If they didn’t abuse the power they have as the first in line, how would you know they have it?
More likely, they forgot there is anyone else on the road but them.
Either makes me uneasy that’s we let them have driver’s licenses.
My problem is not as much with the laggard at the front of the line of traffic as it is with the person who is further back, and who thinks that it is unsafe to drive at more than…maybe…5 mph, while leaving an INCREDIBLY large space between their car and the car that is far in front of them.
I have lost count of how many times I was 4th, or 5th in the line of traffic, but I was blocked from making a left turn because the car directly in front of me moved at a glacial pace and the driver thought that it was necessary to leave 10, or 15, or 20 car lengths between his/her car, and the car directly in front of him/her.
Of course, those laggards always seem to be able squeeze through on a left turn signal, and…to hell… with the 10 (or more…) other drivers who are capable of turning at a normal speed, and with a reasonable/safe distance between them and the car in front.
I’m with you. I always try to start up immediately so as not to create that Caterpillar effect. No one else seems to catch on though.
Seems to me we have enough roads, just not the intelligence to locate and coordinate ourselves and jobs to utilize them effectively.
I am not sure what you are trying to say, but whenever I travel to Chicago, trains, the el, subways and buses are my preferred mod of transportation. Sure was I forced into it by tolls and traffic congestion and parking fees and woes, of course, is it a better alternative? Yes in my book. Plus a one day unlimited CTA transit pass $10 you can ride all of them for a day. I use that whenever I go to Chicago for meetings or conventions, plus train fair to evanston to catch the el (elevated Railway aka the loop in downtown Chicago)
Many urbanites don’t even own cars… or have driver’s licenses. Mass transit is truly effective in the big cities. Done right, as it has been in cities around the world like Montreal and Disneyworld, it’s downright pleasant. Takes a lot of the stress out of getting where you’re going.
Unfortunately, artificial efforts to force mass transit have given it a bad name. Here in NH we have a major interstate highway, I-93, that is finally being updated many years after the expansion was planned… and needed. A political group headquartered in Boston called (if my memory serves) “The Conservation Law Foundation” filed lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit to try to force NH to build a railway rather than expand I-93. They set the project back 10 years and many millions of dollars with their harassment suits. There used to be a railroad from upstate NH to Boston years ago. It was shut down 'cause nobody used it. It went bankrupt.
I support mass transit radiating out of the city IF there’s a demand and it can be self-supporting.
I do not support forcing it on the public at our cost where it isn’t appropriate. If it’s truly better alternative for the specific application, we’ll use it gladly.
Self-driving cars, however, (the subject of the thread) I sort of look forward to, as long as they can be made safe and affordable… and I believe (perhaps hope) they will in the not-too-distant future. I may lose my ability to drive in not-too-many years, and it’d be wonderful to be able to go wherever I want whenever I want safely and comfortably when that day comes. I already have difficulty making long drives on days when I’m in pain, and having a self-driving car would be a blessing to me.
And since no mass transit in the US is self-supporting…
;-]
Respectfully, I beg to differ on that point. The braking system applies the brakes harder than you have commanded by looking at all the inputs and deciding you really wanted to go fully into ABS and not the 40% of the way there you actually commanded. The same for Smart Stop forward pedestrian impact control and again for the lane-keeping actually steering the car back into the lane. You can, I’m sure, steer through that override, however.
On the opposite end, reductions of actions you’ve commanded happen with the other systems. The cruise control reduces the speed that you actually commanded because of traffic ahead. The Electronic brake force distribution reduces the brake force in opposition to your command to brake at a higher level and the traction control reduces engine power and applies the brakes.
All the sensors added to be able to accomplish these features will be used to create self driving cars.
But then what transit system, including cars, is self supporting? Roads, bridges and related infrastructure is paid for with some tax revenue from fuel taxes but most of the costs are paid from the general fund. Tolls pay the costs of some things, but rarely do they pay the full operating expenses and the full capital costs.
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A simple increase in the fuel tax solves this.
Without question, that is correct, but when Governor Chris Christie advocated raising the fuel tax in NJ in order to replenish the Transportation Trust Fund–that had been exhausted–the hue and cry from the populace was something along the lines of…Yes, we need to have our roads repaired, but there must be some way to pay for this instead of increasing the fuel tax!.
It should be noted that, prior to the increase in the fuels tax, NJ had the lowest per-gallon fuel tax in the country. It should also be noted that, because NJ is a “corridor state” the incredible number of out-of-staters passing through on the NJ Turnpike and on other highways will actually fund a large percentage of the replenishment of the Transportation Trust Fund.
Although I am a vocal critic of Chris Christie, IMHO, this is one of the few times when he made the correct call. The bottom line is that everyone seems to want every possible benefit, but they don’t want to pay for those benefits.
Christie is gonna be your bestie soon, @VDCdriver. I was highly impressed when he said he was all in for governement support for the Texans afflicted with hurricane Harvey, despite most of their elected representatives voting against providing relief for hurricane Sandy victims in New Jersey and New York. I’m sure you cheered, too.
