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Confessions Of an Ex-TSA Agent: Secrets Of the I.O. Room
Jason Edward Harrington has seen some of the same frustrations, misgivings, and objections that have crossed the mind of probably every commercial airline traveler who's flown over the last decade in the U.S. One difference: Harrington got to see them from the perspective of a TSA agent. His description of the realities of the job (including learning the rote responses that agents are instructed to reassure the public with) is wince-worthy and compelling. A sample makes it clear why the TSA has such famously low morale, even among Federal agencies: "I hated it from the beginning. It was a job that had me patting down the crotches of children, the elderly and even infants as part of the post-9/11 airport security show. I confiscated jars of homemade apple butter on the pretense that they could pose threats to national security. I was even required to confiscate nail clippers from airline pilots—the implied logic being that pilots could use the nail clippers to hijack the very planes they were flying." It only gets worse from there.
The TSA exists because Americans tolerate it.
It's that simple.
We hold the purse strings AND the votes. Either one alone is enough to eliminate the TSA. But we have said, en-mass, that the TSA is acceptable in our society. So it will continue.
I've been reading that guy's blog since day one:
http://takingsenseaway.wordpre...
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Glad to know the only two times I ever went through the scanners (I travel for work frequently) that maybe somebody did see me flipping the double bird. Even happier that the on last several dozen trips my wife and I live by the words 'opt out'. Several agents have commented to me readily while feeling me up and violating my privacy that what they were doing was completely useless. In one case I was told by an agent that he felt up the CEO of the company that makes the current machines, who refuses to use them for himself or his family.
Time to get rid of the TSA, the only organization that can still get funding with a 0% success rate.
... confiscated jars of homemade apple butter on the pretense that they could pose threats to national security.
In all fairness, if I got a job as a TSA agent, and my bosses told me that jars of homemade apple butter could be a threat, I for one would take their word for it. I might post on slashdot hoping some educted chemists could debunk the issue, but I wouldn't presume to know that apple butter didn't happen to be a great masking material for some other explosive material.
Um, they have the Federal government in common. That's the point.
Most of the people where I work feel the TSA is doing a good job. In fact their response reminds of the Simpson's clip where Lisa sells Homer a rock that keeps bears away. You cannot reason with people this ignorant. They actually believe that the TSA is preventing terrorism and that the only people complaining are brown people. The only way for people to question the TSA is if someone like Edward Snowden manages to get media publicity and expose a bunch of documents or expose some insider contract on those X-ray porno machines sold by Michael Chertoff.
uhh...a hole to the outside, suddenly depressurizing the plane while at 30k feet, would be a really, really bad thing. What we should "try" is metal detectors and dogs - you know, the stuff we were using /before/ all this, and which worked substantially better.
I could empty an AR-15 w/30 rounds from inside an airliner flying at 30K feet, reload, do it again, and still not depressurize the cabin to any serious extent as long as no windows were blown out. I serviced/repaired aircraft for a living. (note: this assumes one doesn't carefully aim to enlarge a single hole.) You'd need a hole at least a foot or more across to be in any immediate danger.
An airliner is not a spaceship, and movies are not reality.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I don't know what's the worst part of your anecdote. How oblivious you seem to be at your privileged status and why that is a Bad Thing for the rights of all to be considered equal under the law, or how easy it would seem to be to join those ranks. One faked up official looking ID and maybe I could be treated like a free citizen like you.
Oh and using repeated exposure to relax the vigil of the guards is an old ninja trick, get a job as feeble sweeper of courtyards or emptier of chamber-pots until the guards know you, then strike your target. The guys who go easy on you because they know you are failing in their jobs. (no surprise there. Their jobs were failures from the beginning)
Then there is the servile response of the TSA agent and what it says about his mindset. He's trained and required to do things he KNOWS are useless, annoying and almost certainly infringing on the civil and constitutional rights of the citizens he searches. He's trained to say that everyone is subject to this, no exceptions, but he appears to believe that irritating a member of the bureaucracy may result in retribution in some form. A civil servant, in one of the crappiest jobs there is to be had in government service, was afraid of you and what you might choose to do if delayed. Do you really think that cringing, on the part of any civil servant, but security people especially is a good thing?
