Fjones
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Dec 5, 2008
- Messages
- 3,326
Okay, I finally have time to reply. Heuristic, I hope you are still with us here in this discussion. I tried to press “quote” but it made it confusing; as parts were then out of context without the original pieces that your replies were referring to. So, I pasted the entire thing. I hope this is not confusing. My new points are in Bold. The most recent replies by Heuristic, to which I am replying, are iitalicized. By the way, I am pretty certain I have said everything here before. I feel like I am repeating myself.
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Perhaps not. But, you said something to the effect of, "You don't seem to have any idea what the results will be of raising the speed limit to 80 MPH," when in fact, I have addressed that exact scenario many times throughout this thread. Hence, my remark asking if you have read the thread at all.
Fjones, you have stated your belief that, due to better equipment and roads, an increase in the speed limit will not result in what you think to be a significant increase in road fatalities, injuries, or damage resulting from accidents. But that's all you've stated. I don't see any studies on the matter being cited. You raised the autobahn, which I'll address below.
Actually, my main point was that with increased speed limits (that are actually ENFORCED), there would be few additional fatalities, because a lot of people already speed. There would just be less revenue from tickets.
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The autobahn in Germany does have unrestricted portions, or portions with a recommended speed of somewhere around 80mph. I'm not sure why you think that would translate into no greater number of fatalities/serious injuries/serious damage accidents, though.
I believe I have been rather clear in addressing this point as well.
You haven't. I have not seen any cites to any sources regarding, for example, rates of German auto insurance, fatality/accident rates on the autobahn, etc.
I believe that people are perfectly capable of driving 80 MPH on multi-lane highways, and that automotive technology can easily allow for such speeds. I have been on highways where I and most other drivers are driving 80 MPH. No one in the car looked around and thought, “whoa, man, we’re exceeding safe speeds here.”
Is it ALWAYS safe to drive 80 MPH? Of course not, that would be absurd to say, just like it is absurd to say that it is NEVER safe to drive 80 MPH. As doe studies and whatnot, well, where are the studies on the other end? Where are the studies validating the status quo? I would like to see a study that convincingly says, “No, in fact, with decades of improvement in automotive technology, we still cannot safely increase our maximum driving speed slightly from where it was in the 70s and 80s.” That just doesn’t sound plausible to me.
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I have said that increases in speed result in an increased probability that, when an accident occurs, the resulting injury/damage will be greater.
It's possible, though I do not know, that Germany has instituted road-design, tire-requirements, driver training, and so forth, that mitigate an expected increase in fatalities and accident severity with increased speed. Given the demands on infrastructure dollars in the US as it is, though, I'm uncertain as to the wisdom of such a project here, simply to raise the speed limit 15mph in certain areas.
I disagree with your reasoning. I do not accept that we are stuck driving 65 MPH for all eternity in this country because we are not capable of implementing existing technology into our roads and cars.
I didn't say anything about eternity. Given current constraints on our budget, and the current needs of our infrastructure, I simply don't think it feasible to start spending sufficient funds to turn our roadways into autobahns.
We don’t need to turn our roadways into autobahnen. Many highways are well suited to higher speed driving right now. There are long stretches of the NJ turnpike, Ohio Turnpike, and PA turnpike that are long, straight, flat, and without many exits and entrances. Those roads are perfectly capable of handling 80 MPH driving – in fact, that is the speed many people already drive on those stretches. The only difference is, with my plan, they wouldn’t have to pay a surcharge for doing so.
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That said, holding the current road conditions, tire requirements, and driver-training requirements of the US constant, simple physics tell us that increasing speed limits will result in higher average speeds and, therefore, even if accidents do not increase, though I think they would, a greater cost per accident.
By this logic, we should all remain in parked cars and never move them. We have gone around in circles with this point. My point, which I have made many times, is that the increase in accidents or injuries would be negligible, but the benefit would be great.
Please tell me i) what your predicted increase for accidents is, ii) what that prediction is based upon, and iii) why you think it is negligible.
And, incidentally, YES, driving at 65mph is certainly much more dangerous than sitting in a parked car. That doesn't mean we shouldn't drive 65mph sometimes. The QUESTION though is whether speeding is MORE DANGEROUS.
You repeatedly conflate that question (is speeding more dangerous) with a related but separate question (is the increased danger WORTH THE BENEFITS).
My predicted increase for accidents depends on the enforcement. Will we actually ENFORCE the driving laws? You know, the ones that actually prohibit DANGEROUS acts, such as tailgating? Remember, my plan is based on cracking down on actually dangerous acts, which doesn’t happen right now. If the existing non-speeding laws are enforced, my prediction is there will be almost no increase in accidents. I think the amount will be negligible because of the definition of the word negligible. I am not sure why I need to further elaborate.
