For the past six days, I've driven 12 hour shifts, covering at least 150 miles per shift; Saturday I covered 300 miles.
I didn't use or need the speedometer ONCE.
Face it: Your speedometer starts out as a learning tool, until your Seat-O'-da-pants meter and your eyes become sufficiently well calibrated.
If a speed camera is a hammer, then your speedometer is a nail. Takes a lot more than those to build a quality home.
Valle Crucis wrote:
Thatsnews wrote:
Apparently it is generally accepted that drivers with advanced skills are able to drive faster and safer than other "ordinary" drivers who do not have the same level of skills.
It's the "are able to" which is the problem. For example, in what way "are they able to"? If they are stuck in a jam with a bunch of other drivers, they are not able to. If they try to overtake a bunch of drivers who are inferior to them, they could be killed if one pulls out, so they are "not able to". Basically, there are hundreds of ways in which drivers with advanced skills are not able to drive faster or safer than other "ordinary" drivers, so it is manifestly obvious that there can be no general acceptance - it depends on the circumstances.
Traffic conditions - density, flow speed, etc. probably contain most of the major external factors that determine how fast individual vehicles will decide to travel. Certainly any driver worth his salt would drive differently during working hours on a workday than
after working hours on a workday, and differently on weekends, because of prevailing traffic conditions. (Imagine the traffic patterns prevailing when most people are asleep?)
Valle Crucis wrote:
Thatsnews wrote:
So the speed limits are not designed for the drivers who are more highly trained.
I don't think the level of the speed limits are "designed" as such. The fact that they each lie on a decimal boundary (30 mph, 40mph ...) suggest they are set, not at scientifically verifiable levels, but at memorable ones.
In short, the levels of the limit are set via a combination of science, common sense, cooperation and good reason. Oh, and politics of course, because we all (or at least most of us) have to agree when all is said and done.
In this golden oldie of a poll-thread, the esteemed Paul Smith gives three safety reasons for speed limits:
1) To firmly guide inexperienced and underskilled drivers away from exceeding safe limits by wild margins
2) To provide a ready means of prosecution of those who use speed dangerously
3) To provide a "standard warning" of expected hazard density
'spankthecrumpet' restates the 1st safety reason
adds what looks like a new safety reason -
Some very atypical locations, such as road worksand gives a further environmental reason -
Forcing people to use less petrolObviously there's more to this than safety, or environmental damage control.
For example, there are quite a few 'service roads' in Suburban Long Island that run parallel to some highways for more than 20 miles. Although 45 MpH on these service roads is usually perfectly safe, those who live in the homes that line these service roads lobbied hard and loud enough to lower the posted speed to 30MpH.
Why?
The residents of these nice houses with gazebos simply consider fast moving cars
Quote:
extremely distasteful and unpleasant
Some people just prefer the sense that they have control over other people.