The moral of your story seems to be that the security theatre we all complain about is clearly something to be inflicted on the peasant masses, not members of the elite like yourself. You get a free pass on the bullshit the rest of us are being forced to endure and you attribute that to a few agents having their heads on straight. You are a functionary of what has become the ruling structure, you are getting special treatment as a result and you think that means the system works. You're an apparatchik and don't even know it....
no...i don't believe so.
the US government being involved in health care is a very new thing. it can be argued that the TSA was perhaps the largest new program that the US government created before the health care thing. that links the two in a very powerful and factual way.
the US government has been using the military for hundreds of years, and the politics of military use go back thousands.
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
So, your saying that Senator Obama was responsible for the formation and implementing the TSA when Bush jr. was the President?
Hint for the uninformed:
The TSA was put in place by a Republican George Bush jr., during the first of his two terms in office.
I marked you foe NOT because I'm an Oama fan, but because I see you as too stupid to even describe in words, and because of the whole TSA, PATRIOT Act, DHS, and all of the other unconstitutional crap turning me fiercely anti-Republican.
Bush jr. and company all need to be lined up against the wall and shot for the traitors they are.
And while we're at it, Obama and co. can join them for not correcting this crap.
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
uhhh..just FYI i wouldn't give a damn about your meaningless partisan politics...i'm so over that crap i can't stand the words "republican" and "democrat" anymore.
i'm talking about EXACTLY what the FTA's author is really saying behind his rant...which is the TSA ( which i believe was created under Bush BTW ) is a fucking joke, and the people in charge ( US government bureaucrats ) of the ideas and implementation of it are idjits.
how could anyone think that the two programs, run by basically the same set of bureaucrats, won't eventually share the same basic outcomes?
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
well it comforting to know that the same government that managed this program is now moving on to something as *truly* important as our and our childrens healthcare.
right?
Exactly. Only, it's not. The ACA is to ensure more people have health *insurance*.
I'm curious why you felt the need to break out "our childrens (sic) healthcare", as if one might assume that their (again, insurance, not healthcare) was separate from ours. Just for the emotional weight?
The TSA must be a "different" kind of organization than that which I work for, the United States Air Force. I have written many "letters to the editor" under my real name on many topics that expose my generally Socialist bent and strong anti-authoritarian opinions. Yet, I have never been "admonished", and I recently had my security clearance extended for another 10 years after the standard Security Clearance Anal Probe.
I think the TSA is a "different" kind of US government agency, one that need to go.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Oh, and a related set of facts I thought I should mention, just for safety and the odd chance's sake.
Discharging a firearm in an aircraft may not be likely to cause dangerous and immediate cabin depressurization, but there's still a ton of vital stuff that keeps you flying (and landing minus large fireball and crater!) that doesn't play well with getting shot up.
It's a bad idea, period. Unless lives are at stake, don't do it.
That being said, if you're on an aircraft and some surreal turn of events happens to cause you or someone else you have influence over to absolutely *have to* discharge a firearm while flying in an airliner, try to avoid lines of fire that intersect the wings/engines (and the fuel tanks they contain, although a small-caliber round is unlikely to cause a fire/explosion/sudden fuel loss), the cockpit area (obviously), directly aft through the tail (avionics/autopilot/comms/cabin air pressure pumps/etc) and down through the deck you're standing on (more avionics/flight control/comm/nav/etc, fuel tanks, and landing gear).
Avoid the instinct to consider "down" (cabin deck) a safe default direction for discharging a firearm purposefully or accidentally in an aircraft cabin. If anything, "up" (cabin ceiling) would be preferable.
Of course, avoid windows. Easy one to remember for most Slashdotters. :)
Exact locations will vary by aircraft make/model/etc, but that's a pretty good general rule-of-thumb layout.
