Traffic deaths rose 8 percent in 2020 despite fewer miles travelled

Preliminary data puts the death toll at 42,060, with 4.8 million people injured.

Read the whole story

 

[hestermofet]

Usually machine are designed to operate in a safety range. If 100 mph is that limit why not limit the speed mechanically in all car?

That would last ~10 minutes because making it illegal to work on your own car in the US is a non-starter.

If mechanics lost their business license for tampering with safety equipment, this would be pretty effective. There will always be cheating but 90% of people are going to stick with the defaults and that’s a lot of lives saved every year.

I think this also misses the real issue. Is 100mph that much safer than 105? 110?

Yes. Kinetic energy increases exponentially with velocity.

 

[watermeloncup]

I lived in the US for a while.

I got rear-ended several times while sitting at red lights
- Ford Explorer vs my Z3
- Mercedes vs my MR2.
- F150 vs my E30 325iS
- Smart car vs my 330i

Another F15 trimmed the nose off my Toyota Matrix as I sat waiting to turn left at some lights by cutting the corner and another 'driver' in a Toyota SUV damaged every panel on one side of my MINI in a parking lot.

There were others, but those are the (low) highlights.

I narrowly avoided many, many terrible freeway drivers, one of which barrel rolled on the I5 in a straight line - this takes some skill, but it was a big Cadillac SUV and I think the driver twitched to avoid something, or dropped their phone, and then over-corrected several times and then pitched into an 80mph barrel-roll. Quite the sight - wish I'd had a dash cam...

I put it down to the driving / testing standards, which by my euro standards are pathetic.

When I took my 'test' in CA in 2000, the examiner literally could not fit in my Z3, she was way too large. So she had me driver around the parking lot and then watched as I drove up and down the road.

The multi-choice questions were laughable.

One such question is

You must file a Report of Traffic Accident Occurring in California ( SR 1) with DMV when:

the possible answers are

- Your vehicle fails a smog test
- The are involved in an injury crash
- you change your insurance company

Assuming you get 86%, you are good to go..

Seriously, how stupid do you have to be to fail the multi-choice ?

When I took my motorbike test, this was even more laughable.

I turned up an a borrowed GSXR1100R, a beast of a bike that hated running at low revs.

The 'examiner' had me ride a loop around a coned-off area behind the DMV, then ride in a straight line to the end of the range and back and when he held up his clip board I had to stop. Finally I rode a lazy slalom between about a dozen cones and was awarded a license.

Later I took the MSF course for that sweet 10% insurance discount.

In the UK, the testing procedure for both is extensive and includes rigorous on-road tests that last 40minutes or so and some fairly tough questions. The bike test in the UK is very intensive, allied to a graduated licensing, it means that a 17yo kid cannot legally ride a GSXR1000 or similar loony bike and thus they tend to stay alive a little longer....

When I moved to California, I only had to do the multi choice since I was transferring my license from within the US, and someone was strongly suggesting that I study the entire DMV booklet. When looking up the booklet I found some practice multiple choice tests, so I did those. Then I went to the DMV to pick up the application form because for some stupid reason you couldn't download the PDF, you had to either go get a copy or get it mailed to you; not sure if they've out it online since 2015.

When there, I was planning to just get the form and come back with it later, but the woman handing me the form was urging me to just do it since there wasn't really a wait. I figured I may as do it since the practice tests had turned out super easy and I was done all in one shot. Was very happy I didn't waste my time poring over the CA manual.

I still have no idea what the person telling me it was super duper necessary to study the entire manual was on about, made me kind of wonder about this person's driving ability that they considered the multiple choice test so hard. I learned precisely one new piece of information from the practice tests and it was that you're supposed to hit the freeway already going full speed coming off the on ramp, which I think is the opposite of what most states tell you to do (more of a high-speed yield).

It did, shamefully, take me two tries on the multiple choice test because I very narrowly missed on the first attempt over a couple of questions like whether the following distance is 100 ft vs 200 ft in certain situations; I've never had a great sense of stuff like visually gauging what constitutes 100 vs 200 ft but I know how to leave a healthy amount of space between me and the car in front of me just fine.

I had a similar experience moving my Ohio license to California. IIRC I missed three questions on the multiple choice section:

* Speed limit in school zones. I said 20 mph, but it's actually 25 mph.
* Something about driving with a 3 axle truck, even though this was a normal car license?
* How to cross train tracks with a motorcycle. Actually I think I got this one right, but WTF was the question doing there when the license wouldn't qualify me to drive a motorcycle?

 

[twing]

Usually machine are designed to operate in a safety range. If 100 mph is that limit why not limit the speed mechanically in all car?

That would last ~10 minutes because making it illegal to work on your own car in the US is a non-starter.

If mechanics lost their business license for tampering with safety equipment, this would be pretty effective. There will always be cheating but 90% of people are going to stick with the defaults and that’s a lot of lives saved every year.

I think this also misses the real issue. Is 100mph that much safer than 105? 110?

Yes. Kinetic energy increases exponentially with velocity.

Great. So why not limit cars to 85? Then a couple decades later we can campaign for 80 because, as someone who missed the point once said, "Kinetic energy increases exponentially with velocity.".

 

[Bloater51]

It did, shamefully, take me two tries on the multiple choice test because I very narrowly missed on the first attempt over a couple of questions like whether the following distance is 100 ft vs 200 ft in certain situations; I've never had a great sense of stuff like visually gauging what constitutes 100 vs 200 ft but I know how to leave a healthy amount of space between me and the car in front of me just fine. But while I missed a couple of questions because they were minutiae like the 100 ft vs 200 ft thing, I have absolutely no idea how you could outright bomb the test as an already-licensed driver.

For decades before the introduction of a written multiple choice test in the UK every learner was required to learn the nominal stopping distance, including thinking time, for a car at various speeds. As well as being a meaningless figure, it did nothing to discover whether the driver could recognise those distances on the road. What really mattered was whether the driver reacted appropriately when instructed to stop by the examiner and kept the right distance when following traffic.

 

[Eurynom0s]

I lived in the US for a while.

I got rear-ended several times while sitting at red lights
- Ford Explorer vs my Z3
- Mercedes vs my MR2.
- F150 vs my E30 325iS
- Smart car vs my 330i

Another F15 trimmed the nose off my Toyota Matrix as I sat waiting to turn left at some lights by cutting the corner and another 'driver' in a Toyota SUV damaged every panel on one side of my MINI in a parking lot.

There were others, but those are the (low) highlights.

I narrowly avoided many, many terrible freeway drivers, one of which barrel rolled on the I5 in a straight line - this takes some skill, but it was a big Cadillac SUV and I think the driver twitched to avoid something, or dropped their phone, and then over-corrected several times and then pitched into an 80mph barrel-roll. Quite the sight - wish I'd had a dash cam...

