Slower Traffic Keep right
 

The Video.

New Jersey is lowering the speed limit from 65 to 55 on the Garden State Parkway next month. Governor Corzine says it's safer, but it's really just a revenue grab. (When coupled with the huge toll increases, he thinks the tickets will pay off the state's debts.) I think I'll send his office a link to this video. Thanks, Speck!

Ugh. They're lowering speeds on lots of highways here as well. Safer my ass. If you really want to be safe, you don't drive a car at all. Or better: Stay at home all day. Bah.

--Erwin

Wow! They did a similar thing as those students as an experiment here in Germany once. However, they used only one car, to see how the other people would react if someone would adhere to the speed limit exactly. Especially when they got to a part of the Autobahn that only had two lanes (one regular one, and one for passing), they got a lot of evil looks, and angry honking from the other drivers.


But *this* tops that experiment. The experiment merely showed that you need a little flexibility above the actual speed limit (only to a certain degree, of course), to retain the sanity of all people involved. But this little movie leaves a great impact, showing to what ends people will go if their nerves are slowly ground down by being forced to drive so slow. And the scene where this wall of cars appeared makes a serious statement.

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I'd rather not kill anyone, thankyouverymuch.

According to the Swedish Road Administration, 100-150 lives would be spared each year in Sweden alone if everybody respected the speed limits. 100 people in a country of nine million is a lot. (About 420 people die each year in the traffic.)

Okay, how about these stats: 115 people die in US traffic accidents every day, for whatever reason. The number one cause of those fatalities is tailgating (following too closely at high speeds), something that would happen a lot less if people moved right (except to pass).

Germany has no general speed limit, only a "Richtgeschwindigkeit", which means "Reference Speed", of 130 km/h. You're not supposed to go over that even in good conditions, though you won't get in trouble if you do. You do accept extra liability for any crash you might get in, or even be the cause of (say, someone who quickly gets out of your way didn't look properly and crashes into another car. You might be held liable for that too, if they can prove your indirect involvement.) one indirectly. In that case you can get in big trouble.

There are extra speed limits, indicated by round signs with red border and the speed in the middle in some areas, though. Those you are not allowed to exceed, or you get in trouble.

Tailgating is an offense here. Even if it's just for a second (if the tailgater is only about a meter away), it's considered coercion, and you can be punished for that.

And Germany has less deaths and accidents than Germany compared to the US (and taking into account the difference in population, of course). Of course, this might also be due to the fact that not every idiot can get a driver's licence if they want to - you might recall my troubles at passing the theory test, for example. ;)




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And even less would happen if people drove slower. Slow traffic is not an excuse for tailgating. I do agree about keeping right, but speed is a big issue and not something to dismiss. I did some googling and found out that "A recent study examined the impact of higher travel speeds on US rural interstates after the repeal in November 1995 of the national speed limit. Researchers found states that had increased their speed limits to 75 mph (120 km/h) experienced a shocking 38 per cent increase in deaths per million vehicle miles than expected, compared to deaths in those states that did not change their speed limits. States that increased speed limits to 70 mph (112 km/h) showed a 35 per cent increase in fatalities." (Canada Safety Council)

And yet, law or not, it's going to happen. You can't convince some to not speed. So if we ALL strived a little more to obey all traffic laws (the speed limit as well as the Keep Right Except to Pass laws), we would all be safer.

The laws are not designed to be so binary. "Just everyone drive slow and we'll all mostly be okay". People drive different speeds even when we driving legal speeds, so the other traffic flow laws come into play. Tail-gating, passing on the right, keeping to the left when not passing... those are laws that are just as important as the speed limit.

And they're doubly important when people speed.

You're already dead if you have a frontal collision with another car when you're both driving 50 Km per hour. -- How slow do we have to go? And what about bikes? If I get hit by a car that's going 20 Km/h when I'm on a bike, I most likely will be dead as well. So, again, stay at home. Do not participate in traffic if you really want to be safe. (And let me drive on the open freeways, heheh)

--Erwin

Wimp.

No, just thin :D

--Erwin

That's no reason to get killed by getting hit by a horse carriage!

Slow enough that we'll be able to avoid that collision. Speed limits are not just about reducing damages once the accident has happened. At least as important is to avoid the accidents.