Again, if there's any choice, do not discharge any firearm in an aircraft in flight. Too easy to fall down go BOO000OOM!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
In Tennessee it is different if you're poor. I was a young single parent who was jobless. I go down to the welfare office to sign up for Tenncare and my son who was 3 at the time was enrolled at once, no questions asked. I, however, was denied Tenncare. I had absolutely zero medical bills at the time. I mention that because the lady told me that if I wanted to get Tenncare, I would need to go out and rack up approximately $16k in medical bills that I couldn't pay and THEN Tenncare would take me. What the hell kind of policy is that? I wanted Tenncare so that if something bad did go down I could manage to scrape by but the State actually advocated for me to go do irresponsible and illogical things. We do take care of our kids though at least. In that regard, there are 2 separate kinds of healthcare.
Airliner environmental control systems move literally tons of air.
Spot on.
Airliner cabin seals are nowhere near 100% even when the airliner is paint-still-drying new. Cabin air pressurization systems and their pumps are designed with many times the capacity they would normally need. They are beasts. That's why even dozens of bullet holes wouldn't cause a dangerous cabin pressure problem.
Most people would be shocked at how poor the cabin seals actually are on the aircraft they fly on, and how much cabin pressure depends on the pumps keeping up with cabin seal losses.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I could empty an AR-15 w/30 rounds from inside an airliner flying at 30K feet, reload, do it again, and still not depressurize the cabin to any serious extent as long as no windows were blown out. I serviced/repaired aircraft for a living.
I designed and coded the software for cabin pressurization systems used in commercial aircraft. BlueStrat is correct in all details, and if you know a little engineering you can easily convince yourself.
The cabin pressurization valve is an inflatable balloon (of sorts) sitting in an 8" diameter hole, and there are two of them. The system will easily compensate for even a large number of bullet holes in the body - 1" holes are much smaller than the area the valve system has to work with.
The pressure differential between the inside and outside can be at most 15 pounds per square inch(*). That means that a 1" hole would only present 15 lbs of force pressure on an object pressing against it, which can be easily overcome by a person. Bullet holes are much smaller than 1" diameter. Further away and the effect is negligible.
A window being shot out would not suck out a passenger. From experience, when an 8" diameter hole (the pressurization valve) is suddenly uncovered, it doesn't pull very hard on people standing near it and the pull ends almost instantly. Force isn't present for any length of time, and since F=M*A and V = A*T, you end up with very little velocity.
Sorry folks, Goldfinger doesn't get sucked across the cabin and forced through the blown-out window, and Pussy Galore doesn't have to pull the plane out of a tailspin.
(*) To reduce stress on the airframe, the cabin is depressurized as the aircraft reaches cruising altitude.This reduces the maximum differential by about 1/3.
I'm not sure I would consider a state worker as the state advocating something. I can understand why the state wouldn't cover you unless you were in debt by medical expenses. But if you had no medical bills, then you wouldn't need coverage until you did. The kid has no fault in you being unemployed and unable to provide for him so covering him is a no brain'er.
Covering you without some extenuating circumstances however might encourage the likelihood of you continuing to need coverage. So I think what the state was actually encouraging was you to get a job and provide for yourself while they assisted the innocent child that followed your into that mess. I guess if you are the type who looks at the glass as half empty all the time, you could find the go into medical debt sentiment in that scenario. The interesting thing is, if you are 16k in debt with no job, you are also bankrupt and could discharge that debt pretty easily.
Do we really want to keep repeating the same mistakes for thousands of years? Because basically, if things stay as they are, that's exactly what will happen.
I'm just tired of the world being mediocre because of the wishes of a few people at the top, be it my own country Australia with our tremendously stupid Prime Minister, Mr. Abbott, or the Tea Party douchebags who wouldn't just shut the fuck up and deal with the fact that they can't have everything their way. (they're both practically the same thing, right wing extremists who are just re-hashing the same old shitty conservative policy from 30 years ago).
I mean, Tony Abbott is practically trying to make Trickle Down Economics work here... although you will NEVER hear anybody characterize it as that, personally I think my fellow Australians are too stupid to know what that even means. It would be hilarious if he wasn't so hell bent on achieving it.