I MUST conflate the question you accuse me of conflating, because of what you said – that every time we drive 1 MPH faster than we do before, we do so based on the risk vs. reward of doing so.
To clarify – I COULD make the following argument (THIS IS HYPOTHETICAL) –
Every time a car goes faster, danger increases, therefore we must never drive a car.
But that argument is invalid, because the increased danger of driving a car (as opposed to not) is WORTH THE BENEFITS. That is what we are discussing here.
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Again, we could save thousands and thousands of lives every year by just not allowing driving, period. Why don't we do that? I don't understand. Aren't we trying to save lives? Oh, wait, that's right, we weigh the costs (death and injury) against the benefits (transportation of people and goods) and determine that the costs are worth the benefits. And that is all I am doing. I am stating that the increased costs would be worth the increased benefits.
If you disagree with that assertion, so be it, but can't you disagree with it WITHOUT resorting to making obvious and meaningless statements such as "An accident at 80 MPH is more serious than an accident at 65 MPH?"
Then I take it: 1) WE AGREE that driving at 80mph is more dangerous than driving at 65 mph; 2) YOU CONTEND that the BENEFITS of raising the limit to 80mph ARE WORTH the additional accidents/injuries/deaths that will result. Is that fair?
Yes, I think I have been very clear on this. Similarly, the risk of drinking 9 beers is more than the risk of drinking 8 beers. But how likely is it for that extra beer to actually cause any measurable damage? People make it sound like I am suggesting we drive 150 MPH instead of 65. I am suggesting a MINOR increase in allowable speed, one that is reasonable based on what I think humans and cars are capable of.
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And, again, this is why insurance companies almost always raise your rates when you receive a speeding ticket.
Oh, this makes sense. “Hey guys, this person is a danger to society and is putting lives at risk. Should we A) cancel his policy so that he can no longer endanger his fellow citizens, or B) raise his rates so he can endanger more people but we make more money?”
Insurance companies aren't empowered to seize your license. They simply evaluate your risk, and offer you a rate. The point is that they view speeding as bringing with it risks that require them to raise your rate.
Did you see the page I posted that has the point system for various traffic offenses? That is a rather big point in my favor. So far no one has bothered trying to refute it, except for Alasdairm to say, “Well maybe the insurance company is wrong”
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I've certainly had to come to sudden stops in the US, and I've ridden in various vehicles that have had to come to sudden stops.
Could you elaborate on this? What is “sudden?” You are basically stating that at 80 MPH, there will be instances that require a driver to decelerate instantly from 80 MPH to 0 MPH. I am disputing this. Why would that happen? Can you give an actual example? Cars have brake lights. When a car has to slow down, they come on. The cars behind him then slow down. It’s not that complicated. Unless a car drives into a brick wall sitting in the middle of a highway, a car is going to have to decelerate over a course of several hundred feet. Even if an 80 MPH car slams on the brakes full power and comes to a stop in the minimum distance possible, it will still take several hundred feet (This is the basis of YOUR argument I believe, right?), so why would the car behind HIM need to come to an instant stop? He would simply need to apply his brakes and decelerate just like the car in front of him did.
There is no reason for him to rear-end the guy in front of him unless he isn’t paying attention or has a shitty car with lousy brakes.
By sudden I mean an unexpected and complete application of the brakes to decelerate the vehicle to a stop.
This is extremely rare on a highway.
In one of the more dramatic instances a driver in heavy but moving traffic had a heart attack, resulting in his car side swiping the car in the next lane, and both of them going into the concrete foundation of an overpass. One remained on the shoulder of the road; the other settled on the road. As you might imagine, the deceleration time resulting from the application of a concrete foundation was somewhat less than that provided by safe braking.
This is a dire situation indeed. I would imagine things like this are extremely rare. Also, it sounds preventable. Why does a sideswiping result in cars going into the median head on? I have been involved in a high speed side swiping – and neither car lost control. In a sideswiping, there is very little lateral movement of the car, certainly not enough to force it to make a 90 degree turn into a median. I imagine the driver probably freaked out and jacked the wheel to the left or something. Unfortunately, I think most people panic in situations like this and do the wrong thing.
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However, a tractor trailer going 65 MPH will have zero chance of slowing down in time. Yet we allow tractor trailers to drive 65 MPH. NO ONE HAS YET GIVEN AN EXPLANATION FOR THIS ASININE POLICY. This is a point I have made that has been conveniently ignored for the duration of this thread.
