And given that the lead car in such a "train" (according to the article) is a professional driver operating a purpose-built vehicle, the only one incurring a drag penalty is the vehicle that was built and is operated specifically to accept the drag penalty.
Which leads to some interesting economics. If each car in the line enjoys a 10% increase in fuel efficiency, and you have ten cars in line, you are (at best) saving approximately the fuel that would have been consumed by a theoretical car that gets the average fuel mileage of the line. You are gaining that benefit by running a dedicated vehicle and driver to "break wind" (pun intended) for the rest. That dedicated vehicle is going to be laden with a certain amount of electronics, and probably some good crash zone front-and-back just in case something goes wrong. So it's hardly going to be "above average efficiency".
So, how many cars would have to be running in a duckling formation like this to make up for the fuel and maintenance incurred by having the lead vehicle out there, the wages for said driver, etc?
If the formations are long enough to be efficient, they are going to be (for all intents, traffic-wise) a single contiguous vehicle running (obviously) at or near the speed limit. If you run it in the "speed/passing" lane, you'll have asshats whirling around on the right trying to get around you and it's going to be hard to separate from the pack to exit. If you run it on the "slow/ramp" lane, no one will be able to onramp as you pass by. And if you run it in the middle lane(s) if they exist, you'll effectively make it impossible to cross over from edge lane to edge lane (fast lane to an exit, for example) without disruption of the line. Any place you put this "train", you're going to affect the efficiency of traffic flow around you.
Or you keep the lines of cars really short, in which case see the "economical" question posed immediately above.
If ALL vehicles did this, it could work, maybe. If nothing goes wrong with any of the cars in line (tire blown or any sort of panic maneuver, or simply electrical failure or running out of gas). But if you have a pool of vehicles that did this mixed with other cars, you'd have problems. Heck, one idiot pulling in front of mama duck and slamming on his brakes HARD is going to cause almost all of the vehicles in line to get dented up at least. No two cars have the exact same braking force, so telling all the cars to panic stop will get almost all of them bouncing into each other.
"New terrorist tip, pull in front of road train and throw an infidel out the window"
One advantage, though... the lead vehicle could have the potential to be carrying either people or cargo, so if you enlisted Greyhound or professional long-haul truckers to do this, you could at least use existing miles consumed to run it, rather than running new vehicles that ONLY serve as windbreakers. This would best be handled as a dedicated, separated lane, maybe one that could be shared with existing bus lanes where they exist, and busses could be used as the lead vehicles.
Most of these tracking units are calculating speed in "near real time" based on GPS readings every second or so, and are pretty accurate. The ones that TRACK your speed, like the one the kid had, send the current speed and position in a "ping" every 30 seconds.
So, in all likelihood, the data was accurate for the time it was sent - it wasn't an average over 30 seconds, it was a snapshot of an accurate speed every 30 seconds.
However, this proves nothing, since he was at zero at the light, 45 a half minute later, then got flagged for speeding at neither of those times. He could have been mashing the pedal from the stoplight and been on his way to 62 when the snapshot read 45.
More telling would have been the logs from his driving in general.
Well, granted, but remember - the question was asked by someone who uses a landline.
Some landlines include long distance services, but many companies actually still differentiate between calling your neighbor and calling someone hundreds of miles away.
It's really old school, like, having, like, food you actually have to, like, cook in the microwave and stuff.:)
Or just get Google Voice and make your calls using the Web interface. No need for an address book in the phone at all, and Google's done all the hard work for you.
Not as easy as a speed dial, but if you have a landline you might also be interested in saving the long distance charges...
Wait a minute.... I want to be clear of the linkage you are drawing here......you want the people responsible for bringing us the "K" car in charge of manned spaceflight?
I mean, that'll make spaceflight cheap and all, and I'm all for that, but roadside service centers in space are mighty scarce. And you know what they say about vacuum - it sucks.
If you're lucky, you'll live 100 years. Almost 100% of the population will die without experiencing weightlessness, or seeing Earth from orbit.
Once I get my daughter through school and all my earthly obligations are pretty much met, if the opportunity arises to do that in person, I'm all over it.
Of course, by then I wouldn't be able to tolerate a rocket ride, but as long as they've got a bathroom in the elevator, dude, I'm there.
I'd put a speaker on my front door so I can look through a telescope down at my house and REMOTELY yell at the kids to get off my lawn. That's be a first.
Well, true. Especially since, in theory, you are not supposed to pass any cars on the right on a bicycle.
I have a 15-mile ride to work (20 minutes by car, 1 hour by bicycle). I stop at all traffic lights, stop signs, etc.
I have to admit I occasionally bust the "don't pass any cars on the right" rule, especially if there's a long line of traffic at a light. I suppose if you were to follow that rule strictly, then by definition a bicycle would ALWAYS be slower than your slowest car commute, and I imagine that rule would be more strictly enforced in a larger city (if by no other means than the sheer peril).
So if someone in your "Family" group wants to find out what kind of left-handed vampire they are, then the app they are running has the same access to your profile that they do.
That's the problem. You might trust the person, but they are running apps that might not be as trustworthy, and those apps adopt their Facebook authority to run.