It comes down to this: You can't shit on other human beings and expect to get away with it all the time, sometimes people will get fed up, sometimes people get tired of the arrangements they have. Look what happened in your country 13 years ago, a small faction of Radical Islamists basically got fed up with America, what they did was horrible, I can only imagine the pain and anguish of those people who lost somebody because of that event, but your government did a deal with them many years previous, your country helped them get into power in their region all just to make things difficult for the Soviets, and what was the point? They fucking collapsed under their own weight during the early 90's!
Ultimately, America is responsible for what happens to America, don't fuck with people if you can't handle the retaliation.
I mean you guys are so mixed up, you want to all be good righteous people who treat eachother right according to your constitution, yet as soon as someone blows up some buildings you all lose your fucking minds and practically tear the same piece of paper to pieces AND THEN ON TOP OF THAT go to some shithole country that the vast majority of Americans had not even heard of and can't even find on a map and then rain down fire and death upon anybody who even resembles a Taliban supporter, to the point where you have drones killing civilians over there for looking suspicious.
It's very simple, all humans should be treated the same, with respect and courtesy, but if you fuck other people over, don't expect to get away with it forever. The TSA is something I would definitely class as fucking people over, there's just no justification for touching other people's genitals, I don't care what some paranoid pol or military official says, they all have proven track records of lying to the public at this point, anybody who is still supporting all this security bullshit in it's current form is suspect, mainly because it's been proven time and time again that even with all of this TSA crap, there's still GAPING holes in the security. If the average American can see them, you can bet your ass that the Taliban can.
He said black powder. Black powder is potassium NITRATE aka kno3.
A little charcoal, a lot of potassium nitrate, and a pinch of sulfur.
And we didn't lose Vietnam. It was a tie!
The US government needs to learn a few more lessons on building roads. If you would inform us of the aspects of roadbuilding in the US that impress you, maybe some of us could disillusion you.
For starters, our interstate highway system is demonstrably unsafe, compared the Autobahn. Have you ever noticed that nothing separates oncoming traffic? It has been pointed out to me that the Germans have double guard rails separating oncoming traffic. What do we have? A grass filled median. I have observed vehicles going out of control, and rolling, flying, coasting, skidding, or otherwise finding their way into the oncoming lanes. In view of the physical laws of nature, it is safer to hit ANYTHING other than oncoming vehicle. Steel guard rails, concrete dividers, trees, bridge abutments, ANYTHING.
There are a large number of places in the United States where the engineers flubbed. Dead Man's Curve, in Cleveland Ohio has lots of optical warnings that the curve is unsafe at speeds over 35 mph - but they seem to fail, as year after year, idiot manage to wipe out in that curve.
Bridges in various places during rainstorms become very unsafe. The crown of the road, couple with the incline of the road surface when it meets the incline of the approach ramp often just dams water up on the road way. I have hydroplaned fully loaded tractor trailers in these areas, while driving the posted speed limit or less. If I can float 80,000 pounds, you can rest assured that you will float your 3,000 pound personal vehicle in these areas.
Lighting. I have rather sensitive eyes. As I age, they are becoming more sensitive to bright lights at night. I can be blinded by lights pretty easily. Truck stops, restaurants, and other businesses often put very bright lights near the highway to attract attention. Billboards often have bright lights that are aimed improperly, so that they shine into motorist's eyes. The cops themselves are on a quest to find the brightest possible lights to mount on their patrol cars. I was very literally blinded as I came around a curve in Memphis late one night, by a police car stopped at the scene of an accident. Only luck, or the hand of God, prevented me from running into the survivors and the emergency workers.
Speed limits? Those are set by politicians, for the purpose of extracting revenues from the motoring public. When Eisenhower specced the interstate, it was intended that the interstate sustain 80 mph traffic. The human body has physiological reactions to traveling. On an open highway, with little to look at, the sound, vibrations, and general motions of the vehicle tends to lull people into relaxation and sleep at speeds around 55 mph. At speeds approaching 80 mph, everything about the vehicle tends to key the occupants into full alertness. Except for known unsafe areas, the interstates would be much SAFER with higher speed limits.
I'm sorry, but we are merely mediocre road builders. Leaving the interstate highway system behind, the US Highway system gets worse. State and local highways are oftentimes abysmal failures.
