Bid On eBay To Speed Up Your Commute

malfunct writes "The traffic in the greater Seattle area is atrocious, and the State Government has been working hard to find a way to solve the issue. In the interim, they may use eBay as an innovative solution for estimating demand and raising funds. According to a MSNBC article, the plan is to use eBay to sell stickers that allow access for single driver vehicles to the car pool lane. The idea is to use eBay to find just how much a speedy commute is worth to drivers."

Comments

Re:Defeat the purpose?

[Lord_Slepnir]

LOL....you actually think that people in the US care about being environmentally responsible? You think that the government wants us to conserve gas? With states beginning to tax people based on how far they go instead of how much fuel they buy? With our rock bottom fuel prices? It's sad that we live in a nation that says "If I can afford to buy the gasoline for my SUV to drive me to work each day, then it's my right to".

Seriously, This is nation is making me sick. I hope that in 4-5 years we have gas prices as bad as europe. Maybe then people will pull thier head out of their asses and realize that a single career woman living in the city doesn't need to drive a 15mpg Ford to work every day.

</Rant>

What the fuck are you on?

[Inoshiro]

Stopping distance of a skidding car is directly proportional to the square of the speed of the car!

A car traveling 10 mi/hr may require 4 feet to skid to an abrupt halt; but a car going twice as fast -- 20 mi/hr -- will require four times the distance , a total of 16 feet to skid to a stop. A doubling of the speed results in a quadrupling of the stopping distance; a tripling of the speed would increase the stopping distance by a factor of nine; and a quadrupling of the speed would increase the stopping distance by a factor of 16.

The stopping distance is proportional to the square of the speed of the vehicle! If you're doing 90 in a 60 lane, you'd better have a following distance that's reasonable. Since all people who speed are impatient, that's unlikely.

Speeding merely endagers everyone's lives because you reduce the window of reaction time you have as well as increasing the distance you need to stop. Saying speed isn't dangerous is a joke -- maybe in Sega GT or Gran Turismo!

Re:Makes me sick.

[stevew]

Okay - fine, you disagree, and think that HOV lanes are a great idea. But I'll bet you are a SMALL MINORITY! That being the case - why is your BAD public policy shoved down the majority's throat????

Now maybe you live in a state where this isn't the case. In CA I've only met two people in the last 20 years that thought HOV lanes were a great idea.

Another GREAT example - one of the first freeways that HOV was installed on was the Santa Monica Freeway in Southern CA. This is one of the busiest if not THE busiest freeways in the world. Because of the poor implementation, it essentially has screwed up that freeway ever since it was installed.

Another great choke point here in the bay area is the 680 commute over the Sunol grade. To take care of the huge traffic jam that was a daily occurence - they installed an HOV lane. That was bright. Duh... Now - it IS true that the commute is MUCH lighter, but that is because the HUGE layoffs the area has suffered. Proof of concept. The nightly commute is usually as light as the morning commute now and there isn't an HOV lane going that way yet.

It's a DUMB DUMB DUMB idea.

Stop trying these social engineering experiments. If you are going to pay for infrastructure - spend it on infrastructure that everyone can use!

You are probably for progressive taxation too!