So, paying attention is the magic bullet that will prevent automobile accidents everywhere for all time? Not paying attention has nothing to do with hitting large animals. Usually, large animals on the road draw your attention.
Pretty much, yes. That and being careful in varying conditions, such as snow or ice. The problem isn't noticing the animal once it's on the road, the problem is noticing it BEFORE it moves onto the road. You should be scanning the sides of the roadway as well, especially if it's known that animials will try to cross. Mostly though, animals are hit at night when there is little traffic.
That is a good option until you reach the next logical thought: "Then again, we would like to get there today while not going 20mph under the speed limit."
Oh well, tough shit. If you're not experienced, you have no business either driving the vehicle, or not business on a busy highway.
You see(or rather you are freaking blind and don't), there would have been no problem if the extremely impatient people behind my parents didn't try to pass on the right literally as soon as there was space for their vehicles.
You're parents were interering with the normal flow of traffic. They should have waited until things cleared, or bit the bullet and go slower. The difference between your parents and the other drivers is they they have experience with the vehicle they are driving, your parents did not. They apparently know how big their car is; your parents had no clue long their car + trailer was.
That is when the situation turned dangerous. Everything would have been fine if they had waited a whole 5 extra seconds for my parents to be sure they were clear and move over.
Perhaps, but perhaps your parents had been blocking the flow of traffic for quite a few minutes. I know I've had people like your parents in the passing lane for 15 minutes passing ONE vehicle. Everything also would have been fine if your parents either stayed in the right lane or had more experience pulling the trailer.
Its also pretty arrogant to think that your parents were more important than EVERYONE else in back of them waiting to pass. Apparently, more than one person was not happy with their actions. Maybe that should be another clue that they were in the wrong. Of course you'll never back down from your position; you'll blindly side with your parents no matter what. Don't worry, I know its hard to fault your own family, but you'd best be served by seeing that they are human too and they can mess up as well.
Try reading this very, very carefully: " If you commercially distribute binaries not accompanied with source code, the GPL says you must provide a written offer to distribute the source code later. When users non-commercially redistribute the binaries they received from you, they must pass along a copy of this written offer. This means that people who did not get the binaries directly from you can still receive copies of the source code, along with the written offer."
In other words, you have to be able to trace your binary back to the vendor to have the written offer apply. It doesn't say they have to give the code to anybody. So if I never received their binaries, I can't request the code. Go ask a lawyer.
They are exceedingly rare, in regards to animals. Except for one year of my life, I've always had to drive at least an hour to work, over everything from interstates (crowded and not) to city / small town roads.
I know people that have hit everything from dogs and cats to horses and cows.
My mom hit a deer once, as did an uncle. That's pretty much it for me. I guess you know people that aren't paying attention.
The whole point of a what if is that it can actually happen.
They usually don't though. Do you also plan for "what if I am hit by lightening?"
If I was driving along and suddenly slammed on my brakes and you hit me, it will be your fault. You were obviously following too closely or failed to control your own vehicle.
That's what the law typically says, yes. Also, ask your insurance company who they will say is at fault. I bet I can tell you their answer.
What were my parents supposed to do? Say "That feels like the back of the trailer that we've never pulled before might be in front of the other car" and change lanes?
Here's another option: "We're pulling this trailer for the first time and don't have the proper experience to judge when we can move back in the lane, I guess we'll just stay behind the slower driver and not attempt to pass at all." Your parents lack of expierence is not a reason for them to cause significant problems in traffic flow, since interrupting the flow of traffice DOES increase the risk to everyone involved.
Yes, I do- and more importantly, on my clients' desktops, since a major part of my job is windows to Linux migrations and the accompanying training. We consistently find that after an acclimation period productivity sits right about where it did before. It sounds like you had a bad experience, and as a developer I really am sorry about that, but it doesn't parallel what our clients find or we wouldn't be in business.
Well, you're giving them training. Are you also taking over managing the servers from then on? As I attempted to be a self taught admin (somewhat) sometimes I didn't care about the details of why something worked, I just wanted it to work. I can dig into the whys later. I found on Linux, I had to spend an inornate amount of time to figure out it, and the why details usually drowned out the how.