I put it down to the driving / testing standards, which by my euro standards are pathetic.

When I took my 'test' in CA in 2000, the examiner literally could not fit in my Z3, she was way too large. So she had me driver around the parking lot and then watched as I drove up and down the road.

The multi-choice questions were laughable.

One such question is

You must file a Report of Traffic Accident Occurring in California ( SR 1) with DMV when:

the possible answers are

- Your vehicle fails a smog test
- The are involved in an injury crash
- you change your insurance company

Assuming you get 86%, you are good to go..

Seriously, how stupid do you have to be to fail the multi-choice ?

When I took my motorbike test, this was even more laughable.

I turned up an a borrowed GSXR1100R, a beast of a bike that hated running at low revs.

The 'examiner' had me ride a loop around a coned-off area behind the DMV, then ride in a straight line to the end of the range and back and when he held up his clip board I had to stop. Finally I rode a lazy slalom between about a dozen cones and was awarded a license.

Later I took the MSF course for that sweet 10% insurance discount.

In the UK, the testing procedure for both is extensive and includes rigorous on-road tests that last 40minutes or so and some fairly tough questions. The bike test in the UK is very intensive, allied to a graduated licensing, it means that a 17yo kid cannot legally ride a GSXR1000 or similar loony bike and thus they tend to stay alive a little longer....

When I moved to California, I only had to do the multi choice since I was transferring my license from within the US, and someone was strongly suggesting that I study the entire DMV booklet. When looking up the booklet I found some practice multiple choice tests, so I did those. Then I went to the DMV to pick up the application form because for some stupid reason you couldn't download the PDF, you had to either go get a copy or get it mailed to you; not sure if they've out it online since 2015.

When there, I was planning to just get the form and come back with it later, but the woman handing me the form was urging me to just do it since there wasn't really a wait. I figured I may as do it since the practice tests had turned out super easy and I was done all in one shot. Was very happy I didn't waste my time poring over the CA manual.

I still have no idea what the person telling me it was super duper necessary to study the entire manual was on about, made me kind of wonder about this person's driving ability that they considered the multiple choice test so hard. I learned precisely one new piece of information from the practice tests and it was that you're supposed to hit the freeway already going full speed coming off the on ramp, which I think is the opposite of what most states tell you to do (more of a high-speed yield).

It did, shamefully, take me two tries on the multiple choice test because I very narrowly missed on the first attempt over a couple of questions like whether the following distance is 100 ft vs 200 ft in certain situations; I've never had a great sense of stuff like visually gauging what constitutes 100 vs 200 ft but I know how to leave a healthy amount of space between me and the car in front of me just fine.

I had a similar experience moving my Ohio license to California. IIRC I missed three questions on the multiple choice section:

* Speed limit in school zones. I said 20 mph, but it's actually 25 mph.
* Something about driving with a 3 axle truck, even though this was a normal car license?
* How to cross train tracks with a motorcycle. Actually I think I got this one right, but WTF was the question doing there when the license wouldn't qualify me to drive a motorcycle?

I don't remember stuff like the 3 axle truck and motorcycle questions but yeah, from what I recall the ones I missed were all minutiae points, either stuff like that school zone speed limit question that varies slightly state to state, or stuff like my 100 ft vs 200 ft example where I think knowing "leave a lot of space" is more important than being able to recall precisely how many feet of space to give based on the exact speed you're going and whether or not it's raining. If there were ones like the 3 axle truck or motorcycle questions on mine though then it would definitely help to explain why I needed to try twice to pass.

 

[ZippyPeanut]

Speeds however were way slower than I was used to, I would hurtle downs the lanes that I knew like the back of my hand at what were, retrospectively, insanely dangerous speeds. In London I barely used anything other than 1st and 2nd.

Good defensive driving comes about when you realise that your younger self may be behind the wheel of the car around the next corner.

That's a great way to put it.

California no longer gives a "driver's license" to youth 16-18. They receive a provisional license that restricts who they can have in the car with them, reasons for driving, and time of day. After enactment of those, traffic deaths in that age group went down substantially.

Yep, there's that.

And also 16-to-18-year-old drivers are known in the state of California to cause cancer.

 

[Eurynom0s]

Usually machine are designed to operate in a safety range. If 100 mph is that limit why not limit the speed mechanically in all car?

That would last ~10 minutes because making it illegal to work on your own car in the US is a non-starter.

If mechanics lost their business license for tampering with safety equipment, this would be pretty effective. There will always be cheating but 90% of people are going to stick with the defaults and that’s a lot of lives saved every year.

I think this also misses the real issue. Is 100mph that much safer than 105? 110?

Yes. Kinetic energy increases exponentially with velocity.

For another example of how enormous seemingly minor differences in speed can be in terms of physical danger, for pedestrians the survivability of being hit by a car goes down dramatically between 20 mph and 40 mph.

https://usa.streetsblog.org/2016/05/31/ ... ty-streets

 

[Trout Mask Replica]

All they need to do (seems like a lead-in to just about every boneheaded thing in America that will never happen...) is what they did with drunk driving. Get cripplingly aggressive in punishment. Prior to the 90s and even 2000s, DD was so lax in enforcement. You'd always here about the guy that killed a family who had half a dozen prior arrests and convictions. And yet he still was allowed a license.

How about instead of failed shit like the War on Drugs or any of the other idiotic shit the police spend time on, they send out a large army of unmarked cars. First offense, reasonable painful fine. Second offense, very expensive and if you can't afford it then use that popular asset seizure or wage garnishment. Third, automatic license suspension for a year and $10K fine. If offenses occur within a short time period, violate suspended license, you bring heavy jail time in. Longer period, maybe you get a bit of leniency but let them add up so you accrue larger fines when you slip up.

The enforcement needs to be as crushingly intense as the victims that will suffer from speeders. And yes, some people will not be deterred regardless. A nice 30 year jail sentence will cool their rebel ass proper, I guarantee it. Rather them than some black kid that had a bag of weed.

We've all seen the idiots. From little sports cars to giant tandem trailer trucks driving like the assholes they are. Some of us have seen accident victims up close. Some of us have been the victim of a bad crash. Some have watched a loved one bleed out with missing limbs and their guts in their lap. This is how serious excessive speeding is. It's no different than randomly firing a gun in the park. You don't no if /when you'll kill someone.

 

[watermeloncup]

I lived in the US for a while.

I got rear-ended several times while sitting at red lights
- Ford Explorer vs my Z3
- Mercedes vs my MR2.
- F150 vs my E30 325iS
- Smart car vs my 330i

Another F15 trimmed the nose off my Toyota Matrix as I sat waiting to turn left at some lights by cutting the corner and another 'driver' in a Toyota SUV damaged every panel on one side of my MINI in a parking lot.

There were others, but those are the (low) highlights.

