drove 2x as fast as they do now, there would be just as many cars on the road as at any other instant, but they'd all be there for a shorter time.

I don't quite follow your logic. (OK, I'm being overly polite, I really think your logic's wrong :-)) If (important point) trip starting times are random, and every car moves twice as fast, then obviously there'll be half as many cars on the road at any given instant. At the other extreme, if every trip starts at the same time, you'll have the same number of cars on the road at the start, but the number will diminish faster.

Of course the real world is somewhere between these two extremes - a lot of people do tend to leave work around 5, for instance - but I can see this in action on the local roads. I live off a 4-lane highway that's the only practical route between two populated areas. Even at rush hour, traffic normally moves at about 60 mph, and flows freely, so that it takes maybe 10 minutes for any individual car to get through the bottleneck. Let something - an accident or a snowstorm - slow down the flow, then it can take an hour or more to get through, and traffic will be backed up for miles on either end.

[wyatt]

another way of looking at it, if everyone could move at the speed of light, you would only have very few people on the roads at a time (since the travel time to anywhere on earth would be so fast). At the same time, I wouldn't want to pull out in front of someone going that fast. So although it is possible to get places very very fast, and have few people on the roads at the same time, that doesn't make it any more safe.

[Christ]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

I don't quite follow your logic. (OK, I'm being overly polite, I really think your logic's wrong :-)) If (important point) trip starting times are random, and every car moves twice as fast, then obviously there'll be half as many cars on the road at any given instant. At the other extreme, if every trip starts at the same time, you'll have the same number of cars on the road at the start, but the number will diminish faster.

Of course the real world is somewhere between these two extremes.

This is pretty much what I meant to say... apparently you said it better than I did, since I understood your explanation better than my own. LOL.

Anyway, in this area, it's been proven (and is still being laughed about by people like me) that traffic patterns are VERY VERY VERY difficult to change... they installed a red light from RT581 Gettysburg exit (RT 15 S) to get onto RT 15. It has screwed up traffic patterns considerably, and people still don't seem to know how to react to stopping at a red light on an exit ramp... some don't "see" the light, and drive right through it, since they don't expect it to be there... this has been 4 years in the making.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by wyatt

...that doesn't make it any more safe.

Perhaps you might meditate on the idea that for some people, safety isn't the primary consideration.

However, I'd argue - and from experience, since any time I want to go somewhere, I have to pull out on that road I described - that it is actually safer to pull out when traffic is moving faster, because then it tends to bunch up, leaving gaps between "flocks" of cars where I can pull out safely. When it gets locked down into a slow mode, there are no gaps, and it's next to impossible.

[Christ]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Perhaps you might meditate on the idea that for some people, safety isn't the primary consideration.

However, I'd argue - and from experience, since any time I want to go somewhere, I have to pull out on that road I described - that it is actually safer to pull out when traffic is moving faster, because then it tends to bunch up, leaving gaps between "flocks" of cars where I can pull out safely. When it gets locked down into a slow mode, there are no gaps, and it's next to impossible.

I pull into slow moving traffic the same as fast traffic... find a hole, and go for it.

Granted, slow moving traffic tends to have smaller gaps, but people moving slow also have more time to react to me pulling out in front of them because they weren't decent enough to allow me room to pull out.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Christ

...but people moving slow also have more time to react to me pulling out in front of them...

I suppose I'm contradicting myself about the safety thing, but I try not to assume that other people are going to react to me. If I see that I can't accelerate/change lanes to avoid them, I don't go.

Of course that's on my good days. On the bad ones, I drive as though a significant fraction of other drivers are intentionally trying to hit me. You may call this paranoid, but I say the evidence is in my favor...

[Christ]

LOL.. I can't imagine what it must be like for you to get to work every day.

Almost any place I want to go is on the highway, so over the years, I've kinda adapted that highway merging strategy everywhere else too, and it works out pretty well for me.

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Christ

LOL.. I can't imagine what it must be like for you to get to work every day.

Oh, that's easy. Morning routine is to get up, start coffee, feed dog, turn computer on, fix own breakfast while it's booting, and start working. I telecommute :-)

[Christ]

Originally Posted by jamesqf

Oh, that's easy. Morning routine is to get up, start coffee, feed dog, turn computer on, fix own breakfast while it's booting, and start working. I telecommute :-)

lucky bass... i'd love to work from home and it not be a scam.

It would give me more time to work on my CR-X.