No one in NY state considers NYC as being like the rest of the state. NYC is it’s own special beast.
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I had to drive on NYC’s notorious Belt Parkway recently, and it was just as bad as I had remembered. This “highway” was designed in the late '30s, opened to traffic in 1940, and has seen few improvements since then.
Between the outdated design of the “highway”, the majority of the motorists driving below the speed limit in the center or left lane, and the occasional maniac in a BMW who is driving ~70 mph and zig-zagging through traffic, it’s no picnic.
It’s possible that road design could be dangerous, but I think that cruise control and mandatory insurance are a cause of accidents. It’s said that 20% of drivers cause 80% of the accidents. Insurance for safe drivers would be ridiculously cheap if the law did not require insurers to insure high accident drivers.
You would prefer that we had high-accident drivers on the road, sans insurance? Really?
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And cruise control? Seriously? On limited access highways, I wish more people would use it. It would make things safer.
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Good drivers are paying a high price for insurance for bad drivers and uninsured drivers. Without insurance, bad drivers would be more cautious because their personal assets are at stake. Cruise control made some sense years go when the roads were less congested, but now anything that lets you pay less attention to the road is dangerous.
Ok, really? People too irresponsible to buy auto insurance are that economically rational? This is just plain silly. No. People without insurance won’t be more cautious. If they were cautious - … - they would have insurance! Do you know how insurance works, btw? The users are always subsidized by the non-users. Otherwise insurance couldn’t exist (as a business anyway).
Anyone who thinks cruise control allows you pay less attention to the road is an idiot and should not be driving. What is it, exactly, that you think cruise control does? It doesn’t steer for you. It doesn’t watch traffic for you. Are you thinking of “autonomous” (misnomer) driving systems? Cruise control just helps maintain a consistent speed, and that is all. It means NOTHING regarding an ability to pay less attention.
If I could put out one simple sentence (with a short elaboration) to impress upon people for limited access highway driving it would be this: “Pick a speed, not a lane.”
The short elaboration: the right lane is the driving lane and the left lane is the passing lane. And unpredictability at 60/70/80 mph is not a virtue. Cruise control helps with the latter.
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Cruise control is fine for uncrowned roads but doesn’t work in moderately heavy traffic. I used to try using cruise control but usually found that I was in and out of it so often that it was more trouble than it was worth. Since your response was to someone discussing traffic on a heavily traveled NYC highway, I must assume that you think it is universally helpful and I don’t believe that is the case.
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With no insurance, one bad accident and you are a pedestrian with no savings, no car, no house, no driver’s license.
When traffic gets heavy, it is generally not so effective. These days I spend more time on roads where the only “traffic” problems are related to people who don’t use cruise control.
Did you ever get behind one of those left lane campers who slow down to pass and then speed up again? Talk about a slinky-traffic maker. Oy. Obviously traffic volumes themselves can make consistent speeds impossible. But even then it’s often from stupidity.
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Don’t work that way. NH is one of the two states that don’t require auto insurance. It happens far too often here. Many people that don’t have auto insurance don’t have assets either. They life in an apartment and usually paycheck to paycheck.
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Have adaptive cruise control. Matches the speed oft he car ahead of you. Down side if the car ahead of you is only doing 55 you are doing 55 until you change lanes.
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Yeah I hate the drivers that do OK on a level road, but as soon as they come to an incline, their foot never moves and they loose speed going up and then fly going back down again… Use CC people if you don’t know how to adjust your foot on the gas pedal… lol
Or even worse they can’t maintain a constant speed cause they are talking or jamming out to their favorite tunes or whatever…
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My dad called them “lead-foot drivers” - as in their foot never moves on pedal, uphill, downhill, on a flat, they don’t change what they do with the throttle.
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Not my style. I wouldn’t use it. I choose my speed. I don’t want any automated “adaptation.” Automation will be the death of us. Oh, great, a world run by programming engineers under the orders of corporate execs, politicians and lawyers. Thanks, but no thanks.
Here’s where we’re headed if we’re “lucky” (???)
Or if we’re not "lucky: (???)
I’ll take the latter with an early cyanide capsule, thank you. We are engineering our way to oblivion.
And the victim is also a pedestrian with no savings, no car, no house, no driver’s license. Or ends up having to pay higher premiums for years.
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An uninsured driver ran a stop sign, hit me just at the front of the driver side door, at sufficient speed to total my two year old T-Bird. I ended up with a cracked rib, lacerations to my arm, and a scratch on my cornea. Guess who payed for the car, the ambulance, and the ER visit? My insurance, what the insurance company got from the vehicle owner, I have no idea, but I doubt the owner had any assets.
Left lane campers: Florida, current law states should move to the right lane when being over taken, legislature passed a bill to make it must with a minor fine if the left lane camper fails to do so. Governor has not yet signed the bill. Current FL law allows passing on the right on such roads though the drivers handbook says it is not allowed. I have observed LEOs pass on the right. Me thinks “why not at least hit your lights and make them move to the right lane?”.
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That could happen even if you have insurance. Sort of makes a person wonder if driving your own car is even a good idea at all. Johnny Carson’s cohost, Ed McMahon, used to say he didn’t feel he was a good enough driver & preferred not to drive. He rode in the back seat and his hired driver drove him where he wanted to go. As far as I know, he never received any traffic tickets and was never found responsible for a traffic accident. Most of us can’t afford to hire a private driver, but the risks of driving your own car makes walking and taking the bus look better all the time.
As I have said before most people with assets need to have an umbrella policy. They are very cheap. Of course you need to have all insurance for cars and home from the same company. Since it is their money, you get free lawyers and will rarely go beyond the limits of the umbrella.
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I agree with the Umbrella policy - they may not be cheap. Here in NH I had to increase the liability insurance on all cars in household to 500k. The umbrella policy itself wasn’t bad, but the increased liability was high. Especially since at the time I had 2 adults under 21 driving cars. When we became empty nesters, then it became more reasonable.