I narrowly avoided many, many terrible freeway drivers, one of which barrel rolled on the I5 in a straight line - this takes some skill, but it was a big Cadillac SUV and I think the driver twitched to avoid something, or dropped their phone, and then over-corrected several times and then pitched into an 80mph barrel-roll. Quite the sight - wish I'd had a dash cam...

I put it down to the driving / testing standards, which by my euro standards are pathetic.

When I took my 'test' in CA in 2000, the examiner literally could not fit in my Z3, she was way too large. So she had me driver around the parking lot and then watched as I drove up and down the road.

The multi-choice questions were laughable.

One such question is

You must file a Report of Traffic Accident Occurring in California ( SR 1) with DMV when:

the possible answers are

- Your vehicle fails a smog test
- The are involved in an injury crash
- you change your insurance company

Assuming you get 86%, you are good to go..

Seriously, how stupid do you have to be to fail the multi-choice ?

When I took my motorbike test, this was even more laughable.

I turned up an a borrowed GSXR1100R, a beast of a bike that hated running at low revs.

The 'examiner' had me ride a loop around a coned-off area behind the DMV, then ride in a straight line to the end of the range and back and when he held up his clip board I had to stop. Finally I rode a lazy slalom between about a dozen cones and was awarded a license.

Later I took the MSF course for that sweet 10% insurance discount.

In the UK, the testing procedure for both is extensive and includes rigorous on-road tests that last 40minutes or so and some fairly tough questions. The bike test in the UK is very intensive, allied to a graduated licensing, it means that a 17yo kid cannot legally ride a GSXR1000 or similar loony bike and thus they tend to stay alive a little longer....

When I moved to California, I only had to do the multi choice since I was transferring my license from within the US, and someone was strongly suggesting that I study the entire DMV booklet. When looking up the booklet I found some practice multiple choice tests, so I did those. Then I went to the DMV to pick up the application form because for some stupid reason you couldn't download the PDF, you had to either go get a copy or get it mailed to you; not sure if they've out it online since 2015.

When there, I was planning to just get the form and come back with it later, but the woman handing me the form was urging me to just do it since there wasn't really a wait. I figured I may as do it since the practice tests had turned out super easy and I was done all in one shot. Was very happy I didn't waste my time poring over the CA manual.

I still have no idea what the person telling me it was super duper necessary to study the entire manual was on about, made me kind of wonder about this person's driving ability that they considered the multiple choice test so hard. I learned precisely one new piece of information from the practice tests and it was that you're supposed to hit the freeway already going full speed coming off the on ramp, which I think is the opposite of what most states tell you to do (more of a high-speed yield).

It did, shamefully, take me two tries on the multiple choice test because I very narrowly missed on the first attempt over a couple of questions like whether the following distance is 100 ft vs 200 ft in certain situations; I've never had a great sense of stuff like visually gauging what constitutes 100 vs 200 ft but I know how to leave a healthy amount of space between me and the car in front of me just fine.

I had a similar experience moving my Ohio license to California. IIRC I missed three questions on the multiple choice section:

* Speed limit in school zones. I said 20 mph, but it's actually 25 mph.
* Something about driving with a 3 axle truck, even though this was a normal car license?
* How to cross train tracks with a motorcycle. Actually I think I got this one right, but WTF was the question doing there when the license wouldn't qualify me to drive a motorcycle?

I don't remember stuff like the 3 axle truck and motorcycle questions but yeah, from what I recall the ones I missed were all minutiae points, either stuff like that school zone speed limit question that varies slightly state to state, or stuff like my 100 ft vs 200 ft example where I think knowing "leave a lot of space" is more important than being able to recall precisely how many feet of space to give based on the exact speed you're going and whether or not it's raining. If there were ones like the 3 axle truck or motorcycle questions on mine though then it would definitely help to explain why I needed to try twice to pass.

Those really stood out to me as not making sense for a car license. I guess they just had a huge bank of questions from the DMV handbook and randomly selected them. I probably would have got a length based following distance wrong too. I'm also bad at estimating distances, but in driver's education they drilled time-based following distances into us, e.g. 3 second following distance in most circumstances. So I have no idea how many feet behind I'm supposed to follow, which would depend on speed anyway.

 

[adamsc]

Usually machine are designed to operate in a safety range. If 100 mph is that limit why not limit the speed mechanically in all car?

That would last ~10 minutes because making it illegal to work on your own car in the US is a non-starter.

If mechanics lost their business license for tampering with safety equipment, this would be pretty effective. There will always be cheating but 90% of people are going to stick with the defaults and that’s a lot of lives saved every year.

You don't need a business license to modify a car.

There are so many things that complicate this type of safety system. If states get to pick their own limits then the odds are, these will end up ECU limited and that's just defeated by any jackass with a laptop.

Defaults matter: most car owners do not modify them - it’s the same reason why emissions controls are worth having even if the boy-racers remove them. If you could make businesses not touch the governors, it won’t stop everyone but it’d stop most people — especially since it’d prove intention to drive unsafely when a vehicle involved a crash is shown to have been modified.

 

[Mardaneus]

Enforcing speed limits and lowering speed limits is the best action to lower fatalities.

It's an effective action up to a point and in certain circumstances (e.g. it doesn't make a huge difference* on motorways, but is very effective in urban areas where cars, pedestrians, and cyclists share the same road space), but better driver education is much more effective. The UK has a much, much better road safety record than the US, as does much of Northern Europe, and I think that's largely down to our much harder driving tests.

*To accidents. Over here we have very congested motorways and speed limits can be an effective method of maximising capacity.

Road design also plays a part.
For example last year the converted two parallel roads unlocking the neighborhood, one to left one to right of where I live, here into one direction roads. They apparently calculated that they could also remove the wrong direction lane and still have enough throughput to not cause a congestion. But that are all minor things. The trick they did was to place the parking lots alternation left and right of the road basically getting a chicane for every 30 or so meters of road. You can still drive 80 km/h, 50ish mph, (limit is 50 km/h or 35ish mph) on these roads but the design stops people from doing that because it feels dangerous by having this concrete barrier (hiding as a holder for some shrub) showing up every 30 meters. Contrast that with US roads used to unlock neighborhoods that to me seem to be more like highways with intersections and if you are (un)lucky traffic lights.

[edit]added: unlocking the neighborhood, one to left one to right of where I live,
added: intersections and if you are (un)lucky
[/edit]

 

[graylshaped]

Speeds however were way slower than I was used to, I would hurtle downs the lanes that I knew like the back of my hand at what were, retrospectively, insanely dangerous speeds. In London I barely used anything other than 1st and 2nd.

Good defensive driving comes about when you realise that your younger self may be behind the wheel of the car around the next corner.

That's a great way to put it.

California no longer gives a "driver's license" to youth 16-18. They receive a provisional license that restricts who they can have in the car with them, reasons for driving, and time of day. After enactment of those, traffic deaths in that age group went down substantially.