We CAN actually build superb highways. We have the technology, we have the knowhow, we have the materials, and we have the money to do so. We simply choose not to. Any movement to force the issue will be defeated by politicians. The courts will side with the politicians, because they love their cash cow. America will not be building any incredible highway systems in our lifetimes.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
A recent article shows that the Pentagon is reconsidering uniform requirements to permit beards and turbans for Muslims. Now consider that beards have been outlawed by our military for decades, based on "discipline" considerations. No redneck, no Jew, no mountain man has been permitted to display a beard while in uniform. Suddenly - we are courting Muslims, so out of the goodness of our hearts, we are going to allow them to wear beards and turbans.
I'm willing to listen to the military on issues of the military, but you sound like an armchair general who saw a minor change in the rules that happened recently. Many modern militaries allow facial hair -- Spain, France, Germany, .... (And historically, beards have been very common.) One of the major reasons for prohibiting it was not discipline, but for having a good seal in gas masks -- god, I know, a crazy idea, that military regulations would be set for issues of warfighting, and not whatever crazy idea you thought up.
How is this modded 4+ Insightful?! It's ignorant, hypocritical bollocks!
"Women, gays, Muslims & atheists" are no more special interest groups than bible-bashing white males. And how the fuck do you make "accommodations" for atheists? Not force them to sing words of praise to your special interest deity?
On an organisational level, religion should have no place in military procedures. If you're having to make "accommodations" for people absent of any religion, then there's something horribly wrong with the procedures of your military.
And how the hell can you complain that atheists DON'T have to follow your religious doctrine, AND at the same time complain that other religious groups get to follow theirs?
A recent article shows that the Pentagon is reconsidering uniform requirements to permit beards and turbans for Muslims.
Suddenly - we are courting Muslims...
Under pressure from Sikhs, the Pentagon has publicly clarified its existing procedures to permit certain practices "as long as the practices do not interfere with military discipline, order or readiness."
And not just that, they have to go the through the procedures to request permission for every individual deployment.
A number of highly decorated professionals have been drummed out of service for the crime of failing to wholeheartedly support the gay agenda.
So it's OK for people to break with agreed military procedures & speak out against a minority, but it's not for a minority to request to do the same? Go fuck yourself.
...often enough, accusations of sexual harassment and/or assault are political tools used against good soldiers. It is impossible to even guess at the numbers of such instances, but I know for a fact that it happens. Other times, a female soldier who is busted for drugs or other infractions tries to turn the tables by accusing supervisors and investigators of sexual harassment. Again - it's impossible to even guess at the numbers, but it happens.
Given the accuracy of your comments so far, I'll choose to take these self-professed baseless assumptions with a pinch of salt. You don't have enough information to even make a guess, but you "know" it happens? Do you have *anything* to back this up?
...the fact is, our military is being improperly used to advance a number of political agendas.
Something the whole world would probably agree with you on.
[/RANT]
You mostly have it BECAUSE you spend that fuckton of money on the military.
Every country so far that considered trading oil for Euros got bombed. Every time Iran starts pondering, we get to hear about their dangerous nuke program.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The military is too expensive for its efficiency and as a European, I don't even want to comment on your roads.
After driving a bit around the US I finally figured out why SUVs are so popular. A compact would probably vanish in the potholes on your highways.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I call BS on much of your post.
For starters, our interstate highway system is demonstrably unsafe, compared the Autobahn. Have you ever noticed that nothing separates oncoming traffic? It has been pointed out to me that the Germans have double guard rails separating oncoming traffic. What do we have? A grass filled median.
Umm, on many of the highways I drive on in the U.S., when the oncoming traffic is placed closer (without a significant median), there are guardrails. If it's even closer, there's a concrete or double concrete barrier. You can argue that maybe we need more barriers, but engineers clearly use these solutions in many places in the U.S. when conditions warrant it.
I have hydroplaned fully loaded tractor trailers in these areas, while driving the posted speed limit or less.
In heavy enough rain, you can hydroplane. News at 11.
