There might be hope speed limit

[tim3058]

I guess a suggestion that we would all (hypermilers, SUV's, 4x4s) agree on and would help all of us would be to reduce the stoplight delays mentioned by someone above. I'm a highway engineer, somewhere I came across a report that said 20% of -ALL- fuel consumed is wasted at red lights. 20% wasted. That has an incredible impact on the price of fuel, energy consumed, emissions, that could be saved without hurting anyone (who wouldn't want to get to their destination quicker?) Us highway designers have actually been asked to go out of our way to time stoplights to prevent traffic progression (thus, slowing avg traffic speed down thereby appeasing city officials). Just think if us designers were asked to improve traffic progression instead of curbing it... the fuel savings that would follow would make even the most careless of SUV commuters a hypermiler without changing their driving habits.

[Thymeclock]

Originally Posted by Bror Jace

In the midst of $4 per gallon hysteria, I started a thread about this a year and a half ago. The discussion in it was very good, if I do say so myself:

http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...5mph-3732.html

I came to my own personal conclusion that speed limits are a foolish and misguided way to save fuel nationally.

1) Most fuel is wasted idling at parking lots or stuck in traffic, NOT cruising at 70mph on the highway.

It is refreshing to read an observation that makes sense.

2) It costs a great deal of money and fuel to enforce speed limits, reducing the gains you are trying to make.

Oh, but it guarantees employment for Highway Patrol squads - most of whom probably enjoy their duties.

As one person noted very early on in this thread, let's encourage manufacturers to make more efficient vehicles that can do 60-70mph and still get 50mpg. It's do-able ... but not if we are going to be driving gas guzzling, squared-off pieces of $#i+ that get terrible economy at any speed.

Until then, please err on the side of freedom.

Government is not geared towards doing that. Government has the tendency toward increasing its power, with the approval of the electorate, whom they constantly persuade that more is better, legislatively speaking.

Unfortunately, in our society the voting public believes that more laws will somehow make them safer. Politicians and legislators are nearly always lawyers by profession. They will be the first to exploit the sentiment of the public that says "there oughta be a law!" or "a thing like that shouldn't be allowed!". Both are authoritarian tendencies in our culture.

Legislators justify their positions of power (and their employment) by churning out more legislation. Hence, we get more laws which are essentially restrictions. More laws = less liberty.

So don't expect America to "err on the side of freedom" any time soon. One of the few virtues of democracy is that we end up getting what we deserve and much later realizing it wasn't what we expected.

Here's a suggestion: Do you really want to cut gas consumption? Take down most of the stop signs and replace them with YIELD signs.

But don't expect any litigation lawyer or legislator to be in favor of the idea. If you go through a yield sign and hit someone it's a prima facie case. Lawyers don't like that. It would leave them with less to argue about or debate in court... and that might result in less work for lawyers.

[Lazarus]

Originally Posted by Thymeclock

Here's a suggestion: Do you really want to cut gas consumption? Take down most of the stop signs and replace them with YIELD signs.
.

Better yet do away with all traffic lights and signs. Germany has great success in smaller towns.

Only two rules remain – drivers cannot go above 30 mph, the German speed limit for city driving, and everyone has to yield to the right, regardless of whether it is a car, a bike or a mother with a pushchair.

Officials revealed there have been no shunts, bumps or pedestrian injuries in the month since the scheme started.

[Christ]

Originally Posted by Lazarus

Better yet do away with all traffic lights and signs. Germany has great success in smaller towns.

No way... people couldn't possibly be smart enough to make traffic decisions on their own. It won't work, I say!

/sarcasm

I've been passively practicing this for quite some time, now... When Will followed me home towing the Golf, there were at least 2 stop signs on the way that I never even bothered to stop at, because they're in the middle of nowhere and you can clearly see in both directions 500 feet before the turn-in.

I obey speed limits for the most part, when I'm actually paying attention to my speed. Where I live, it's not such a big concern until the end of the month, though.

[Thymeclock]

Originally Posted by Lazarus

Better yet do away with all traffic lights and signs. Germany has great success in smaller towns.

I noticed your other thread. Having no traffic controls at all is no more beneficial than having too many.

Another compulsive feature of human nature (and especially of American culture) is to swing from one extreme to the other. Your suggestion epitomizes that extreme.

The (erroneous) logic is that if too many stop signs are bad, having NONE at all would somehow be 'better'. After that strategy is shown to be a disaster, the 'cure' would be hyper-regulation, more widespread than ever.

I'd be the first to say we already have far too many laws. That doesn't mean that having absolutely NO LAWS would be better, or the cure for the situation.

How about having FEWER laws or stop signs? (But that might be anathema to politicians who garner votes with every mommy who wants a stop sign on every street corner to supposedly "protect her children", or their imagined "right" to play in the street. Local politicians know that all politics is local - so the mommy usually gets what she demands: a stop sign that requires traffic having to stop, and diverts the traffic to the next block - until they too demand a stop sign on their corner.

I suspect that most residential areas would prefer to have NO traffic at all on their streets - which is why stop signs have sprouted like weeds.

[Bror Jace]

Thanks tim3058 and ThymeClock.

You saw a study that says 20% of our fuel is wasted at red lights? I think I calculated a 1.3% theoretical savings going from 65mph to 55mph in the original article cited at the beginning of this thread. It's easy to see where the efforts at fuel economy should be directed.

Yes, I have seen instances where too many signs confuse or distract people. Intersections with fewer signs often make people think a bit more (instead of not at all, evidently) and accidents have been reduced in some instances when this was tried.