Is it relevant to the question of whether speeding in a passenger vehicle is dangerous, or to the question of whether the costs of speeding are worth the benefits? If so, how?
Yes. Are you serious? What do you mean, how so? I am contending that the current policy is inconsistent and illogical. The example of the tractor trailer well illustrate this point. What is the confusion? I don’t understand which part of this YOU don’t understand. The supposed reason for not allowing cars to drive 80 MPH is that it is dangerous. But a car at 80 MPH is less of a danger than a truck going 65 MPH. Yet they allow the truck to go 65 MPH.
You really don’t see a problem there?
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The situation I gave, in which the right-lane is foreclosed as an escape route, and a slower car you are overtaking swerves into your lane, isn't imaginary nonsense at all. There is a reason why we require those who will be engaged in high-speed driving to undergo additional training.
I see. So if a car makes a dangerous and illegal lane change carelessly without checking his mirrors or his blind spot, there will be an accident? Probably, yes. Why is this relevant? Are cars generally in the habit of doing this? How often does this actually happen? And why would this be an accident attributable to speeding? Could you actually cite some statistics on how often a multi-car accident happens on multi-lane highways? I just don’t think they are all that common. Airplanes crash sometimes, but we still allow air travel.
It is relevant because we design speed limits not with the optimal behavior of other drivers in mind, but with the expected behavior of all drivers as a population. That means we must include drivers that will be reckless, drunk, inexperienced, etc. We must ask, among other things, given that x-percentage of drivers will be reckless, inexperienced, etc., what will the result of having everyone drive 20mph faster be?
As stated before, people are already driving 80 MPH. So, we won’t all be “driving 20 MPH faster.”
To fly a multi-engine passenger plane in the US requires very extensive and expensive training, and we include many redundant safety checks. In this way we can change the expected behavior of all such pilots as a population---and even so, yes, there are still accidents due to pilot error, though these are increasingly rare in this class.
Well, given how many people drive, maybe we should take driver training and education more seriously then? I am sorry, but I am finding this to be a big load of shit. I keep hearing about how many hazards there are of driving a car, and yet most states just have some bullshit test after which they hand people a license to operate a car whenever or wherever they want. Something doesn’t add up here.
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By the way heuristic, notice how I responded to each and every point in your post? I would appreciate it if you would at least try to do that. Instead, when I make a point you seem unable to address, you just ignore it, as though pretending it isn’t there counts as some sort of rebuttal.
Done.
Quote:
Perhaps not. But, you said something to the effect of, "You don't seem to have any idea what the results will be of raising the speed limit to 80 MPH," when in fact, I have addressed that exact scenario many times throughout this thread. Hence, my remark asking if you have read the thread at all.
Fjones, you have stated your belief that, due to better equipment and roads, an increase in the speed limit will not result in what you think to be a significant increase in road fatalities, injuries, or damage resulting from accidents. But that's all you've stated. I don't see any studies on the matter being cited. You raised the autobahn, which I'll address below.
Actually, my main point was that with increased speed limits (that are actually ENFORCED), there would be few additional fatalities, because a lot of people already speed. There would just be less revenue from tickets.
Quote:
The autobahn in Germany does have unrestricted portions, or portions with a recommended speed of somewhere around 80mph. I'm not sure why you think that would translate into no greater number of fatalities/serious injuries/serious damage accidents, though.
I believe I have been rather clear in addressing this point as well.
You haven't. I have not seen any cites to any sources regarding, for example, rates of German auto insurance, fatality/accident rates on the autobahn, etc.
I believe that people are perfectly capable of driving 80 MPH on multi-lane highways, and that automotive technology can easily allow for such speeds. I have been on highways where I and most other drivers are driving 80 MPH. No one in the car looked around and thought, “whoa, man, we’re exceeding safe speeds here.”
Is it ALWAYS safe to drive 80 MPH? Of course not, that would be absurd to say, just like it is absurd to say that it is NEVER safe to drive 80 MPH. As doe studies and whatnot, well, where are the studies on the other end? Where are the studies validating the status quo? I would like to see a study that convincingly says, “No, in fact, with decades of improvement in automotive technology, we still cannot safely increase our maximum driving speed slightly from where it was in the 70s and 80s.” That just doesn’t sound plausible to me.
Quote:
I have said that increases in speed result in an increased probability that, when an accident occurs, the resulting injury/damage will be greater.