There's something called "adjust your driving to conditions." You simply can't always go the posted speed limit in heavy rain. Yes, there are places where the road is not ideal and water channels or pools happen in heavy rain. Those sorts of places exist in Germany and in Europe in general too. The U.S. is HUGE, and sometimes engineers don't predict things quite right over literally millions of miles of roadways. But your assumption that you should be able to just travel the speed limit without ever hydroplaning -- I don't think that's reasonable. (The size of your vehicle also won't make this impossible: heavy aircraft have been known to hydroplane, which is the reason many airports have adopted grooves on runways.)
Speed limits? Those are set by politicians, for the purpose of extracting revenues from the motoring public. When Eisenhower specced the interstate, it was intended that the interstate sustain 80 mph traffic.
Sure, if we want to move troops rapidly across the country, which was part of the rationale for the interstate system.
For normal traffic, there's no need to travel at 80 mph. In fact, it reduces gas mileage usually to go significantly above 55 or so, because air resistance increases much more rapidly and you have to fight that at high speeds.
As for why speed limits are what they are, I'm sure there are SOME places in the U.S. where they are politically motivated... corruption is everywhere.
But in general terms, speed limits are set for (1) safety reasons across a broad variety of road conditions, and (2) to increase traffic throughput to maximum levels. Yes, on a dry road on a perfectly clear day, you may be able to go 90 mph down a country road, but add in cross traffic, pedestrians, and any sort of weather, and maybe 40 or 45 mph is safer. A lot of times, people don't realize that proximity to residences or other issues requires a consideration of lower speeds for safety.
Most people also don't realize the necessity and rationale for (2), though, which often plays a role for highway limits.... particularly in cities and high-traffic areas. Believe it or not, you can actually often put more cars through a stretch of road at 45 mph than 80 mph, particularly if there are lots of merges, on/off ramps, other random traffic issues and curves, etc. Merges, lane endings, on/off ramps, etc. require a lot of fast reactions to keep traffic moving. At 80 mph, people overcorrect, and a chain of brake lights can rapidly create a traffic "wave" that snarls traffic for a half hour. If everyone is traveling at 45, it might be easier for those merges, etc. to happen... you can actually increase traffic throughput this way, which is why many cities have adopted flexible speed limits on highways during rush hour.
The human body has physiological reactions to traveling. On an open highway, with little to look at, the sound, vibrations, and general motions of the vehicle tends to lull people into relaxation and sleep at speeds around 55 mph. At speeds approaching 80 mph, everyt
Those groups begin with women and gays, and continue with Muslims, atheists, and ends God knows where.
Please explain why women, gay people, Muslims, atheists, etc can't be good military personnel. I know this much: The soldiers I've talked to and seen polled about it overwhelmingly either support or don't care about these kinds of measures. This might have something to do with the fact that when you're in a firefight you care more about whether the rest of your unit are good shots than who they like to kiss or what they think about spirituality.
Now consider that beards have been outlawed by our military for decades, based on "discipline" considerations. No redneck, no Jew, no mountain man has been permitted to display a beard while in uniform.
Please explain why wearing a beard displays a lack of discipline or lack of military readiness. I'm really not understanding what the purpose of that kind of rule could possibly be, except some silly holdover from the 1950's that stereotyped bearded men as drunkards and foreigners. During the Civil War, wearing a beard was very common, and it doesn't seem to have had any effect on the skill or bravery or readiness on the troops (or at least not enough that anyone made any mention of it whatsoever in any military documents).
While a liberal or a progressive may feel that to be a "good thing", the fact is, our military is being improperly used to advance a number of political agendas.
Well, let me tell you of another time the military was used to "advance a political agenda": Racial integration. In 1948, Harry Truman issued an executive order desegregating the US military. Today, black people are more likely to join the military than white people, in large part because they know that the organization will treat them fairly and give them a good chance of a career. We'd probably lose 5-10% of our military personnel had Truman not done that.
We no longer have the military that we had thirty or forty years ago.
No, we don't, and we're at the very least no worse off for it. Running down the list of US military operations between 1974 and 1984 (the "glory days" you seem to be yearning for), the most significant military actions were the evacuation of Vietnam and the invasion of Grenada. Do you really think those were more difficult military operations than the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan?