Which is why I don't think OSS will get anywhere; someone HAS to be trained, they can't just sit down with very basic knowledge and off they go. In a business setting, you usually have IT to call on to answer questions. Home users don't, and they sometimes find certain tasks in Windows hard to do. Imagine home users now trying to muddle through Linux.
Would the project continue? Yes. Would it have anywhere near the market share it does? No. But the amount of cash involved has nothing to do with whether a project is open source or not.
If the project continues, and statistically speaking no one is using it, does it matter? There's no competition at that point.
Again, I'm sorry to hear that you had a bad experience, but part of what I was saying earlier is the fact that the vast majority of software is bad software, open or closed source.
I'm not disputing that there's plenty of bad software on either side. However, on the closed source side there's enough good software that I can do what I want without much hassle. Part of the problem on the open side is that you can't even tell WHAT the good software is. Its much more of a hassle to even install the application, so I was much less included to looking much. If it didn't have an RPM, I pretty much gave up after a while. Even then there were issues; when MSN and Yahoo where locking out 3rd party IM applications, I had to upgrade Kopete quite a bit. But the RPMs were so far behind, and when they finally came out, I pretty much had to update the ENTIRE KDE system.. which of course falied horribly. Again, can you imagine a home user with these problems?
As I've tried to carefully explain *we*have*no*data*. All we have are perceptions and opinions. I, naturally, think my opinion is correct; that the open source model provides specific advantages, that much open source software is of high quality and that it is in many respects a level playing field, with the leaders in some market segments being closed source and the leaders in others being open. You, naturally, think yours is correct, and while I disagree with it, that fact doesn't make it any more or less valid.
The only data I have is that so far we haven't had the Year of Linux on the desktop, nor is it looking any better. I think those OEMs that sell both Linux and Windows still have a majority of Windows, and I'm not sure any of them said Linux is rising in any significant way. I realize this isn't a perfect metric, but its the best one I think we have for now.
Given the level of sarcasm, I presume you have a nice simple 10-or-so word definition of 'good software' that I can whip up a test for and be done? I didn't think so. People who live in glass houses...
Huh? I'm not being sarcastic at all; just stating that we seem to have moved into an area that is subjective.
I'm not sure about GNUcash, as I don't use it (we have an accountant for that) but I'm amazed that you had so much difficulty with the desktop, given that level of experience with Linux. We get individuals who have no technical background to the point where IT calls are down to normal within a few days, and with one major e
but you can't honestly say people don't randomly slow down
There's a difference between slowing down and slamming on your brakes. The former is unlikely to cause an accident provided you're paying attention. The latter will land you in trouble with the law if it causes an accident.
animals don't run across the road if you've been driving that long
The majority of animials that have run across the road have been squirels, and a rabbit. There was one cat. Given the number of dead squirels I see, and the fact that people seem to purposefully hit cats, I don't think there's any problem with people causing accidents because of these. Oh, there was a deer once, but it didn't run out into the highway, it was already standing there, and I saw its eyes from about a 1/2 mile away.. plenty of time to slow down, and late enough that I was the only car on the road. I've never seen an accident because a deer or other large animial runs out in the middle of rush hour. I suspect all the noise keeps them away.
I was wrong, you aren't part of the problem because you don't or can't drive.
You're an idiot, and I'm willing to bet you've caused some accidents, unlike me.
I honestly hope I never meet you on the road./I.
Agreed; you're a shit driver likely to cause an accident.
No, and third party means any party receiving software form the company, regardless of how many other companies. Unless the OP received the code from the client in question, there's no obligation. If you didn't get the binaries, either directly or indirectly, there is no force of honoring the written request. Read very carefully what you quoted again.
Ya, because the embargo is working SO well, Castro will be stepping down because of it anyday now. And the people that are living in poverty because of it will be able to throw rocks at the Communist army. Yes, very solid reasoning.
Ahh, the "what if" game. Before I go one, let me state that these what ifs statistically never happen.