I remember reading about a city in Germany that eliminated all traffic lights. I don't remember reading how well or poorly it came out. Maybe no reporters have managed to get out yet to report the results - they're all stuck in traffic.
When I lived in Kentucky, we had an ice storm that knocked out power in Lexington for the better part of a week. The loss of traffic lights meant every intersection was supposed to turn into a 4-way stop. Which meant that every car came to a halt (in theory) at every intersection for a second or two. My 8-mile 15-minute drive to work turned into 3 hours one morning. I finally found a parking lot, parked my car there, and walked the remaining 3 miles. It was faster. Seriously - I recognized a guy 2 cars ahead of me and he arrived at work 1/2 hour after I did.
The reality was that people were assuming that dark lights meant that either (a) it was a 4-way stop, (b) people on the "larger/main" road had right-of-way, (c) I have no idea so I'm going to creep through, or (d) screw it, y'all, I've got the big fukkin truck - get outta my way.
On the third day, they deployed every police officer, meter reader, and anyone else with a pulse who was trainable to direct traffic. Of course, this meant that every bad driver in Lexington knew that all bets were off in terms of speed limits, right-of-way, and other moving violations during those times. Ever read "Lord of the Flies"? Yeah, it was like that. With cars.
Time to break out the bicycle. Or walk it, for that matter.
6 miles should take about an hour and a half at a decent walking pace, or about 45 minutes at a fairly leisurely cycling pace, and a week or so of it and your new sculpted bod will drive the ladies wild.:)
It all depends on what you mean by "require". Sometimes, when I lived in Kentucky, I wondered what would happen if I used my turn signals in the presence of a cop. Would I get pulled over for "distracting other drivers with annoying flashing lights"?
Turn signals in some areas are counterproductive. They tell the enemy (other drivers) what you intend to do, and that's bad because they'll do whatever they can to prevent you from doing it. Especially in Lexington and Louisville, but probably true in other areas of the country as well.:)
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I shouldn't, but, OK, I'll bite.
What "one bit of evidence" do you think would shut people up about the matter of his country of birth once and for all?
Isn't a birth certificate enough?
Is there another piece of documentation that is required?
Yeah, I could see that. Everyone's on channel 6, and every car is called "linksys".
Hell, apparently, is other drivers.
"telecomumting" = growing flowers remotely?
All humor aside, agreed.
Except there are a LOT of jobs that require personal presence, and carpooling has its limits.
And given that the lead car in such a "train" (according to the article) is a professional driver operating a purpose-built vehicle, the only one incurring a drag penalty is the vehicle that was built and is operated specifically to accept the drag penalty.
Which leads to some interesting economics. If each car in the line enjoys a 10% increase in fuel efficiency, and you have ten cars in line, you are (at best) saving approximately the fuel that would have been consumed by a theoretical car that gets the average fuel mileage of the line. You are gaining that benefit by running a dedicated vehicle and driver to "break wind" (pun intended) for the rest. That dedicated vehicle is going to be laden with a certain amount of electronics, and probably some good crash zone front-and-back just in case something goes wrong. So it's hardly going to be "above average efficiency".
So, how many cars would have to be running in a duckling formation like this to make up for the fuel and maintenance incurred by having the lead vehicle out there, the wages for said driver, etc?
If the formations are long enough to be efficient, they are going to be (for all intents, traffic-wise) a single contiguous vehicle running (obviously) at or near the speed limit. If you run it in the "speed/passing" lane, you'll have asshats whirling around on the right trying to get around you and it's going to be hard to separate from the pack to exit. If you run it on the "slow/ramp" lane, no one will be able to onramp as you pass by. And if you run it in the middle lane(s) if they exist, you'll effectively make it impossible to cross over from edge lane to edge lane (fast lane to an exit, for example) without disruption of the line. Any place you put this "train", you're going to affect the efficiency of traffic flow around you.
Or you keep the lines of cars really short, in which case see the "economical" question posed immediately above.
If ALL vehicles did this, it could work, maybe. If nothing goes wrong with any of the cars in line (tire blown or any sort of panic maneuver, or simply electrical failure or running out of gas). But if you have a pool of vehicles that did this mixed with other cars, you'd have problems. Heck, one idiot pulling in front of mama duck and slamming on his brakes HARD is going to cause almost all of the vehicles in line to get dented up at least. No two cars have the exact same braking force, so telling all the cars to panic stop will get almost all of them bouncing into each other.
"New terrorist tip, pull in front of road train and throw an infidel out the window"
One advantage, though... the lead vehicle could have the potential to be carrying either people or cargo, so if you enlisted Greyhound or professional long-haul truckers to do this, you could at least use existing miles consumed to run it, rather than running new vehicles that ONLY serve as windbreakers. This would best be handled as a dedicated, separated lane, maybe one that could be shared with existing bus lanes where they exist, and busses could be used as the lead vehicles.
No, no, it's cow and chicken now. Didn't you at least watch the whole thing?
Most of these tracking units are calculating speed in "near real time" based on GPS readings every second or so, and are pretty accurate. The ones that TRACK your speed, like the one the kid had, send the current speed and position in a "ping" every 30 seconds.
