Nope, much more important factors

Post #7,168 by tonytib 8/29/01 11:44:36 PM Reply	Nope, much more important factors I'd much rather drive in Germany on the autobahn, where most drivers really know who to drive, than in the Bay Area. IIRC, the accident rate has gone down (certainly it hasn't gone up) since speed limits were raised. Tony
Post #7,173 by static 8/30/01 12:56:02 AM Reply	That's interesting. There's a local stretch of almost-freeway near where I live that currently has a speed limit of 80km/h. It is a four-lane carriageway, but undivided and with no intersections except at the two ends. When it got its last upgrade (extended it by about 3kms) it had a speed limit raised to 90 km/h. The accident rate went up until they lowered it again to 80 km/h. Didn't slow everyone down, obviously, but slowed enough of them down to make a difference. Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
Post #7,218 by deSitter 8/30/01 12:08:12 PM Reply	What Happens Some people are going to speed, no matter what - and what happens is that they get mixed up with slower drivers - so raising the speed limit could help by reducing the relative speeds of demons to bluehairs. Nevertheless, as soon as tolerance builds up, the speeders will "up the ante" and accident rates will rise again. Hey, I used to drive like a bat out of hell. Then I saw the grisly consequences of bad wrecks up close and personal, when I drove a cab. Called in the equipment on a guy who was wearing his tranmission. He was rather dead. Ugly. Cured me bigtime. Not much good can happen to you in a car.
Post #7,226 by drewk 8/30/01 1:07:57 PM Reply	Beg to differ Not much good can happen to you in a car. I guess that depends on the company you have with you in the car. This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Post #7,231 by deSitter 8/30/01 1:33:57 PM Reply	Oh Yeah Forgot about that. Nothing like having your hound with his head in the breeze as navigator with Tim McGraw on the tape deck... Oh, you mean THAT....in a Civic??
Post #7,290 by static 8/30/01 8:55:50 PM Reply	Learning safe driving. Some friends of my sister are veterans at driving on icy roads. How? They've been down to the snow regularly for many years, initially in a bomb of a car that they probably had a few close scrapes with. Result: they have the solid experience and Know What To Do. I've also seen some phenomenal things on Mt Panorama at Bathurst (V8 racing, if you don't know) that could only be pulled off by drivers experienced in taking literally centimetre chances. One in particular was one guy got his car spun out on the track facing the wrong way and with a mere fraction of a second to spare spun it round on the track between racing cars to face the right way and keep racing. That is experience. Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
Post #7,309 by wharris2 8/31/01 5:03:23 AM Reply	Anecdotes Cincinnati drivers are horrible in poor weather. I've never seen traffic as bad in rain as in snow. But here you are. Egads. Now, some rain and some snow will crush driving conditions no matter where you are. But here, you get a little drizzle, you get a lot of congestion. I don't understand it. French Zombies are zapping me with lasers!
Post #7,352 by mhuber 8/31/01 3:08:05 PM Reply	Dreading that first snow Sometime in the next few months, a flake or two will hit the I-system here in Milwaukee. It will be about 40 degrees F. The snow will melt as it hits. There will be no accumulation on roads, no ice, not a whole lot of water. People will panic. Traffic will crawl. Fenders will be bent. The TV and radio weather and traffic people will orgasm on the air about the crisis. They might even create a new logo for the storm. A few weeks later, the roads will be a slick grey deathtrap and the drivers going 20 under the limit on that nearly dry surface will be doing 20 over the limit on a genuinely dangerous surface and dying - taking others with them. And it will take at least three inches of snow for a storm to rate a name and logo. We get about a half dozen storm like that per year. White guys in suits know best - Pat McCurdy
Post #7,367 by Ashton 8/31/01 5:01:01 PM Reply	Q for you Unfortunates in the white, soon-grey zones Are there any areas, cities (other than enroute to ski playgrounds) which require chains? At all? Under certain circumstances? If so - are 'snow tires' then deemed an adequate equivalent? (Or is it all left up to Darwinism and Tee Vee er 'manufactured consent' via infoterrorment?) Hmmm - maybe a Hum-Vee could have some rational purpose: if it's left to Darwin out there.
Post #7,368 by mhuber 8/31/01 5:07:10 PM Reply	No chains required anywhere around here, as far as I know But then, I tend to stick to the City during winter. Milwaukee isn't really all that bad for driving in snow. All it takes, except for maybe one or two days per winter, and we tend to sit those out, is decent tires and sane driving. Which means slowing down when the roads are slippery, and realizing that 4 wheel drive doesn't help you stop. And go out and play a little in a parking lot or something every winter, so you know how your machine acts in a skid. White guys in suits know best - Pat McCurdy
Post #7,370 by drewk 8/31/01 5:24:37 PM Reply	Not allowed, usually This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Post #7,400 by static 8/31/01 10:21:41 PM Reply	We had some freaky weather a few weeks ago. Which is why my sister mentioned her friends. It dumped snow on the Southern Highlands and the Blue Mountains - two regions of New South Wales that almost never get snowed on. In fact, it dumped nearly a foot of snow. The TV news crews got a few locals on camera complaining about the unusually high amount of traffic (!) - most of it city tourists (!!) who clearly didn't know how to drive on an icy road. Wade. "All around me are nothing but fakes Come with me on the biggest fake of all!"