Maybe a dog could run across the road
I've never seen a run across an interstate before. Not that it couldn't happen. Of course you assume that the person being overtaken won't see it, which isn't true. But in your parents situation, that's not what happened. By the way, most state laws say you have to hit the dog, because if you slam on your brakes and it causes an accident you're at fault.
or the car in front of them might suddenly slow down.
Cars don't suddenly slow down for no reason. Are your parents not paying enough attention to see what might cause someone to slow down?
The fact remains that switching lanes in close proximity to other vehicles, especially while pulling a trailer, is dangerous.
Driving under normal conditions is dangerous. What's your point?
If you can't see that, you are part of the problem. You think nothing bad will happen to you. I would guess you haven't had at least a semi-serious wreck yet and don't realize how quickly a situation can change for the worse.
No, you and your parents are for not moving out of the lane correctly. From a legal standpoint it is the FOLLOWING cars responsiblity to maintain safe distance, not the lead car!
Oh, as for a wreck; I've been driving 25 years now, and have had sudden sitution changes that could have resulted in an accident. However, because I'm paying close attention to ALL the cars around me, and I know my limits and my car's limits I've only been involved in two accidents, neither were my fault.
Here's the suprise; neither of the other drivers was paying attention and that's what caused the accident! Oh, and these were city steets, not the highways which we are discussing.
When opening a register, the stores do nothing short of saying "I can help someone over here now." People more or less move from the end of one line to the beginning of the now opened line. Sometimes it depends on who's faster. Once someone got pissy with me because I moved to the new line, and she claimed that the clerk said "can I help who's next." So she thought I should let her go, nevermind that she couldn't leave the previous lane until I was gone as well, and the clerk already started scanning my stuff. Mostly though, its whoever gets there first.
When closing a line, anyone already in the line is allowed to finish. People aren't kicked out and expected to move to another line. No new people are allowed to enter that line as well.
Now your contradicting your post, where you said each lane was a queue. Either way its NOT a queue because the "items" are the cars. You can't just arbitrarly rule out the fact that cars can change lanes at will, you're ignoring an important part of reality in your model, so your model falls apart.
If my parents had slowed down suddenly, the vehicle attempting to pass them could have very easily been hit.
Why would they do that? You fail to realize it's the following vehicles responsibility to maintain safe distance, not the leading. Sorry, your parents should have moved over sooner, end of story.
Are you kidding? You do realize that accidents incur expenses for insurance companies, don't you?
It only takes a small increase in accident rates to raise rates for the entire area. Believe me, the insurance companies know how to game things so that the costs are more than outweighed by the new premiums. After all, if accidents increase 100%, surely they can increase rates by 300%, right? You HAVE to have insurance is all states, AFAIK. You really don't think they can figure that out?
Only a tiny fraction of drivers go 30-40 mph over, like 99th percentile, not 85th. The link is interesting, but I wanted to nitpick two items on it. It says that drivers going 10 mph under the limit are 6 times more likely to be involved in an accident than those going at or above the speed limit. The way it is stated seems to presume that speed is the primary factor, but I'd contend the low speed is typically related to a deficiency of competancy, either on the part of the vehicle (poor visibility, power, braking, etc) or the driver (poor vision, response times, attention).
They have much more research that backs up their 6%. And if you read it, its not the speed per say, its the speed differences. Oh, you may also be interested in this link as well:
"Most U.S. jurisdictions report using the 85th percentile speed as the basis for their speed limits, so the 85th-percentile speed and speed limits should be closely matched. However, a review of available speed studies demonstrates that the posted speed limit is almost always set well below the 85th-percentile speed by as much as 8 to 12 mph (see p.88) (13 to 19 km/h). Some reasons for this include:
* Political or bureaucratic resistance to higher limits.
* Statutes that restrict jurisdictions from posting limits higher than an arbitrary number. "
The second item should be obvious. If you set the speed limit at the 85th percentile level, then 85% of drivers will be going less than the speed limit, which rather contradicts the objective implied by pointing out that drivers going under the speed limit are more likely to be involved in accidents.
Do you know what a percentile is? It means they will be driving AT the limit or less. Most drivers would likely be AT the limit. You really need to do more research into this.
