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Gubernatorial Candidate Wants to Sell Speeding Passes for $25
If Nevada gubernatorial candidate Eugene "Gino" DiSimone gets his way, $25 will buy you the right to drive up to 90mph for a day. DiSimone estimates his "free limit plan" will raise $1 billion a year for Nevada. From the article: "First, vehicles would have to pass a safety inspection. Then vehicle information would be loaded into a database, and motorists would purchase a transponder. After setting up an account, anyone in a hurry could dial in, and for $25 charged to a credit card, be free to speed for 24 hours."
Germany's Autobahn is a very modern system, built with incredibly strict tolerances. Also, the rules for driving on the Autobahn are very strict, and German drivers have a very strenuous testing process before they can get a license. Comparing the two doesn't make much sense.
As Nevada is one of the US states I've never visited it makes me wonder if their roads are anything compared to European or even German Autobahns...
Until then I'll limit the times I hit 265 km/h (155 mi/h for the old fashioned) to the occasions I get in Germany.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
H rated is the standard tire sold in the US now, which is 210kph/130mph
The base 17 inch tires, the cheapest we could find that were made for our car, were V rated 240kph/149mph
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tire_code#National_technical_standards_regulations
http://www.carbibles.com/tyre_bible.html
90 MPH is pretty much the standard anyway. Seems to work rather fine with cars flying along at 90+ and trucks chugging up the passes at 30 MPH.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Or more likely that he's a nut job that doesn't know what he's talking about. Roads are constructed to engineering specs. Even if you're on a long stretch of straight road, there's still engineering that goes on to determine the maximum safe speed. Things like lane size and spacing are taken into account. As are the size and spacing of the shoulder and the considerations as to how far away buildings need to be. Not to mention the fact that any road that has a curve is engineered to handle traffic going up to a maximum speed. The angle of the bank and the radius of the curve are chose on the assumption that people will be traveling at no more than a certain speed.
While libertarians tend to get all outraged about things like this, there's no evidence that it's as safe to go 90mph on those roads as it is 70mph or whatever the current limit is. Even for roads like the Autobahn, when you do have a wreck, it tends to be pretty spectacular and much worse than the ones we typically get in the US. Beyond that mixing traffic speeds is a real danger. There's a reason why you're urged to keep up with traffic flow even if the traffic flow is going somewhat over the speed limit. It represents a risk to other vehicles to have people that aren't keeping up.
Who says the owner(s) of the car(s) and person(s) present at the accident won't still be the only persons liable if an accident occurs due to speeding? Just because the driver didn't break any laws in injuring someone, doesn't mean the government is "liable" for this. South v. Maryland; local law-enforcement have no duty to protect individuals, but only a general duty to enforce the laws
Only if the state has consented to this liability. The law that enables "speeding passes" could contain a liability shield for the state, Due to Sovereign immunity, the state itself cannot be held liable, unless the state has consented.
I work at a tyre wholesaler in the UK. You basically have to go out of your way to buy any car tyres now that are below H rated, which is 130mph. The commonest tyres sold are 205/55/16 91V, which fit all manner of standard cars which can get nowhere near the 149mph speed rating of them. You can get that size in H rating, but only with some specific branded tyres (like Michelin energy saver, Goodyear NCT5, Bridgestone ER300, Continental Premium 2). The budget performance tyres we sell most of, (Enduro 916+, Autogrip F107), are actually W rated... 168mph. No car that runs on this size of tyre will ever see that kind of speed... quick cars use lower profile, wider tyres.
The lowest (not truck) speed rating that sells is N (87mph) - they're commercial specification though - high profile, high load rating. I've not seen a standard tyre with a lower than N rating. You'll also sometimes get lower (than H) speed ratings on small high profile tyres (for old small cars), and 4x4 offroad tyres.
Those German highways without speed limits are dangerous and demand the driver's full attention because there's almost always a car nearby that is going much faster or much slower than you are (except when traffic is really dense, of course, in which case this degenerates into a massive stop-and-go where you're constantly changing from standstill to speeds up to 100km/h and back in a constant, rather tight cycle). It's quite stressful to drive on these roads for a couple of hours.
I've driven those roads. They were no more stressful than any given highway in the US. If anything, they were less stressful because slower traffic stayed in the right lanes. The big problems I have during my daily commute in the US is when several lanes try to stay at (or below) the speed limit and there's a backup of others heading in to work used to going 10 - 15mph above the limit trying to find a way around them.
To add to my German roads experience - I drove a lot of small country roads as well. Two lane roads that are about as wide as one and a half US lanes. No speed limits. Occasional blind hills and turns. Farm equipment occasionally on the road. The only accidents I knew of involved either a drunk driver or black ice. As the police say, "speed was a factor." But then, any speed would have been a factor in those cases.