So, in all likelihood, the data was accurate for the time it was sent - it wasn't an average over 30 seconds, it was a snapshot of an accurate speed every 30 seconds.
However, this proves nothing, since he was at zero at the light, 45 a half minute later, then got flagged for speeding at neither of those times. He could have been mashing the pedal from the stoplight and been on his way to 62 when the snapshot read 45.
More telling would have been the logs from his driving in general.
I USE Google Voice every day. I know how it works, and that's how it saves long-distance charges for those who might have to pay them.
Dang, I just noticed. I wasted post number 30 million on a bad pun. Sorry about that, folks.
Understandable. He was pissed off.
Well, granted, but remember - the question was asked by someone who uses a landline.
Some landlines include long distance services, but many companies actually still differentiate between calling your neighbor and calling someone hundreds of miles away.
It's really old school, like, having, like, food you actually have to, like, cook in the microwave and stuff. :)
Hmm, you've never heard of Fairpoint, then. :)
Obviously, he drops his in the toilet, thus ending the conversation and solving the problem gracefully.
Or just get Google Voice and make your calls using the Web interface. No need for an address book in the phone at all, and Google's done all the hard work for you.
Not as easy as a speed dial, but if you have a landline you might also be interested in saving the long distance charges...
Wait a minute.... I want to be clear of the linkage you are drawing here... ...you want the people responsible for bringing us the "K" car in charge of manned spaceflight?
I mean, that'll make spaceflight cheap and all, and I'm all for that, but roadside service centers in space are mighty scarce. And you know what they say about vacuum - it sucks.
Woulda worked better back in the commie days. "Beating the reds to the red planet" would have had so much good marketing in it.
I knew it was one of those Foreign places. (grin).
If you're lucky, you'll live 100 years. Almost 100% of the population will die without experiencing weightlessness, or seeing Earth from orbit.
Once I get my daughter through school and all my earthly obligations are pretty much met, if the opportunity arises to do that in person, I'm all over it.
Of course, by then I wouldn't be able to tolerate a rocket ride, but as long as they've got a bathroom in the elevator, dude, I'm there.
I'd put a speaker on my front door so I can look through a telescope down at my house and REMOTELY yell at the kids to get off my lawn. That's be a first.
Well, true. Especially since, in theory, you are not supposed to pass any cars on the right on a bicycle.
I have a 15-mile ride to work (20 minutes by car, 1 hour by bicycle). I stop at all traffic lights, stop signs, etc.
I have to admit I occasionally bust the "don't pass any cars on the right" rule, especially if there's a long line of traffic at a light. I suppose if you were to follow that rule strictly, then by definition a bicycle would ALWAYS be slower than your slowest car commute, and I imagine that rule would be more strictly enforced in a larger city (if by no other means than the sheer peril).
So if someone in your "Family" group wants to find out what kind of left-handed vampire they are, then the app they are running has the same access to your profile that they do.
That's the problem. You might trust the person, but they are running apps that might not be as trustworthy, and those apps adopt their Facebook authority to run.
At least that's how I understand it.
I remember reading about a city in Germany that eliminated all traffic lights. I don't remember reading how well or poorly it came out. Maybe no reporters have managed to get out yet to report the results - they're all stuck in traffic.
When I lived in Kentucky, we had an ice storm that knocked out power in Lexington for the better part of a week. The loss of traffic lights meant every intersection was supposed to turn into a 4-way stop. Which meant that every car came to a halt (in theory) at every intersection for a second or two. My 8-mile 15-minute drive to work turned into 3 hours one morning. I finally found a parking lot, parked my car there, and walked the remaining 3 miles. It was faster. Seriously - I recognized a guy 2 cars ahead of me and he arrived at work 1/2 hour after I did.
The reality was that people were assuming that dark lights meant that either (a) it was a 4-way stop, (b) people on the "larger/main" road had right-of-way, (c) I have no idea so I'm going to creep through, or (d) screw it, y'all, I've got the big fukkin truck - get outta my way.
On the third day, they deployed every police officer, meter reader, and anyone else with a pulse who was trainable to direct traffic. Of course, this meant that every bad driver in Lexington knew that all bets were off in terms of speed limits, right-of-way, and other moving violations during those times. Ever read "Lord of the Flies"? Yeah, it was like that. With cars.
Time to break out the bicycle. Or walk it, for that matter.
6 miles should take about an hour and a half at a decent walking pace, or about 45 minutes at a fairly leisurely cycling pace, and a week or so of it and your new sculpted bod will drive the ladies wild. :)
Silly billy! The system is now protected by a new set of rules. You have to have upper and lowercase, a special character, and a number.
The password is now: P@ssw0rd
See? The system is now completely secure!
It all depends on what you mean by "require". Sometimes, when I lived in Kentucky, I wondered what would happen if I used my turn signals in the presence of a cop. Would I get pulled over for "distracting other drivers with annoying flashing lights"?
Turn signals in some areas are counterproductive. They tell the enemy (other drivers) what you intend to do, and that's bad because they'll do whatever they can to prevent you from doing it. Especially in Lexington and Louisville, but probably true in other areas of the country as well. :)