This is BASIC OS design, and frankly, I'm shocked that you're unable to draw the parallel between a roadway and a queue.
I'm shocked you don't. You're not describing a queue at all; you're describing a list. Queues are FIFO.. you can't pull things out of the middle, nor can you insert items into the middle.
But please, apply your style of "queue" at the grocery store tonight, I think you'll piss off quite a few people.
Oh, like common sense that told us the earth was flat? Or the common sense that says lowering speed limits increases safety? Or that lighting sidewalks at night improves safety? That common sense?
If the buses are consistently driving on the shoulder, I don't see how anyone could not expect it. Surely drivers in your state also LOOK before changing into either lane, including off ramps? Something isn't right there. I think your "common sense" is once again leading you from the truth of the matter.
I have worked on large software projects that lasted years. You apparently haven't. If the security and driver models were designed and tested from the start, as they should be for such a project, it would not take 5 years to find a major flaw. Apparently the flaws were big enough that they had to change the design at the last minute. Again, we're not talking about one poorly implemented function call, but the fundamental model upon which everything else is built. Part of the project manager's job is to make sure nothing big like this slips through the cracks.
Sorry if I don't believe you. You see, if what you were saying is true, and you really know software development, you should know that all your statement means is that there are no vulnerabilities that you have found. That doesn't mean there aren't there, and it doesn't mean one of these may force a redesign.
Of course it's preferable to fix the flaws. But letting those flaws go unnoticed until just before release is a sure sign of incompetence.
Again, if you know software development, you know how silly this statement is.
And then blaming 3rd parties for not conforming to the recently changed model is disingenuous.
I'm sorry, where did I mention my thoughts on this at all?
I'm sorry, where did you indicate that an accident had occurred? You didn't, so there must have been enough distance, or surely you'd have mentioned someone missing some paint? There was enough room for an entire vehicle to move to the right lane and pass your parents. Given they were passing, why do they need that much room, since I assume they'd continue to travel at the same rate, as would the vehicle they passed?
The other side of this problem are the assholes who believe the lies they've been sold by car commercials and have been deluded into believing that it is their God given right to travel 30-40 over the limit and fly into hissy fits if anyone dares impinge upon their "right".
Except that civil engineering studies have shown time and again that the best limit is no limit at all, and if there must be a limit that it follows the 80th percentile rule. Unfortunately, pretty much every government in the US breaks this rule and uses speed limits to raise revenue. This also pays off for the insurance companies, because limits which are too low increase accident rates, thus justifying higher and higher premiums. As a rule, if the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says a certain law will improve safety, they are lying. After all, they are funded by the insurance companies.. what do you expect them to say?
You may want to check NH state law; that dump truck or whatever going 35 in a 55 may be doing so illegally. In VT, you may not "interfere with the flow of traffic" and have to pull off as soon as you find somewhere safe. Interstates have a minimum limit that you must obey as well. Its unfortunate that slow moving vehicles(including bikes riding in the car traffic lane) are not ticketed for blocking traffic.
Well, if there was room for that car to move to the right and pass your parents, then there was more than enough room for your parents to have done so as well.
Tailgating is a problem too. It really pisses me off, that even in non-rushhour traffic, some idiot is always less than a car-length off my back end. Leaving a buffer zone allows you to avoid using your breaks when traffic slows.
If you're being tailgated a lot, did you think that perhaps you are the problem and should speed up, or maybe move to the right lane?
I wonder how much aggressive driving (someone speeding up to 90, and then cutting in front of you for seemingly no reason), contributes to breaking shock waves. I've seen it happen often enough where someone will make an unnecessary maneuver to get 30 feet ahead of traffic.
I see people driving aggressively because some other twits are blocking up the passing lane. If people were doing this on a sidewalk, I have no doubt they'd push past the slower people. Obviously that can't be done in a car.. so perhaps you should be a bit more considerate of others.
I've found that VW drivers are worse than Audi drivers. They are even stupider, which is why they can't afford the Audi. Although the intelligence of both groups is in question, given the reliability of VWs.