With that in mind, I knew that when a speed limit was posted, there was a damn good reason for it (and it wasn't to "save the children" or fund the local law enforcement). I paid attention to blind spots in the road. I knew to watch for black ice and moderate my speeds in colder months. I watched for tractors. And I got the heck out of the left lane as soon as I was done passing while on a stretch of Autobaun (one time I looked in my rear view mirror when I saw a flash of headlights, didn't see anytihng, looked back down and saw tail-lights in the distance - dude was really moving). I never had an accident and never had a close call in 3 years of driving there. In all, I'm pretty convinced speed isn't the demon the US likes to make it out to be - beyond the fact that any speed is unsafe in the right circumstances.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis#Conservation_and_reduction_in_demand
To help reduce consumption, in 1974 a national maximum speed limit of 55 mph (about 88 km/h) was imposed through the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act. Development of the United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve began in 1975, and in 1977, the cabinet-level Department of Energy was created, followed by the National Energy Act of 1978.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/drivehabits.shtml
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/images/speedVsMpg3.gif
While each vehicle reaches its optimal fuel economy at a different speed (or range of speeds), gas mileage usually decreases rapidly at speeds above 60 mph.
You can assume that each 5 mph you drive over 60 mph is like paying an additional $0.24 per gallon for gas.
Where did I say that roads with speed limits are inherently safe?
Have you been driving in Germany yet? If not, my guess is that the kinds of situations you get on the highways there are hard to imagine. Seeing one car pull out behind a truck going at 100km/h while there's another car going 160-180km/h or sometimes even faster approaching from behind and getting far too close far to fast is normal. Very often, the faster going drivers are reckless enough to brake at the very last moment to come down to the slower speed with some 5 or 10 meters to spare between the bumpers and staying that close behind.
http://www.moonlight3d.eu/
That's all true, except that the maximum safe speed is far detached from the specified speed. The specified speed on the federal highway system, and which virtually all states have adopted in order to get their share of highway funds was adopted for fuel efficiency, not safety.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Statistics on the other hand will show that the number of fatalities varies to the square of the speed of the vehicle involved in a collision.
Highway statistics show no consistent relationship between speed and fatality. That's probably because once you reach a speed that kills you, it doesn't matter how much faster you go. Higher speeds do seem to increase driver alertness, but of course you also have more stopping distance.
What we do know is that Germany has much higher highway speeds, yet much lower highway accident rates (1/3 of US) and lower absolute number of fatalities (1/40 of US at 1/4 the population).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/pubs/pl08021/fig7_5.cfm
So, stop pulling statistics out of your ass.
I have a book (but it's in a box in my Mom's attic and I can't remember its name, so I can't link to it or anything) which includes an interview with one of the engineers who designed the interstate highway system. In the 1950's when they were considering it, standard consumer automobiles had routinely gotten faster and more powerful ever since they were invented, and the designers didn't know where that trend would end. There was much discussion about what the ultimate speed of cars would be. In the end, they set standards for curves, banking, etc. based on an assumption of travel at 100 MPH, hoping it wouldn't go significantly over that, and not wanting to have engineered the largest public works project in history only to find out it was significantly deficient twenty years later if they'd designed it for 75 MPH and everyone wanted to go 95.
I remember that interview also had the information that at least back then, they determined the speed limits for entrance and exit ramps not with measurement of the radius of curves, slopes of embankments, and equations, but by driving a mid-level Ford sedan to every single ramp and driving around it in circles over and over, slightly faster each time. On the first pass where the tires slipped, they'd halve the speed they were traveling, round to the nearest 5 MPH and post that as the speed limit.
I wish I had the source to point you all to. I think it was from a collection of some "answer person's" newspaper column from the 70's and 80', but I don't recall.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
Speeding is travelling to quickly for the prevailing conditions. That speed may or may not be above the speed limit, whatever it is set to.
The speed limit is not "the safe speed". It is the legal limit of speed. Just because you are legally permitted to travel at up to 30mph on a street, doesn't mean it's safe to do so.
A minor nitpick, but.. "speeding" is exceeding the legal speed limit, which may or may not be the POSTED speed limit. Legal definitions do exist for this, and "speeding" usually means something. In some states, speeding is merely exceeding the posted speed limit. In many others, there are additional limitations on speed which define speeding differently.
In California, there are three ways you can be "speeding":
Because "speeding" is legally defined, somebody (in CA) can not be "speeding" unless they are meeting the above criteria. In CA, you're legally speeding if you're going 65 mph on a highway at night in the rain and fog with 50 feet visibility unless you can demonstrate that this was safe.
Nevada also has the basic speed rule so "the safe speed" is also "the legal limit" as long as the safe speed is equal to or below the posted limit.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling
Speaking of pulling thing out of asses, maybe you should have pulled your head out before you make statements like 'Germany has less accidents on the Autobahn blah blah blah...'. They most certainly do. Do you know why? Because 1) it is very cost/time prohibitive for a German citizen to get a drivers license (~$1600US, 6+ hours of first aid training, books, etc) and 2) Germany has one of the best (if not the best) public transportation systems on Earth.
There is a much smaller percentage of licensed drivers in Germany than in the US (which is near 99%). And the drivers that are on the Autobahn have much more training and are far more skilled. Sure, they have less accidents, but not even remotely for the reasons you think.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.