Yep, there's that.

And also 16-to-18-year-old drivers are known in the state of California to cause cancer.

Ulcers, not cancer, but I catch your Prop 65 drift...

 

[real mikeb_60]

"One culprit may well be reckless driving."

Ya think?

That's certainly true where I live. The cops are demoralized and aren't enforcing driving violations. Not only did I have this "feeling," a personal friend who's a lieutenant on our police force told me so. And the nuts know it and drive accordingly.

The lack of speed (especially) enforcement has been a thing in local law enforcement since long before the pandemic. It's usually situational - might station a motorcycle cop or 2 around the high school at quitting time, for instance, in a futile attempt to get people to drive within 10-15 mph of the school zone limit. A lot of that appears to be due to staffing; most departments react to calls, and always have a few on the list, so whenever you see a police SUV (they don't use cars any more) it's heading for a call, not "cruising" for traffic enforcement.

As you say, the nuts (who seem to be a large proportion of the drivers in my town) know this and drive accordingly. It's rare to find somebody on suburban arterials (typical speed limits 40-50mph) who drives less than 10 over, though the exceptions are usually 10 under.

The result of all this is the use of the pejorative "road boulder" to describe a person who drives less than 10 over the speed limit. The name derives from the perceived need to weave around them when driving 20 or more over. Driving the speed limit must be done only in the slow lane, because doing so in any other lane (especially of a freeway) will obstruct traffic flow (and often obstructs flow even in the "slow" lane).

Add the modern demand for tall, tippy SUVs and pickups, and the momentum that must be dissipated when hitting something is much greater than it used to be. The protective gear for the meatbags inside and (rarely) out are designed for collisions at lower speeds than are now common. Result: more of the collisions are fatal. If we all drove vehicles with the structure and seat belts of a NASCAR beast, perhaps we could survive more of the high-speed wrecks. We don't, so we don't.

 

[davey_w]

My friends from Half Moon Bay, CA just moved to Madison, CT and can't believe how crazy the New Haven drivers are. The speed limit on I-95 from New Haven to the New York border is 55mph, and 65mph from New Haven to the Rhode Island border. But drivers do 70-75 in the center lane, when it's 3-lanes, or the right lane when it's 2, and 80+ in the left lane. Same for the 55mph parkways, which are 2-lanes in each direction. No need to spend all that time driving through this state.

 

[real mikeb_60]

Usually machine are designed to operate in a safety range. If 100 mph is that limit why not limit the speed mechanically in all car?

That would last ~10 minutes because making it illegal to work on your own car in the US is a non-starter.

If mechanics lost their business license for tampering with safety equipment, this would be pretty effective. There will always be cheating but 90% of people are going to stick with the defaults and that’s a lot of lives saved every year.

You don't need a business license to modify a car.

There are so many things that complicate this type of safety system. If states get to pick their own limits then the odds are, these will end up ECU limited and that's just defeated by any jackass with a laptop.

Defaults matter: most car owners do not modify them - it’s the same reason why emissions controls are worth having even if the boy-racers remove them. If you could make businesses not touch the governors, it won’t stop everyone but it’d stop most people — especially since it’d prove intention to drive unsafely when a vehicle involved a crash is shown to have been modified.

There was a period in the late 1970s and early 1980s when US cars were not allowed to have a speedometer that read more than 85 mph. Many US automakers bought strongly into that, with a stop pin at 85, and specified poor-quality tires that were barely capable of staying together at that speed. Porsche (and possibly a few others) used the same speedometer in the US that they used in Europe; it just had no numbers past 85 on the US dial face. Was rather obvious...

 

[Mardaneus]

I lived in the US for a while.

I got rear-ended several times while sitting at red lights
- Ford Explorer vs my Z3
- Mercedes vs my MR2.
- F150 vs my E30 325iS
- Smart car vs my 330i

Another F15 trimmed the nose off my Toyota Matrix as I sat waiting to turn left at some lights by cutting the corner and another 'driver' in a Toyota SUV damaged every panel on one side of my MINI in a parking lot.

There were others, but those are the (low) highlights.

I narrowly avoided many, many terrible freeway drivers, one of which barrel rolled on the I5 in a straight line - this takes some skill, but it was a big Cadillac SUV and I think the driver twitched to avoid something, or dropped their phone, and then over-corrected several times and then pitched into an 80mph barrel-roll. Quite the sight - wish I'd had a dash cam...

I put it down to the driving / testing standards, which by my euro standards are pathetic.

When I took my 'test' in CA in 2000, the examiner literally could not fit in my Z3, she was way too large. So she had me driver around the parking lot and then watched as I drove up and down the road.

The multi-choice questions were laughable.

One such question is

You must file a Report of Traffic Accident Occurring in California ( SR 1) with DMV when:

the possible answers are

- Your vehicle fails a smog test
- The are involved in an injury crash
- you change your insurance company

Assuming you get 86%, you are good to go..

Seriously, how stupid do you have to be to fail the multi-choice ?

When I took my motorbike test, this was even more laughable.

I turned up an a borrowed GSXR1100R, a beast of a bike that hated running at low revs.

The 'examiner' had me ride a loop around a coned-off area behind the DMV, then ride in a straight line to the end of the range and back and when he held up his clip board I had to stop. Finally I rode a lazy slalom between about a dozen cones and was awarded a license.

Later I took the MSF course for that sweet 10% insurance discount.

In the UK, the testing procedure for both is extensive and includes rigorous on-road tests that last 40minutes or so and some fairly tough questions. The bike test in the UK is very intensive, allied to a graduated licensing, it means that a 17yo kid cannot legally ride a GSXR1000 or similar loony bike and thus they tend to stay alive a little longer....

When I moved to California, I only had to do the multi choice since I was transferring my license from within the US, and someone was strongly suggesting that I study the entire DMV booklet. When looking up the booklet I found some practice multiple choice tests, so I did those. Then I went to the DMV to pick up the application form because for some stupid reason you couldn't download the PDF, you had to either go get a copy or get it mailed to you; not sure if they've out it online since 2015.

When there, I was planning to just get the form and come back with it later, but the woman handing me the form was urging me to just do it since there wasn't really a wait. I figured I may as do it since the practice tests had turned out super easy and I was done all in one shot. Was very happy I didn't waste my time poring over the CA manual.

I still have no idea what the person telling me it was super duper necessary to study the entire manual was on about, made me kind of wonder about this person's driving ability that they considered the multiple choice test so hard. I learned precisely one new piece of information from the practice tests and it was that you're supposed to hit the freeway already going full speed coming off the on ramp, which I think is the opposite of what most states tell you to do (more of a high-speed yield).

It did, shamefully, take me two tries on the multiple choice test because I very narrowly missed on the first attempt over a couple of questions like whether the following distance is 100 ft vs 200 ft in certain situations; I've never had a great sense of stuff like visually gauging what constitutes 100 vs 200 ft but I know how to leave a healthy amount of space between me and the car in front of me just fine.