Post #7,436 by wharris2 9/1/01 4:05:59 AM Reply	Re: Dreading that first snow You just ligtened my day a lot. "a flake or two"------ classic. French Zombies are zapping me with lasers!
Post #7,472 by boxley 9/1/01 9:11:40 PM Reply	the first snow in florida is around the corner huge storms of whiteheaded flakes clogging the roadways with their first car. Shudder. thanx, bill Our bureaucracy and our laws have turned the world into a clean, safe work camp. We are raising a nation of slaves. Chuck Palahniuk
Post #7,298 by tonytib 8/30/01 11:31:02 PM Reply	Nope, speed by itself isn't that important it going with the flow of traffic, doing what people expect you to do, etc. A guy weaving through traffic is very dangerous, trying to do 75 mph when traffic is flowing at 35 mph. We have plenty of people trying to do that here. But, it's also dangerous for some one to going 50 mph when the traffic is flowing at 65 mph -- and we also have plenty of them here. If speed kills, then most fatal accidents would occur on the highway. This isn't true; for example, when I was studying up on the autobahn before going over to Germany one source claimed that, IIRC, less than 12% of all traffic accidents occured on the autobahn. And, one reason is that the vast majority of German drivers act predictably (both on the autobahn and city streets -- I drove over 3000 km plus was a passenger too). For example, I only saw 1 person weaving through traffic, and I'm not sure he was German (driving a Lexus, very rare in Germany, so might have been an American). I'd say the majority were also much better, crisper drivers than the average here. Now Spain, that's a different matter.... So, yes, speeding can be dangerous....for example, mixed with alcohol, drag racing on city streets (e.g. Charlotte Hornet basketball player who crashed his Porsche at 100+ mph), weaving through traffic, etc. But, in the middle of Texas on a deserted interstate that goes straight for hundreds of miles, 100+ mph can be very safe. I'd like to see more tickets based on unsafe driving and fewer based on exceeding an arbitrary number -- if it could be done reasonably objectively. Tony
Post #7,570 by kmself 9/3/01 12:50:26 PM Reply	Autobahn I'm not so sold on the Autobahn. Traffic densities are generally quite high. German drivers are incredibly aggressive, and the expectation is that there is a righ to speed, though to their credit, the "fast lane" is a passing lane, and there is no tendency to lane hogging that's so common in the US (don't get me started on midwest drivers) is gone. What you've got to worry about is the speed differentials. Trucks are restricted to 110 km/h, meaning they're doing about 65 MPH. I found 140 km/h was a comfortable speed (85 MPH -- about what I drive in the US, given open highway), which was about normal, though the fast lane traffic was far above this, with 200 kph (120 MPH) not uncommon. Problem is when there's a traffic slowdown, and these come from several causes. Speed is restricted in urban areas. Speed limits are dynamically set to road conditions (not altogether a bad thing), indicated by electronic signs on the highway, but this means you can't count on knowing the speed limit for a given stretch of road. Worst is when there's some sort of tie-up. Traffic goes from current speed (65, 85, 120 mph) to a crawl, in seconds. This is where horrific accidents occur, Germany's notorious for families being wiped out in an instant on the highways. Stories of trucks jacknifed across highways and cars running underneath them.... It's interesting, but a bit high-tension for my tastes. Nevada state route 375 is an entirely different issue. -- Karsten M. Self [link\|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com\|kmself@ix.netcom.com] What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
Post #7,576 by tonytib 9/3/01 4:46:26 PM Reply	Don't agree -- for aggressive drivers, try driving in Spain they'll honk their horns and blink their lights in a heartbeat, even if you can't move. But that doesn't matter to them. And, driving in Madrid is totally unlike anything in Germany, or here. OTOH, as long as I passed and then got over, the faster German drivers slowed down and didn't tailgate. In Spain or some people here, well, they'd be a lot more aggressive. Overall, the Germans were much better at merging, too (one of my pet peeves in California). Yes, there were some rapid slow downs -- and often use of emergency blinkers by the cars in front to indicate them. But, you get that here, everyday -- of course, if you're a local you know where they're likely to be, but that's try anywhere. I saw a lot of areas with posted speed limits, and many areas don't have electronic signs -- IIRC that was in more congested areas. Traffic densities vary all over the place; for example, Stuttgart to Karlsruhe was quite high, but many areas it's pretty low (most areas outside the major cities) although still much higher than many parts of the US. It's definitely more stressfull than long distance US driving, and I don't think German style driving would work here -- partly because I think a large country is better suited to more relaxed driving (US style) and partly because people already think driving is a right so there's no way to change to the German system (where a licence costs around $500 and you have to go to driving school). However, I still think it would be good to seriously upgrade driver education and testing requirements. This would be a much better use of money than most other things the states spend their money on. There are way too many people on the road who simply don't have a clue. Tony
Post #7,595 by boxley 9/3/01 9:08:21 PM Reply	huh, sounds like going to san fran from reno "Traffic goes from current speed (65, 85, 120 mph) to a crawl, in seconds." One of my all time fav roads is the 395 from the LA cutoff to reno, during a weekday. light traffic enough twists to scream and petal to the medal with a wizz break in the middle. thanx, bill Our bureaucracy and our laws have turned the world into a clean, safe work camp. We are raising a nation of slaves. Chuck Palahniuk

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