Jams happen because cars are coming to the back of the queue faster than they are leaving the front of the queue.
First, traffic isn't a queue. You can pass people at will. Second, did you actually read the article? The problem wasn't "bandwidth" or "throughput" it was simply that one person braking caused others to brake and that affect becomes cumulative. The problem would be solved by people being better judges of speeds and when they need to brake.
I've learned to avoid it, instead letting my car naturally slow down if I'm coming up on someone moving at a lower speed.
We have the shoulders legalized for travel during rush hour to get into and out of Boston (on I-93s, just before I-95), it only marginally increases bandwidth (which isn't the problem anyway), presents a -huge- safety issue, and prevents most onramps and offramps from being used in a sane or efficient manner.
And I assume you have a study which backs this up, and its not your personal opinion? it sounds like England was able to allow this fine, so I'd be surprised if the opposite was found here.
Slashdot Mirror
So, paying attention is the magic bullet that will prevent automobile accidents everywhere for all time? Not paying attention has nothing to do with hitting large animals. Usually, large animals on the road draw your attention.
Pretty much, yes. That and being careful in varying conditions, such as snow or ice. The problem isn't noticing the animal once it's on the road, the problem is noticing it BEFORE it moves onto the road. You should be scanning the sides of the roadway as well, especially if it's known that animials will try to cross. Mostly though, animals are hit at night when there is little traffic.
That is a good option until you reach the next logical thought: "Then again, we would like to get there today while not going 20mph under the speed limit."
Oh well, tough shit. If you're not experienced, you have no business either driving the vehicle, or not business on a busy highway.
You see(or rather you are freaking blind and don't), there would have been no problem if the extremely impatient people behind my parents didn't try to pass on the right literally as soon as there was space for their vehicles.
You're parents were interering with the normal flow of traffic. They should have waited until things cleared, or bit the bullet and go slower. The difference between your parents and the other drivers is they they have experience with the vehicle they are driving, your parents did not. They apparently know how big their car is; your parents had no clue long their car + trailer was.
That is when the situation turned dangerous. Everything would have been fine if they had waited a whole 5 extra seconds for my parents to be sure they were clear and move over.
Perhaps, but perhaps your parents had been blocking the flow of traffic for quite a few minutes. I know I've had people like your parents in the passing lane for 15 minutes passing ONE vehicle. Everything also would have been fine if your parents either stayed in the right lane or had more experience pulling the trailer.
Its also pretty arrogant to think that your parents were more important than EVERYONE else in back of them waiting to pass. Apparently, more than one person was not happy with their actions. Maybe that should be another clue that they were in the wrong. Of course you'll never back down from your position; you'll blindly side with your parents no matter what. Don't worry, I know its hard to fault your own family, but you'd best be served by seeing that they are human too and they can mess up as well.
Try reading this very, very carefully: " If you commercially distribute binaries not accompanied with source code, the GPL says you must provide a written offer to distribute the source code later. When users non-commercially redistribute the binaries they received from you, they must pass along a copy of this written offer. This means that people who did not get the binaries directly from you can still receive copies of the source code, along with the written offer."
In other words, you have to be able to trace your binary back to the vendor to have the written offer apply. It doesn't say they have to give the code to anybody. So if I never received their binaries, I can't request the code. Go ask a lawyer.
What ifs never happen?
They are exceedingly rare, in regards to animals. Except for one year of my life, I've always had to drive at least an hour to work, over everything from interstates (crowded and not) to city / small town roads.
I know people that have hit everything from dogs and cats to horses and cows.
My mom hit a deer once, as did an uncle. That's pretty much it for me. I guess you know people that aren't paying attention.
The whole point of a what if is that it can actually happen.
They usually don't though. Do you also plan for "what if I am hit by lightening?"
If I was driving along and suddenly slammed on my brakes and you hit me, it will be your fault. You were obviously following too closely or failed to control your own vehicle.
That's what the law typically says, yes. Also, ask your insurance company who they will say is at fault. I bet I can tell you their answer.
What were my parents supposed to do? Say "That feels like the back of the trailer that we've never pulled before might be in front of the other car" and change lanes?