I had a similar experience moving my Ohio license to California. IIRC I missed three questions on the multiple choice section:

* Speed limit in school zones. I said 20 mph, but it's actually 25 mph.
* Something about driving with a 3 axle truck, even though this was a normal car license?
* How to cross train tracks with a motorcycle. Actually I think I got this one right, but WTF was the question doing there when the license wouldn't qualify me to drive a motorcycle?

Question 2 seems to be and question 3 is about you knowing how other traffic behaves or rather should behave. Which to me is rather important to see if you can drive safely.

 

[Threadripper3]

Something that blew my mind here In Edmonton . There was cop on the radio doing a type of ask me anything .

He stated that in a situation where a person is speeding in the right hand lane to pass someone driving the speed limit in the left lane , he would go after the person driving the speed limit in the left lane first for not yielding to faster traffic


Up to this point I was always under the impression that the right/left hand rule was never a pass for people to speed

 

[ALittleTeapot]

Lowering speed limits? Just how many cases are there where a speed limit being too high resulted in an accident/death? Seems obvious that the vast majority of the time it isn't the speed limit being too high that is the issue, it is the driver ignoring the speed limit.

Indeed. The problem is that faffing around with official speed limits is a very cheap and visible way of being seen to do something. Proper road and vehicle design, driver training, law enforcement, and so on is expensive, takes time to pay off, and when it actually works no-one even notices you've done anything. So it's unfortunately not at all surprising which option politicians tend to pick.

There was a perfect example around here a few years ago. Lots of windy country roads with the default 60 mph speed limit*. For some reason they decided to lower the limit on most of the roads in the local area to 50 mph. A couple of weeks after the new signs had gone up, a couple of teenagers killed themselves failing to take a corner at about 90 mph. A couple of weeks after that, the speed limits everywhere were lowered to 40 mph. Obviously this did absolutely nothing to address the cause of the accident or prevent similar ones in the future. But when the local council is faced with headlines saying "Young couple dies on dangerous county roads", the immediate response is not to say they'll lobby the national government to improve driver training.


* In the UK lots of roads don't have a specific limit set and instead fall under national guidelines for default speed limits. Which technically means you have to understand the rules and work it out for yourself based on the type of road, but in practice it's almost always 60 outside residential areas.

 

[Mardaneus]

Something that blew my mind here In Edmonton . There was cop on the radio doing a type of ask me anything .

He stated that in a situation where a person is speeding in the right hand lane to pass someone driving the speed limit in the left lane , he would go after the person driving the speed limit in the left lane first for not yielding to faster traffic


Up to this point I was always under the impression that the right/left hand rule was never a pass for people to speed

The reason is that the person in staying the left lane without a reason is a bigger danger then the speeder.
The speeder in the example went and added added overtaking on the right to the ticket they'd receive. Another might end up rear ending the sticky left driver in the expectation that they will move to the 'slow' lane before that happens.
They also induced the speeder to endanger other traffic by doing the over taking on the right. if one can do that more can and will follow.
It doesn't give a free pass to the speeder it is prioritizing who is a bigger danger (there likely also the unspoken caveat of the speeder is only 10 or 15 more then the limit instead)

 

[mmiller7]

Makes sense.

Fewer people out means less congestion and higher speeds...there have been near daily incidents closing the major highways in my immediate area.

Also the "essential" people who are out and about likely are much more tired while driving...I know I haven't slept well (and didn't really sleep most nights the first couple months of it) plus its hard to think straight when everything you looked forward to doing or people seeing is cancelled...all work and no play doesn't make for good thinking.

Plus the people who have to haul the essential supplies that are so in demand are pushed to do more faster and likely over-taxed on hours at the wheel.

None of it is good for sanity or clear thought. There's basically no happiness and nothing to look forward to in sight. Only thing keeping me going is the massive to-do list I have at home since we bought a house and so much work needs to be done 7 days a week...but its not leaving me rested or happy just keeping me occupied.

 

[hestermofet]

Usually machine are designed to operate in a safety range. If 100 mph is that limit why not limit the speed mechanically in all car?

That would last ~10 minutes because making it illegal to work on your own car in the US is a non-starter.

If mechanics lost their business license for tampering with safety equipment, this would be pretty effective. There will always be cheating but 90% of people are going to stick with the defaults and that’s a lot of lives saved every year.

I think this also misses the real issue. Is 100mph that much safer than 105? 110?

Yes. Kinetic energy increases exponentially with velocity.

Great. So why not limit cars to 85? Then a couple decades later we can campaign for 80 because, as someone who missed the point once said, "Kinetic energy increases exponentially with velocity.".

You had two points in your post, one, there's no use limiting speeds mechanically/electronically. I agree, that's why I didn't quote or respond to that point. Your other point was just plain dumb and flies in the face of the laws of physics, so I responded to it. Your second point is not the reason why your first point is valid. It's just a stupid point. You can be right about something, but your reasoning why you think it's right can be wrong.

And if you are talking about people missing the point, you yourself claimed that focusing on mechanically/electronically limiting speeds is "missing the real issue" which is that there is no difference in safety between 100 MPH and 110 MPH. Which is patently stupid.

 

[graylshaped]

Something that blew my mind here In Edmonton . There was cop on the radio doing a type of ask me anything .

He stated that in a situation where a person is speeding in the right hand lane to pass someone driving the speed limit in the left lane , he would go after the person driving the speed limit in the left lane first for not yielding to faster traffic


Up to this point I was always under the impression that the right/left hand rule was never a pass for people to speed

Obstruction of traffic is a quality of life issue for citizens. Rudy has the positive reputation he does--to the extent he hasn't pissed it away--because William Bratton focused heavily on quality of life issues in NYC and brought overall crime down.

Mind you, Rudy wanted all the credit for that, but that's a longer discussion.

 

[mmiller7]

Something that blew my mind here In Edmonton . There was cop on the radio doing a type of ask me anything .

He stated that in a situation where a person is speeding in the right hand lane to pass someone driving the speed limit in the left lane , he would go after the person driving the speed limit in the left lane first for not yielding to faster traffic


Up to this point I was always under the impression that the right/left hand rule was never a pass for people to speed

Obstruction of traffic is a quality of life issue for citizens. Rudy has the positive reputation he does--to the extent he hasn't pissed it away--because William Bratton focused heavily on quality of life issues in NYC and brought overall crime down.

Mind you, Rudy wanted all the credit for that, but that's a longer discussion.

I know the DMV handbook here says you aren't allowed to speed even to pass, makes it quite clear.