BTW, there was an article recently in USA Today discussing how to avoid buying a Texas flood car.
Yes, he made the correct call on that issue also, despite the moral failings of Senators Cruz & Cornyn, and a substantial portion of the Texas Congressional Delegation when the shoe was on the other foot a few years ago. Those people may be Christians, but the teachings of Christian Charity apparently are only one-sided for those Texans.
However, let us not forget that, as the old saying tells us, Even a stopped clock is correct twice each day. Even though my esteemed governor made a few correct calls recently, the bottom line is that he has the lowest public approval rating of any governor in NJ history.
Okay, a lot of what you mention is what I was referring to when I said “I might quibble on the efficacy of some of this.” But most of this is still a tool toward MY command of the vehicle, or can be turned off/circumvented, etc.
But, to go through line-by-line:
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Applying the brakes harder than commanded in an emergency…Gee, I can see where this might be a benefit to the “John Q Milquetoasts” out there, who are loath to fully explore the vehicle’s “performance envelope.” But, reason stands that there are also “Billy Badass” wannabes out there, who have ample experience hooning up to–and beyond!–the performance envelope. Wouldn’t such a system be detrimental to them? What about “contamination of knowledge” issues, switching back and forth between cars so equipped, and those not equipped?
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Adaptive cruise…makes sense to me, in that it eliminates ONE of the reasons I don’t like CC in busy highways: two cars in close proximity, one going 0.1 MPH faster than the other. The other problem, IMO, is harder to resolve: when I have my foot on the gas, I always know, from muscle memory, where the brake is in relation to the pedal. I think then, in an emergency, I would be quicker to take corrective action than if my foot was goodness-knows-where. (And I also know that pilots, in “simultaneous ILS approaches to parallel runways” are told to hand-fly, because they were having the same problem: it was taking “too long” for pilots to “recover the controls” and take evasive action if the autopilot was flying the approach. I suspect there is at least SOME carryover of this phenomenon into driving.)
Well for 1. Since I used to work for a brake system supplier, Delphi, I remember seeing data that showed a significant percentage of drivers only achieved 0.4 G’s in a panic stop in cars that could exceed 1 G deceleration. In essence, drivers were not applying the brake hard enough in a panic stop let alone braking into ABS. Those are the folks the system was designed for. Billy Badass will blow straight into ABS, as they should in panic stop, and won’t be affected by the system at all. It is a variable power brake system that can go into an over-boost mode. I’d say there would be essentially no learning required switching back and forth since it is essentially transparent…
For 2. That is and always has been the question about cruise control from the very beginning. If the throttle is controlled by the cruise, where will your brake-pedal foot be when an emergency happens? For a simple thing like cruise, it seems to be a non-problem. Now go full-autonomous, and THAT is a far different matter. I’d totally agree that it is a significant issue to address. It really puts a big responsibility on the automaker.
On this issue, I think that we are returning to the theme of People Who Don’t Read The Owner’s Manual, or–at the very least–People Who Have No Clue Regarding How Their ABS Works.
In both this forum and other forums, over the years I have seen many comments from people who state that they stopped applying full brake force when they felt their brake pedal “vibrating”.
IMHO–This is just another example of how difficult it is to cure 'stupid", or–at the very least–how to educate “The Willfully Uninformed”.
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Hey, if you guys in New Jersey don’t like him vote him out. I didn’t like our Paulenty either and we voted him out for Governor Mumbles. And I don’t like him either, so we’ll likely vote the other party in or go independent again.
Back to cars. We voted in a tax increase for environmental issues that also went to roads but it is never enough. We don’t really get a good accounting from the folks at MNDOT and then they come up with really stupid multi-million dollar projects that tie traffic up for years. They could have built an additional lane throughout the state with what has been spent on crop circles-I mean round-abouts.
I had 2 of the sweetest drives through the Twin Cities, I-94 straight on through! Was wondering why 2 exits off 94 in St. Paul were 3 mile backup, not another exit till 494/694 on the west end. Coming back through express and local, first time in a long tome no issues through. Westbound bailed on 101 bypass to 169 to go north, stop and go traffic ahead on the interstate.
You know the saying:
Temporary inconvenience, permanent improvement.
We all know that is a bit garbled. The truth is:
Temporary improvement, permanent inconvenience.
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Joe, very, very, very few drivers actually have the skills, training, and opportunity (racetrack or abandoned airfield) to approach the average modern vehicle’s true performance envelope.
“Billy Badass” wannabes only get innocent people killed. They have no clue what the average car’s “envelope” actually is.
If you’re one of the very privileged drivers who have attended a high performance driving school you’ll have learned that whatever speed you’re able to attain, the pros can take the car far, far faster… and far, for more in control while doing so.
Having “command” of a vehicle in traffic on public roads means driving safely and anticipating potential accidents before they become accidents… and avoiding or preventing them. It does not mean taking the highway ramp faster than everyone else.
You may have command of your own vehicle on public roads, but you do not have command of the driving environment, and you need to drive in a manner that accommodates all of the things that you don’t have command over.
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