News: Utah Considers Joining 80 MPH Speed Limit Club

[doviatt]

I live in Utah,

The place where they did the increase in limit is a very remote area between nothing and nothing (I haven't been down there in a while though). Long and pretty much straight with not much traffic let alone any congestion. Any curves do scare you into slowing down if you aren't paying attention.

Utah doesn't care much about the environment. We want to store the worlds nuclear waste here also (I don't), greedy *******s. We added a HOV lane a while ago and then never advertised it. They never told or taught people to carpool to take advantage of it. So when it went mostly unused people complained and they turned it into a toll lane. Pay up and you can now speed in this lane also with no tolerance of law abiding car pool users. The financial benefit of taking this toll overshadowed the desire to conserve and promote carpools. I car pool every day but I don't use the HOV lane. The standard congestion usually matches my 45-55 speed I maintain in the RIGHT (SLOW) lane.

after re-reading the original post it does appear to only refer to the remote locations only. There is no way they could supply a real engineered study to justify this in metro areas. $$$ speak loudly though.

[tjts1]

The only thing carpool lanes have ever done is create more congestion.

[doviatt]

Mostly true, but, they generate revenue in this case. I believe this was their motive all along. A recent Deseret News article says they are no longer going to issue warnings for HOV lane violations, start issuing tickets.

Edit: Based on the number of toll passes they have sold and plan to sell they will make about $660,000 every year from this HOV lane. This doesn't include the citation revenue either.

[bestclimb]

If you are driving too fast to see and avoid a pothole it is past a safe speed for the road conditions. Instead of relying on what a sign says is the safe speed, take it as a suggestion and work from there.

The concept that higher speed increases the capacity of a road is not hard to understand. Think of a hose, only so many molecules of water are able to fit in it at one time. To increase the number of molecules going through during a given period of time you can do two things, one increase the size of the hose, two increase the speed the water flows through the hose.

[gone-ot]

...reasonable and prudent!

[RobertSmalls]

But with higher speeds comes greater following distances. I think it's a wash.

[doviatt]

Originally Posted by bestclimb

If you are driving too fast to see and avoid a pothole it is past a safe speed for the road conditions. Instead of relying on what a sign says is the safe speed, take it as a suggestion and work from there.

The concept that higher speed increases the capacity of a road is not hard to understand. Think of a hose, only so many molecules of water are able to fit in it at one time. To increase the number of molecules going through during a given period of time you can do two things, one increase the size of the hose, two increase the speed the water flows through the hose.

I completely agree with you first paragraph and would add- remember it is a maximum speed limit legally but safety judgment is in your own hands.

But your second I cant quite agree with. Water is an incompressible medium all of the molecules have to, by natures law, go the same speed. Traffic is more like air. Air wants naturally to be a certain distance from the next molecule. Pressure will reduce this distance. Traffic behaves the same way as air. When stopped at a jam- Bumper to bumper- high pressure. The distance between does increase with speed. On and off ramps, and curves cause turbulence and pressure differentials.

[aspera]

Interesting thread, but I think some things were left out.

First, what about 'life efficiency'? Going 10mph on a bicycle is much more fuel efficient than most of you eco-speeders that hurl along at a death-defying-and dangerous 40mph in beastly heavy 2500lb cars. 40MPH KILLS!!! LOL It sure takes a long time to get anywhere, though. A better idea would be to balance fuel efficiency, emissions, and life efficiency (...time).

Nobody mentioned the classic scenario where two drivers drive 400 miles. One drives 80mph, the other 50mph. The fast driver has a 5 hour drive, followed by 3 hours sitting safely in a house. The slow driver is out on the road for the entire 8 hours. During his extra 3 hours on the road, he's at more risk of having a collision. He's also clogging up the road. (He's also more likely to have a full gas tank when he hits something. Boom!) There are lots of variables, but the speedy driver will have time to eat a turkey dinner and watch a movie before the slowpoke driver even arrives at the destination.

I'm a locomotive engineer. Elapsed trip time matters. Slowing vehicles down is easy to do, but it is the wrong goal. The goal should be to get people safely to their destinations as quickly, cleanly, and cheaply as possible.

Now let's go back to my scenario. What if the speedy driver was driving a production version of the VW L1 and the other driver was in a full sized truck? The engine of the truck runs for 8 hours...the little VW just 5. The VW would win hands down on being; A) quick, B) clean, C) cheap (fuel$). The only question would be safety for the 5 hours on the road. It either makes it or it doesn't, but that's the same for the truck. The biggest concern for the VW driver is the other heavier cars on the road. But that isn't a fault of the VW, it is a fault of the OTHER VEHICLES. Don't lower yourself to the lowest common denominator...raise the bar.

One last thing...consider what car buyers would do if they were REQUIRED to drive OVER 100MPH on Interstate highways. Would their next car be a Hummer? No. Too dangerous, too dirty, too expensive. They'd be pressured to choose a better car. How about raising the PSL one year and then dropping it to 55MPH the next year? Pulse and glide for speed limits?

[dcb]

People bring up safety when they are losing the argument

People driving way too fast because they think they should be in a hurry is dangerous.

[aspera]

Originally Posted by dcb

People bring up safety when they are losing the argument

People driving way too fast because they think they should be in a hurry is dangerous.

What is way too fast? 40mph? 30mph? 20mph? 10mph?

Notice that the (high aero drag) emoticon riding the turtle doesn't have a roll cage and isn't wearing a helmet or any other safety device (or pants!!!!). Slow does not equal safe.