Bigger question I have is when you are already overtaking slower traffic modestly (common with trucks in the right lane, faster cars to the left) and some nutter decides they want to go EVEN FASTER so they start weaving because +10 over passing with everyone else in the conga line isn't good enough...so who's wrong? Should the whole line of people passing slow down very significantly to get out of the way of the person weaving? What if that means cutting directly into the person who's weaving because they aren't leaving a safe margin before they cut over?

 

[hestermofet]

I'm also bad at estimating distances, but in driver's education they drilled time-based following distances into us, e.g. 3 second following distance in most circumstances. So I have no idea how many feet behind I'm supposed to follow, which would depend on speed anyway.

This is why a distance based question is just plain missing the point. The safe distance depends on the velocity, plus your reaction time. Driver's ed has it right, your following distance should be based on time, not physical distance.

 

[Threadripper3]

Something that blew my mind here In Edmonton . There was cop on the radio doing a type of ask me anything .

He stated that in a situation where a person is speeding in the right hand lane to pass someone driving the speed limit in the left lane , he would go after the person driving the speed limit in the left lane first for not yielding to faster traffic


Up to this point I was always under the impression that the right/left hand rule was never a pass for people to speed

The reason is that the person in staying the left lane without a reason is a bigger danger then the speeder.
The speeder in the example went and added added overtaking on the right to the ticket they'd receive. Another might end up rear ending the sticky left driver in the expectation that they will move to the 'slow' lane before that happens.
They also induced the speeder to endanger other traffic by doing the over taking on the right. if one can do that more can and will follow.
It doesn't give a free pass to the speeder it is prioritizing who is a bigger danger (there likely also the unspoken caveat of the speeder is only 10 or 15 more then the limit instead)

I can only speak to my observations , but in many cases what I see is the guy cruising in the left lane already going 10-15 above to pass slow right hand traffic, it’s the guy that is going 30-40km above that feels he should get to pass faster . And it’s this person who is usually driving aggressive and up people asses at all times

 

[LiquidCrash]

Tech can also affect driving habits. Apps that notify users of police ahead give them confidence to drive faster when there's not an alert. Also, some users are trying to "beat" the estimated time of arrival from those apps. This year Waze updated their software to adjust ETAs to your normal driving speed (compared to the posted speed limits) and if drivers try to beat the estimated time of arrival, then the software adjusts the next ETA to a faster average driving speed, it can be a feedback loop of trying to beat yourself. (I don't do this, just an observation.)

 

[sword_9mm]

I don't even think the issue is speed more so reckless driving.

We have an interstate loop around the city that's basically referred to as a 'speedway' since the minimum limit seems to be 75- whatever the car can do if it's night. They don't see too many accidents cause the loop isn't as congested except in certain parts at certain times of day which by itself limits speed in those areas to a quick 30mph or less. Usually MUCH less.

So I'd rather see the guy weaving in and out of traffic at 70mph pulled over and not the guy at midnight doing 90 on an empty freeway.

Most freeways (IME in this corner of the world) are good to around 85 when lightly trafficked and probably 100 or more when empty in the dead of 2am. Now there are some parkways that are basically gravel and holes which are bad in some sections going 60.

 

[brmach1]

Alternatively, we could just enforce our current speed limits. Decreasing the posted limit from 65 to 60 won't change much where the de facto limit is 73.

Wyoming increased their speed limit to 80, yet highway deaths decreased. Given that (and other evidence) it's not obvious to me that speed (within reason) is the problem we should be worrying about.

It's obvious that distracted driving, alcohol, lack of sleep lay at the core of traffic deaths in the US. The question is how do we address this? Looking at speed to me is throwing up our hands and saying: Well people will act irresponsibly, let's have them drive as slow as we can to minimize death when they eventually crash!

Maybe this is actually the right answer...I'm just trying to give more credit to humanity.....

 

[watermeloncup]

I lived in the US for a while.

I got rear-ended several times while sitting at red lights
- Ford Explorer vs my Z3
- Mercedes vs my MR2.
- F150 vs my E30 325iS
- Smart car vs my 330i

Another F15 trimmed the nose off my Toyota Matrix as I sat waiting to turn left at some lights by cutting the corner and another 'driver' in a Toyota SUV damaged every panel on one side of my MINI in a parking lot.

There were others, but those are the (low) highlights.

I narrowly avoided many, many terrible freeway drivers, one of which barrel rolled on the I5 in a straight line - this takes some skill, but it was a big Cadillac SUV and I think the driver twitched to avoid something, or dropped their phone, and then over-corrected several times and then pitched into an 80mph barrel-roll. Quite the sight - wish I'd had a dash cam...

I put it down to the driving / testing standards, which by my euro standards are pathetic.

When I took my 'test' in CA in 2000, the examiner literally could not fit in my Z3, she was way too large. So she had me driver around the parking lot and then watched as I drove up and down the road.

The multi-choice questions were laughable.

One such question is

You must file a Report of Traffic Accident Occurring in California ( SR 1) with DMV when:

the possible answers are

- Your vehicle fails a smog test
- The are involved in an injury crash
- you change your insurance company

Assuming you get 86%, you are good to go..

Seriously, how stupid do you have to be to fail the multi-choice ?

When I took my motorbike test, this was even more laughable.

I turned up an a borrowed GSXR1100R, a beast of a bike that hated running at low revs.

The 'examiner' had me ride a loop around a coned-off area behind the DMV, then ride in a straight line to the end of the range and back and when he held up his clip board I had to stop. Finally I rode a lazy slalom between about a dozen cones and was awarded a license.

Later I took the MSF course for that sweet 10% insurance discount.

In the UK, the testing procedure for both is extensive and includes rigorous on-road tests that last 40minutes or so and some fairly tough questions. The bike test in the UK is very intensive, allied to a graduated licensing, it means that a 17yo kid cannot legally ride a GSXR1000 or similar loony bike and thus they tend to stay alive a little longer....

When I moved to California, I only had to do the multi choice since I was transferring my license from within the US, and someone was strongly suggesting that I study the entire DMV booklet. When looking up the booklet I found some practice multiple choice tests, so I did those. Then I went to the DMV to pick up the application form because for some stupid reason you couldn't download the PDF, you had to either go get a copy or get it mailed to you; not sure if they've out it online since 2015.

When there, I was planning to just get the form and come back with it later, but the woman handing me the form was urging me to just do it since there wasn't really a wait. I figured I may as do it since the practice tests had turned out super easy and I was done all in one shot. Was very happy I didn't waste my time poring over the CA manual.

I still have no idea what the person telling me it was super duper necessary to study the entire manual was on about, made me kind of wonder about this person's driving ability that they considered the multiple choice test so hard. I learned precisely one new piece of information from the practice tests and it was that you're supposed to hit the freeway already going full speed coming off the on ramp, which I think is the opposite of what most states tell you to do (more of a high-speed yield).