It's possible, though I do not know, that Germany has instituted road-design, tire-requirements, driver training, and so forth, that mitigate an expected increase in fatalities and accident severity with increased speed. Given the demands on infrastructure dollars in the US as it is, though, I'm uncertain as to the wisdom of such a project here, simply to raise the speed limit 15mph in certain areas.
I disagree with your reasoning. I do not accept that we are stuck driving 65 MPH for all eternity in this country because we are not capable of implementing existing technology into our roads and cars.
I didn't say anything about eternity. Given current constraints on our budget, and the current needs of our infrastructure, I simply don't think it feasible to start spending sufficient funds to turn our roadways into autobahns.
We don’t need to turn our roadways into autobahnen. Many highways are well suited to higher speed driving right now. There are long stretches of the NJ turnpike, Ohio Turnpike, and PA turnpike that are long, straight, flat, and without many exits and entrances. Those roads are perfectly capable of handling 80 MPH driving – in fact, that is the speed many people already drive on those stretches. The only difference is, with my plan, they wouldn’t have to pay a surcharge for doing so.
Quote:
That said, holding the current road conditions, tire requirements, and driver-training requirements of the US constant, simple physics tell us that increasing speed limits will result in higher average speeds and, therefore, even if accidents do not increase, though I think they would, a greater cost per accident.
By this logic, we should all remain in parked cars and never move them. We have gone around in circles with this point. My point, which I have made many times, is that the increase in accidents or injuries would be negligible, but the benefit would be great.
Please tell me i) what your predicted increase for accidents is, ii) what that prediction is based upon, and iii) why you think it is negligible.
And, incidentally, YES, driving at 65mph is certainly much more dangerous than sitting in a parked car. That doesn't mean we shouldn't drive 65mph sometimes. The QUESTION though is whether speeding is MORE DANGEROUS.
You repeatedly conflate that question (is speeding more dangerous) with a related but separate question (is the increased danger WORTH THE BENEFITS).
My predicted increase for accidents depends on the enforcement. Will we actually ENFORCE the driving laws? You know, the ones that actually prohibit DANGEROUS acts, such as tailgating? Remember, my plan is based on cracking down on actually dangerous acts, which doesn’t happen right now. If the existing non-speeding laws are enforced, my prediction is there will be almost no increase in accidents. I think the amount will be negligible because of the definition of the word negligible. I am not sure why I need to further elaborate.
I MUST conflate the question you accuse me of conflating, because of what you said – that every time we drive 1 MPH faster than we do before, we do so based on the risk vs. reward of doing so.
To clarify – I COULD make the following argument (THIS IS HYPOTHETICAL) –
Every time a car goes faster, danger increases, therefore we must never drive a car.
But that argument is invalid, because the increased danger of driving a car (as opposed to not) is WORTH THE BENEFITS. That is what we are discussing here.
Quote:
Again, we could save thousands and thousands of lives every year by just not allowing driving, period. Why don't we do that? I don't understand. Aren't we trying to save lives? Oh, wait, that's right, we weigh the costs (death and injury) against the benefits (transportation of people and goods) and determine that the costs are worth the benefits. And that is all I am doing. I am stating that the increased costs would be worth the increased benefits.
If you disagree with that assertion, so be it, but can't you disagree with it WITHOUT resorting to making obvious and meaningless statements such as "An accident at 80 MPH is more serious than an accident at 65 MPH?"
Then I take it: 1) WE AGREE that driving at 80mph is more dangerous than driving at 65 mph; 2) YOU CONTEND that the BENEFITS of raising the limit to 80mph ARE WORTH the additional accidents/injuries/deaths that will result. Is that fair?
Yes, I think I have been very clear on this. Similarly, the risk of drinking 9 beers is more than the risk of drinking 8 beers. But how likely is it for that extra beer to actually cause any measurable damage? People make it sound like I am suggesting we drive 150 MPH instead of 65. I am suggesting a MINOR increase in allowable speed, one that is reasonable based on what I think humans and cars are capable of.
Quote:
And, again, this is why insurance companies almost always raise your rates when you receive a speeding ticket.
Oh, this makes sense. “Hey guys, this person is a danger to society and is putting lives at risk. Should we A) cancel his policy so that he can no longer endanger his fellow citizens, or B) raise his rates so he can endanger more people but we make more money?”
Insurance companies aren't empowered to seize your license. They simply evaluate your risk, and offer you a rate. The point is that they view speeding as bringing with it risks that require them to raise your rate.
Did you see the page I posted that has the point system for various traffic offenses? That is a rather big point in my favor. So far no one has bothered trying to refute it, except for Alasdairm to say, “Well maybe the insurance company is wrong”
Quote:
I've certainly had to come to sudden stops in the US, and I've ridden in various vehicles that have had to come to sudden stops.
