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How To Build Roads To Control How Fast You Drive
An anonymous reader writes "They're the holy grail of transportation engineering: streets and highways specifically designed to encourage automobilists to drive less quickly, reducing the rates of passenger fatalities and generally encouraging a safer urban environment. And now new research shows that, if built right, they just might work. A new study out of the University of Connecticut suggests that minor reductions in vehicle speed are possible through changes in the street environment. Through the use of roadside parking, tighter building setbacks, and more commercial land uses, road designers can make drivers subconsciously drive more slowly." All of that is gonna work a lot better than my strategy of placing car-sized holes covered with twigs and branches randomly every half mile or so down the interstates.
Studies show that drivers adjust to the speed at which they feel safe, regardless of posted speed. So the only way to make them go slower is to make the road inherently *less* safe.
Also, similar studies show that driving about 5-10 mph faster than posted is actually about the safest speed you can go.
http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits/
There's also the argument that restricting the ability to drive quickly kills, as you slow emergency response vehicles as well. http://www.bromleytransport.org.uk/Ambulance_delays.htm
All in all, one of the dumbest proposals I've ever heard. It seems that one of the easiest mistakes to make as an organization is to try to optimize for one contributing factor (speed) while ignoring the point of restricting that factor in the first place (reducing accidents).
The Germans and Dutch have been removing road signs and lights from roads for a few years now in experiments based on the theory that making roads more "dangerous" forces drivers to be more careful.
e.g. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/traffic.html
From http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,2143663,00.html, "When you don't exactly know who has right of way, you tend to seek eye contact with other road users,'' he said. ''You automatically reduce your speed, you have contact with other people and you take greater care."
http://www.car-accidents.com/pages/stats.html
There were nearly 6,420,000 auto accidents in the United States in 2005. The financial cost of these crashes is more than 230 Billion dollars. 2.9 million people were injured and 42,636 people killed. About 115 people die every day in vehicle crashes in the United States -- one death every 13 minutes.
http://www.theclaimsconnection.co.uk/road-accident-claims1.html
The number of people killed in road accidents was down from 2,946 in 2007 to 2,538. In accidents reported to the police the number of people either killed or seriously injured stood at 28,572, a fall of 7%.
So roughly 42,000 deaths versus 2,500 deaths. 307m people in the US version 61m in the UK. Therefore the death rate per 1m people is 137 in the US versus 41 in the UK.
So, no, there aren't more here (where I assume you mean the UK).
Slowing also reduces pedestrian fatalities - at 20 mph, a collision with a pedestrian is unlikely to kill (around 10% chance, according to UK government figures), at 40 mph, it's overwhelmingly likely to kill (90% chance). At 30 mph, this is reduced to 50%. Kinetic energy increases at the square of speed, so small reductions in speed have a proportionately great reduction in collision energy.
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British driving population:30,000,000
American driving population:193,552,000
0.00833 British deaths per 100 drivers
0.0217 American deaths per 100 drivers
(done for Anarki)
It's gone further than that. I'm taking a motorcycle safety course with my wife. I have ridden for over 30 years, she is starting this year. They now teach you to assume that every car driver is intentionally going to kill you. we were told to assume that every car near you is being operated by a complete idiot that wants you dead.
And I agree with him, it's how I made it 30 years without an accident.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Ahem: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_OECD_countries_by_traffic-related_death_rate
I think what you meant to ask for was "how many deaths per unit of vehicle distance travelled" since this controls not for how many drivers there are but for how much driving is actually going on. If you compare these numbers, you see that the US sees about 9 deaths per billion kilometers, and the UK sees 6.3 deaths. It's slightly more genuine and not nearly as 'shocking' (1.4x more vs 3.3x more fatalities) than the blanket deaths per person metric mentioned earlier. The UK sees fewer deaths overall in just about every measurable metric, however speculating on the actual causation is an exercise in futility left to the reader.
If you're not passing, you shouldn't be in the left lane, period. I don't care if you're doing 50 or 80 MPH, the left lane is for passing! It's people like you that fuck up good traffic flow.
Actually, I do not believe that is the case. From what I had read and seen on documentaries on the Autobahn, it was constructed almost from the beginning for speed. It has banked turns to help keep you on the road at speed, and I believe the road materials are thicker and more greatly reinforced for strength, and better for tires to grip the road.
From what I'd read...it would cost a great deal more for the US to do their highways like this. That's why they weren't constructed to those specs originally. Unfortunately, with the economic problems we're in now...doubtful we'll ever upgrade or do new construction to specs that will allow for safely using them at significantly higher speeds.
I think the last show I saw on this, was on the History channel...maybe Modern Marvels? Interesting to say the least.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........