It did, shamefully, take me two tries on the multiple choice test because I very narrowly missed on the first attempt over a couple of questions like whether the following distance is 100 ft vs 200 ft in certain situations; I've never had a great sense of stuff like visually gauging what constitutes 100 vs 200 ft but I know how to leave a healthy amount of space between me and the car in front of me just fine.

I had a similar experience moving my Ohio license to California. IIRC I missed three questions on the multiple choice section:

* Speed limit in school zones. I said 20 mph, but it's actually 25 mph.
* Something about driving with a 3 axle truck, even though this was a normal car license?
* How to cross train tracks with a motorcycle. Actually I think I got this one right, but WTF was the question doing there when the license wouldn't qualify me to drive a motorcycle?

Question 2 seems to be and question 3 is about you knowing how other traffic behaves or rather should behave. Which to me is rather important to see if you can drive safely.

Hmm that's a good point. If you are behind a motorcycle crossing train tracks it would be good to know why they're crossing them at a funny angle. I wish I remembered what the question was about the 3 axle truck. It seemed very esoteric at the time.

 

[hestermofet]

But it's pretty shocking that the fatality rates went up SO MUCH considering how much the miles driven went down. According to current speculation, much of that was due to higher average freeway speeds in general. But on what kind of streets were most of the accidents? Freeways?

Another factor is that most compliant folks tend to drive smaller vehicles.

Large SUV's and pick-ups have more inherent kinetic energy than smaller vehicles, and that energy has to go somewhere in a crash (often into the cabs, since trucks aren't built to the same crash safety standards as cars are, relying on more material to slow down over a longer period - rendered moot in higher-speed crashes, of course).

I expect the reasons behind the shocking increase in fatalities and accidents will involve a combination of these factors - not just one or two.

This is a big factor a lot of the speculation seems to be missing. American truck design over the last decade has been towards bigger, more aggressive, flatter front fascia. A big imposing face to your big imposing truck. No need to make it aerodynamic to meet fuel economy standards. But a lot more masculine for your beefcake truck shopper. These noses are flat and extend to forever, making them much harder to see the road in front.

Combine this with A LOT more people going out for walks now, because they're stuck at home and leisure walks are one of the FEW ways we can legally get out of the house, and boom, pedestrian and cyclist fatalities and injuries skyrocket. I wouldn't be surprised if the sharp increase in fatal accidents didn't involve crashes with more than one car.

People complain about this a lot, but the simple fact is the OEMs don't want to design a different front end for diesel and non-diesel applications. I used to own a truck with a 5.9L Cummins straight 6 -- there was NO spare room in the engine bay. It's just a very, very long engine, and you can't exactly mount it lower or at an angle.

Semis have sloped front ends because the cab sits partially OVER the engine. It works out.

Like it or hate it, with the push for larger and larger trailers you'll have demand for larger and larger engines. Which require larger front ends.

Sooo.... an acceptable excuse to you for why pedestrian deaths are disproportionately high in the US compared to other passenger vehicle markets due to overly large fascias is that it's because OEMs are too lazy to make two different designs?

Having never hit anyone with either a Ford Focus or a 3/4 ton pickup, I can't honestly say I ever felt a need for an excuse. I also would like to see numbers regarding pedestrian deaths being solely due to the larger fascia.

I'd like to see first evidence that ever larger fascias is because engines are too large, and not because of dumb marketing to testosterone driven purchasing decisions.

 

[brmach1]

I don't even think the issue is speed more so reckless driving.

We have an interstate loop around the city that's basically referred to as a 'speedway' since the minimum limit seems to be 75- whatever the car can do if it's night. They don't see too many accidents cause the loop isn't as congested except in certain parts at certain times of day which by itself limits speed in those areas to a quick 30mph or less. Usually MUCH less.

So I'd rather see the guy weaving in and out of traffic at 70mph pulled over and not the guy at midnight doing 90 on an empty freeway.

Most freeways (IME in this corner of the world) are good to around 85 when lightly trafficked and probably 100 or more when empty in the dead of 2am. Now there are some parkways that are basically gravel and holes which are bad in some sections going 60.

This is exactly what some highway patrols are starting to focus on, and it's worth highlighting. Reckless driving is not driving at 90 mph with no one around...it's driving 60, weaving through traffic, cutting everyone off, etc etc (we've all seen "that guy"). These drivers should lose their license in my view.

 

[real mikeb_60]

Something that blew my mind here In Edmonton . There was cop on the radio doing a type of ask me anything .

He stated that in a situation where a person is speeding in the right hand lane to pass someone driving the speed limit in the left lane , he would go after the person driving the speed limit in the left lane first for not yielding to faster traffic


Up to this point I was always under the impression that the right/left hand rule was never a pass for people to speed

Obstruction of traffic is a quality of life issue for citizens. Rudy has the positive reputation he does--to the extent he hasn't pissed it away--because William Bratton focused heavily on quality of life issues in NYC and brought overall crime down.

Mind you, Rudy wanted all the credit for that, but that's a longer discussion.

I know the DMV handbook here says you aren't allowed to speed even to pass, makes it quite clear.

Bigger question I have is when you are already overtaking slower traffic modestly (common with trucks in the right lane, faster cars to the left) and some nutter decides they want to go EVEN FASTER so they start weaving because +10 over passing with everyone else in the conga line isn't good enough...so who's wrong? Should the whole line of people passing slow down very significantly to get out of the way of the person weaving? What if that means cutting directly into the person who's weaving because they aren't leaving a safe margin before they cut over?

If a group of cops wanted to be pedantic, they would pull that whole conga line over and give them tickets for obstructing traffic. Potentially, the rule about the person at the front of a line of 6 or more vehicles (usually applied to 2 lane roads where passing is difficult or impossible) could be added to the ticket for the one in the front of the line. Then, finally, add speeding to the tickets. Yes, all of that would be legal and possible, though getting that whole line to the shoulder and issuing the tickets would take time, several cops, and massively mess up the rest of traffic while they were doing it, so it almost certainly would never happen, but in fact it's possible.

In the olde dayze, in rural areas or small towns, one needed to watch for radar and/or police or highway patrol parked on the onramp where you couldn't see them easily. They would drop in and peel people off the back of those speed lines for convenient and unbeatable (because you were probably from out of town and couldn't get to traffic court to fight the ticket) revenue generation. Some places (like Oregon) had fleets of unmarked highway patrol vehicles and targeted out of state plates (especially California) that were in those speed lines (of in-state plates).

Sometimes the tickets can be beaten. One day a CHP officer decided to take on the commute bus fleet. On an up and down hill section, there was a place where most bus drivers would let it roll down a hill, reaching perhaps 5 over (in traffic that was otherwise 10+ over, outside of peak time), to get a jump on the uphill across the creek. Without doing that, they would often have to gear down for the uphill and obstruct traffic. The cop was pulling nearly every bus over (and only buses) and ticketing them for 1-5 over. A speeding ticket for a bus driver is often a career-limiting event. So they all turned up in court on their scheduled date. The officer didn't. The judge asked how many there were bus drivers ticketed on that day for small violations at that location; nearly the whole room stood up. Dismissed. Heard from the driver on my regular bus, who was part of the group.