Could you elaborate on this? What is “sudden?” You are basically stating that at 80 MPH, there will be instances that require a driver to decelerate instantly from 80 MPH to 0 MPH. I am disputing this. Why would that happen? Can you give an actual example? Cars have brake lights. When a car has to slow down, they come on. The cars behind him then slow down. It’s not that complicated. Unless a car drives into a brick wall sitting in the middle of a highway, a car is going to have to decelerate over a course of several hundred feet. Even if an 80 MPH car slams on the brakes full power and comes to a stop in the minimum distance possible, it will still take several hundred feet (This is the basis of YOUR argument I believe, right?), so why would the car behind HIM need to come to an instant stop? He would simply need to apply his brakes and decelerate just like the car in front of him did.
There is no reason for him to rear-end the guy in front of him unless he isn’t paying attention or has a shitty car with lousy brakes.
By sudden I mean an unexpected and complete application of the brakes to decelerate the vehicle to a stop.
This is extremely rare on a highway.
In one of the more dramatic instances a driver in heavy but moving traffic had a heart attack, resulting in his car side swiping the car in the next lane, and both of them going into the concrete foundation of an overpass. One remained on the shoulder of the road; the other settled on the road. As you might imagine, the deceleration time resulting from the application of a concrete foundation was somewhat less than that provided by safe braking.
This is a dire situation indeed. I would imagine things like this are extremely rare. Also, it sounds preventable. Why does a sideswiping result in cars going into the median head on? I have been involved in a high speed side swiping – and neither car lost control. In a sideswiping, there is very little lateral movement of the car, certainly not enough to force it to make a 90 degree turn into a median. I imagine the driver probably freaked out and jacked the wheel to the left or something. Unfortunately, I think most people panic in situations like this and do the wrong thing.
Quote:
However, a tractor trailer going 65 MPH will have zero chance of slowing down in time. Yet we allow tractor trailers to drive 65 MPH. NO ONE HAS YET GIVEN AN EXPLANATION FOR THIS ASININE POLICY. This is a point I have made that has been conveniently ignored for the duration of this thread.
Is it relevant to the question of whether speeding in a passenger vehicle is dangerous, or to the question of whether the costs of speeding are worth the benefits? If so, how?
Yes. Are you serious? What do you mean, how so? I am contending that the current policy is inconsistent and illogical. The example of the tractor trailer well illustrate this point. What is the confusion? I don’t understand which part of this YOU don’t understand. The supposed reason for not allowing cars to drive 80 MPH is that it is dangerous. But a car at 80 MPH is less of a danger than a truck going 65 MPH. Yet they allow the truck to go 65 MPH.
You really don’t see a problem there?
Quote:
The situation I gave, in which the right-lane is foreclosed as an escape route, and a slower car you are overtaking swerves into your lane, isn't imaginary nonsense at all. There is a reason why we require those who will be engaged in high-speed driving to undergo additional training.
I see. So if a car makes a dangerous and illegal lane change carelessly without checking his mirrors or his blind spot, there will be an accident? Probably, yes. Why is this relevant? Are cars generally in the habit of doing this? How often does this actually happen? And why would this be an accident attributable to speeding? Could you actually cite some statistics on how often a multi-car accident happens on multi-lane highways? I just don’t think they are all that common. Airplanes crash sometimes, but we still allow air travel.
It is relevant because we design speed limits not with the optimal behavior of other drivers in mind, but with the expected behavior of all drivers as a population. That means we must include drivers that will be reckless, drunk, inexperienced, etc. We must ask, among other things, given that x-percentage of drivers will be reckless, inexperienced, etc., what will the result of having everyone drive 20mph faster be?
As stated before, people are already driving 80 MPH. So, we won’t all be “driving 20 MPH faster.”
To fly a multi-engine passenger plane in the US requires very extensive and expensive training, and we include many redundant safety checks. In this way we can change the expected behavior of all such pilots as a population---and even so, yes, there are still accidents due to pilot error, though these are increasingly rare in this class.
Well, given how many people drive, maybe we should take driver training and education more seriously then? I am sorry, but I am finding this to be a big load of shit. I keep hearing about how many hazards there are of driving a car, and yet most states just have some bullshit test after which they hand people a license to operate a car whenever or wherever they want. Something doesn’t add up here.
Quote:
By the way heuristic, notice how I responded to each and every point in your post? I would appreciate it if you would at least try to do that. Instead, when I make a point you seem unable to address, you just ignore it, as though pretending it isn’t there counts as some sort of rebuttal.
Done.