I am officially gone from
I call BS on much of your post.
I can smell plenty of it coming from your post as well.
Umm, on many of the highways I drive on in the U.S., when the oncoming traffic is placed closer (without a significant median), there are guardrails. If it's even closer, there's a concrete or double concrete barrier. You can argue that maybe we need more barriers, but engineers clearly use these solutions in many places in the U.S. when conditions warrant it.
There are *vast* stretches of highway that are just as the GP described them - completely and without any barriers other than the median. Apparently you have driven on a select few roads in this country. I've driven many very long distance trips, and about the only region I have yet to drive through is the PacNorthwest.
There's something called "adjust your driving to conditions." You simply can't always go the posted speed limit in heavy rain.
Thanks, Captain Obvious. I think the GP already stated "while driving the posted speed limit or less". I've hydroplaned at speeds of 15 mph in extremely heavy flow on I-35 near Dallas. Do you think either I or the GP continued to drive at that speed?
For normal traffic, there's no need to travel at 80 mph. In fact, it reduces gas mileage usually to go significantly above 55 or so, because air resistance increases much more rapidly and you have to fight that at high speeds.
Cite your sources for this often repeated tripe. My own MPG continues to rise until it peaks when my speed exceeds 110 mph. Most any car that I've owned (and none of them were your big honking pointless SUVs or any other sort of passenger truck) continued to increase in performance up to at least 80 mph. Even in the case of a Toyota Prius, the efficiency won't peak until approximately 75 mph. This statistic that you quote is a relic of the 1970's oil embargo years and the types of cars typically driven at that time. I somehow doubt it even applies to diesel big rigs these days either.
As for why speed limits are what they are, I'm sure there are SOME places in the U.S. where they are politically motivated... corruption is everywhere.
Probably a non-trivial number. Remember, there are many places where the police will harass and/or arrest a private citizen who visibly warns drivers that they are approaching a speed trap. If safety was the real motivation, then the police would not harass people like this. But instead it's about the money.
The human body has physiological reactions to traveling. On an open highway, with little to look at, the sound, vibrations, and general motions of the vehicle tends to lull people into relaxation and sleep at speeds around 55 mph. At speeds approaching 80 mph, everything about the vehicle tends to key the occupants into full alertness. Except for known unsafe areas, the interstates would be much SAFER with higher speed limits.
What the heck are you talking about? Citation needed. Maybe in cars from 25 years ago or in your giant truck.
To the best of my knowledge, the increase in speed limit in TX over the years did not see a significant increase in accidents or fatalities. There are plenty of roads with posted limits as high as 80 and I think even SH 130 toll has 85 even.
In most modern cars, putting the cruise control on at high speeds will result in people relaxing... it doesn't matter whether you're going 55 or 65 or 80.
Citation please.
In any case, even if there were some minor benefit in terms of alertness at 80 mph, it would largely be trumped by the vast increases of kinetic energy that happen as you go faster at high speeds -- which means a subsequent significantly greater time and effort to stop safely... or greater energy thrown into collision s
Sure the Federal government is *involved*, but *how* it is involved surely makes a difference. The Federal Government actually *runs* security at airports. It does not run non-military health care facilities. It doesn't even provide insurance except to its employees and their families and the poor. It's actual participation in health care and health care decisions is quite limited.
The Federal government involvement in health care, broadly speaking, is limited to the following five areas:
(1) Mandates individual coverage for US residents.
(2) Sets minimal standards for what must be covered to meet the mandate.
(3) Subsidizes low income insurance premiums
(4) Provides free alternative insurance for households making less than 133% of the poverty line *in participating states*.
(5) Provides a health care "exchange" on which consumers can shop for insurance *in states that decline to provide this service to their citizens*.
That's it. Obamacare is a private sector based health care scheme -- essentially the same scheme, in fact, developed by the conservative Heritage Foundation for Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole in 1996. There is no way to ensure the bulk of Americans have routine health care with *less* federal involvement than what is outlined above.
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