 

[mmiller7]

I'm also bad at estimating distances, but in driver's education they drilled time-based following distances into us, e.g. 3 second following distance in most circumstances. So I have no idea how many feet behind I'm supposed to follow, which would depend on speed anyway.

This is why a distance based question is just plain missing the point. The safe distance depends on the velocity, plus your reaction time. Driver's ed has it right, your following distance should be based on time, not physical distance.

Yep...and a TON of people I see might be 0.25 second behind the car ahead of them on the highway going 70mph...sometimes its hard to tell if they are following or being towed...

 

[Threadripper3]

To me , what I really want to see on the road is people embrace the idea of maintaining a cruising speed and leave a lot of space in front . Like many , I don’t think speed is the thing we should focus on despite that it is the easiest enforcement opportunity.

Unfortunately, enforcing the concept of getting people to calm the fuck down and relax is hard

It’s also hard to practice what I preach . There is only so much I can handle where I try to leave a safe distance ahead of me only to see aggressive drivers always fill the spot only to ultimately travel at the same speed I am following the guy ahead anyway .

 

[Threadripper3]

I'm also bad at estimating distances, but in driver's education they drilled time-based following distances into us, e.g. 3 second following distance in most circumstances. So I have no idea how many feet behind I'm supposed to follow, which would depend on speed anyway.

This is why a distance based question is just plain missing the point. The safe distance depends on the velocity, plus your reaction time. Driver's ed has it right, your following distance should be based on time, not physical distance.

Yep...and a TON of people I see might be 0.25 second behind the car ahead of them on the highway going 70mph...sometimes its hard to tell if they are following or being towed...

Used to be 2 seconds rule , but I think they preach 3 now

 

[real mikeb_60]

I'm also bad at estimating distances, but in driver's education they drilled time-based following distances into us, e.g. 3 second following distance in most circumstances. So I have no idea how many feet behind I'm supposed to follow, which would depend on speed anyway.

This is why a distance based question is just plain missing the point. The safe distance depends on the velocity, plus your reaction time. Driver's ed has it right, your following distance should be based on time, not physical distance.

Yep...and a TON of people I see might be 0.25 second behind the car ahead of them on the highway going 70mph...sometimes its hard to tell if they are following or being towed...

They're trying to minimize fuel consumption by drafting. /s of course

 

[graylshaped]

Something that blew my mind here In Edmonton . There was cop on the radio doing a type of ask me anything .

He stated that in a situation where a person is speeding in the right hand lane to pass someone driving the speed limit in the left lane , he would go after the person driving the speed limit in the left lane first for not yielding to faster traffic


Up to this point I was always under the impression that the right/left hand rule was never a pass for people to speed

Obstruction of traffic is a quality of life issue for citizens. Rudy has the positive reputation he does--to the extent he hasn't pissed it away--because William Bratton focused heavily on quality of life issues in NYC and brought overall crime down.

Mind you, Rudy wanted all the credit for that, but that's a longer discussion.

I know the DMV handbook here says you aren't allowed to speed even to pass, makes it quite clear.

Bigger question I have is when you are already overtaking slower traffic modestly (common with trucks in the right lane, faster cars to the left) and some nutter decides they want to go EVEN FASTER so they start weaving because +10 over passing with everyone else in the conga line isn't good enough...so who's wrong? Should the whole line of people passing slow down very significantly to get out of the way of the person weaving? What if that means cutting directly into the person who's weaving because they aren't leaving a safe margin before they cut over?

Having attended traffic school following a lazy pause at a stop sign, I can relay what I was told by the CHP officer teaching the class: Unless you are traveling significantly faster than the other cars, they pay more attention to stupid lane choices (don't sit in the passing lane, don't weave in and out), and the ancillary risks like a lack of seatbelt and phone usage while driving.

And don't think for a moment they can't see the glow from the phone's screen on your face.

 

[mmiller7]

I'm also bad at estimating distances, but in driver's education they drilled time-based following distances into us, e.g. 3 second following distance in most circumstances. So I have no idea how many feet behind I'm supposed to follow, which would depend on speed anyway.

This is why a distance based question is just plain missing the point. The safe distance depends on the velocity, plus your reaction time. Driver's ed has it right, your following distance should be based on time, not physical distance.

Yep...and a TON of people I see might be 0.25 second behind the car ahead of them on the highway going 70mph...sometimes its hard to tell if they are following or being towed...

They're trying to minimize fuel consumption by drafting. /s of course

Drafting does work (I've got some nuts MPG following trucks) but you don't need to be THAT close. Just being ~2 seconds behind a semi seems to be quite effective at reducing enough drag to be noticed over a couple hour highway trip on cruise.

 

[sword_9mm]

I don't even think the issue is speed more so reckless driving.

We have an interstate loop around the city that's basically referred to as a 'speedway' since the minimum limit seems to be 75- whatever the car can do if it's night. They don't see too many accidents cause the loop isn't as congested except in certain parts at certain times of day which by itself limits speed in those areas to a quick 30mph or less. Usually MUCH less.

So I'd rather see the guy weaving in and out of traffic at 70mph pulled over and not the guy at midnight doing 90 on an empty freeway.

Most freeways (IME in this corner of the world) are good to around 85 when lightly trafficked and probably 100 or more when empty in the dead of 2am. Now there are some parkways that are basically gravel and holes which are bad in some sections going 60.

This is exactly what some highway patrols are starting to focus on, and it's worth highlighting. Reckless driving is not driving at 90 mph with no one around...it's driving 60, weaving through traffic, cutting everyone off, etc etc (we've all seen "that guy"). These drivers should lose their license in my view.

Yep. 'That guy' is always there in rush hour. Trying to get that 10 second earlier arrival time..

I don't know if I'd take the license on first offense since mass transit is an affront to deity in the USA but I'd have some decent fines when getting pulled over and even the 'you can only go to work/home' DUI thing if you go for too many offenses.

Folks still need to get to work and all that. It's a tight rope I guess.

 

[Bloater51]

I'm also bad at estimating distances, but in driver's education they drilled time-based following distances into us, e.g. 3 second following distance in most circumstances. So I have no idea how many feet behind I'm supposed to follow, which would depend on speed anyway.

This is why a distance based question is just plain missing the point. The safe distance depends on the velocity, plus your reaction time. Driver's ed has it right, your following distance should be based on time, not physical distance.

Yep...and a TON of people I see might be 0.25 second behind the car ahead of them on the highway going 70mph...sometimes its hard to tell if they are following or being towed...

I recall once watching someone tailgating at about 60 mph on a fast road, then realised that they really were being towed. With a rope.