My favorite are the round-a-bouts becoming increasingly common in this part of the country. I don't mind these if they are left simple: one or plain two lanes and yield signs. Anything more (arrows on signs, on the pavement, etc ...) is confusing and even seems to redirect you where you don't want to go.

This gets back to what ThymeClock stated above, don't look for governments (national, state or local) to take the 'less-is-more' approach too often. They don't relinquish power and control lightly.

[Thymeclock]

Originally Posted by Bror Jace

Thanks tim3058 and ThymeClock.

You saw a study that says 20% of our fuel is wasted at red lights? I think I calculated a 1.3% theoretical savings going from 65mph to 55mph in the original article cited at the beginning of this thread. It's easy to see where the efforts at fuel economy should be directed.

Yes, I have seen instances where too many signs confuse or distract people. Intersections with fewer signs often make people think a bit more (instead of not at all, evidently) and accidents have been reduced in some instances when this was tried.

My favorite are the round-a-bouts becoming increasingly common in this part of the country. I don't mind these if they are left simple: one or plain two lanes and yield signs. Anything more (arrows on signs, on the pavement, etc ...) is confusing and even seems to redirect you where you don't want to go.

This gets back to what ThymeClock stated above, don't look for governments (national, state or local) to take the 'less-is-more' approach too often. They don't relinquish power and control lightly.

Bror,

Are you in Albany, Georgia or Albany, NY? (I suspect it may be the latter?)

As for roundabouts (traffic circles) they are very common in places like New Jersey and the People's Republic of Massachusetts. Unfortunately, many drivers in Mass. are ignorant of traffic law in general, which often leads to widespread confusion about who needs to YIELD when entering the circle. (They aren't called "Massholes" for nothing.)

[Chalupa102]

Originally Posted by Bror Jace

You saw a study that says 20% of our fuel is wasted at red lights? I think I calculated a 1.3% theoretical savings going from 65mph to 55mph in the original article cited at the beginning of this thread. It's easy to see where the efforts at fuel economy should be directed.

For the most part i agree with what you're saying. For my car personally though, before i starting doing ecomods driving at 55mph i would get around 43mpg, and driving at 65mph i'd be lucky if i saw anything north of 40mpg.

Originally Posted by Thymeclock

Unfortunately, many drivers in Mass. are ignorant of traffic law in general, which often leads to widespread confusion about who needs to YIELD when entering the circle. (They aren't called "Massholes" for nothing.)

We call them "rotaries" in MA, and u definitely speak the truth. I tend to avoid driving at peak rush hour times because of this. I regularly have to look out for the other guy because they're bound to do something dumb.

[Unforgiven]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Not comfortable with that because it is the speed DIFFERENTIAL of vehicles in close proximity to each other that causes the impact problems... and we know how much people love to mindlessly switch lanes. Reminds me of setting two food bowls down in front of multiple cats or dogs; the bowl in front of them is NEVER "the right one" so they swap bowls, sometimes several times, because they think the other guy must have something sooo much better. Yup, that's pretty much it.

Amen on the speed differential... after driving in Germany, and 18wheels here in the USA, it is simply amazing and saddening to see how the common man ignores the "rate of closure" and what it can do to them when they do not pay attention. Even when driving my POV, I note the speed differences that the lamebrainers do in the quest for stoplight to stoplight supremacy... even on the highway with no stoplights...

[Unforgiven]

Originally Posted by Old Mechanic

Traffic density will increase with reduced speeds, in areas where the saturation point has been reached.

In rural areas the problem with lower speeds is they will put you to sleep.

In eastern Virginia the police will not enforce speed limits anyway, at least not to the point where they actually slow the nuts down. Speed differentials (as Frank pointed out), are already one of the major causes of accidents here, also passing on the right and following to close.

Read somewhere a long time ago that the truckers like 62 for economy and distance travelled.

I think they should first make people obey the limits that exist. Cameras on the overpasses. Ticket the vehicle not the driver, automated without actual human interaction.

As far as speed, I like 60 MPH or less. I also like the idea of slight differences in speed depending on which lane you are in. Last time I drove in Michigan, I liked the way they had it set up on 3 lane roads, with higher speed limits on the left lane, and center, and lower limits for trucks and the right lane. It sure seemed less stressful to me when I drove there, but my experience was limited to a short time.

Basically here (eastern VA) they need to enforce the existing laws, and they will probably get as much as any speed limit reduction as far as fuel consumption is concerned. They did raise the limit to 60 on the older seldom used US routes here, and they are deserted, compared to the Interstates.

regards
Mech

Wowzers, someone actually thinking with logic!!! (cheers) Indeed, the laws as posted need to be enforced. Sadly, someone has come up with the statement that each basic speeding ticket costs over 300.00 to process due to the payroll of the state employees and judges to handle that ticket. Geee, shall we make it easy and simply make a basic speeding ticket cost 500.00 to start? How about repeat offenders charged 750.00/1000.00/1250.00/etc/etc/etc for each following infraction? Just might save the proverbial state budget while we are at it too...(sighs)
Bottom line, humans are greedy, and like to feel they are in control even when the control is already there (ie speeders going faster than posted speed)

And before anyone starts griping at me, yeah, I have a couple of speeding tickets in my past, and I paid for them. Last one was a long time ago. Geeee... no more speeding, so nice to think of it. Hail to the double nickel!!!!
(or personally the doublenickel+5) rofl