Here's another option: "We're pulling this trailer for the first time and don't have the proper experience to judge when we can move back in the lane, I guess we'll just stay behind the slower driver and not attempt to pass at all." Your parents lack of expierence is not a reason for them to cause significant problems in traffic flow, since interrupting the flow of traffice DOES increase the risk to everyone involved.
Yes, I do- and more importantly, on my clients' desktops, since a major part of my job is windows to Linux migrations and the accompanying training. We consistently find that after an acclimation period productivity sits right about where it did before. It sounds like you had a bad experience, and as a developer I really am sorry about that, but it doesn't parallel what our clients find or we wouldn't be in business.
Well, you're giving them training. Are you also taking over managing the servers from then on? As I attempted to be a self taught admin (somewhat) sometimes I didn't care about the details of why something worked, I just wanted it to work. I can dig into the whys later. I found on Linux, I had to spend an inornate amount of time to figure out it, and the why details usually drowned out the how.
Which is why I don't think OSS will get anywhere; someone HAS to be trained, they can't just sit down with very basic knowledge and off they go. In a business setting, you usually have IT to call on to answer questions. Home users don't, and they sometimes find certain tasks in Windows hard to do. Imagine home users now trying to muddle through Linux.
Would the project continue? Yes. Would it have anywhere near the market share it does? No. But the amount of cash involved has nothing to do with whether a project is open source or not.
If the project continues, and statistically speaking no one is using it, does it matter? There's no competition at that point.
Again, I'm sorry to hear that you had a bad experience, but part of what I was saying earlier is the fact that the vast majority of software is bad software, open or closed source.
I'm not disputing that there's plenty of bad software on either side. However, on the closed source side there's enough good software that I can do what I want without much hassle. Part of the problem on the open side is that you can't even tell WHAT the good software is. Its much more of a hassle to even install the application, so I was much less included to looking much. If it didn't have an RPM, I pretty much gave up after a while. Even then there were issues; when MSN and Yahoo where locking out 3rd party IM applications, I had to upgrade Kopete quite a bit. But the RPMs were so far behind, and when they finally came out, I pretty much had to update the ENTIRE KDE system.. which of course falied horribly. Again, can you imagine a home user with these problems?
As I've tried to carefully explain *we*have*no*data*. All we have are perceptions and opinions. I, naturally, think my opinion is correct; that the open source model provides specific advantages, that much open source software is of high quality and that it is in many respects a level playing field, with the leaders in some market segments being closed source and the leaders in others being open. You, naturally, think yours is correct, and while I disagree with it, that fact doesn't make it any more or less valid.
The only data I have is that so far we haven't had the Year of Linux on the desktop, nor is it looking any better. I think those OEMs that sell both Linux and Windows still have a majority of Windows, and I'm not sure any of them said Linux is rising in any significant way. I realize this isn't a perfect metric, but its the best one I think we have for now.
Given the level of sarcasm, I presume you have a nice simple 10-or-so word definition of 'good software' that I can whip up a test for and be done? I didn't think so. People who live in glass houses...
Huh? I'm not being sarcastic at all; just stating that we seem to have moved into an area that is subjective.
I'm not sure about GNUcash, as I don't use it (we have an accountant for that) but I'm amazed that you had so much difficulty with the desktop, given that level of experience with Linux. We get individuals who have no technical background to the point where IT calls are down to normal within a few days, and with one major e
but you can't honestly say people don't randomly slow down
There's a difference between slowing down and slamming on your brakes. The former is unlikely to cause an accident provided you're paying attention. The latter will land you in trouble with the law if it causes an accident.
animals don't run across the road if you've been driving that long
The majority of animials that have run across the road have been squirels, and a rabbit. There was one cat. Given the number of dead squirels I see, and the fact that people seem to purposefully hit cats, I don't think there's any problem with people causing accidents because of these. Oh, there was a deer once, but it didn't run out into the highway, it was already standing there, and I saw its eyes from about a 1/2 mile away.. plenty of time to slow down, and late enough that I was the only car on the road. I've never seen an accident because a deer or other large animial runs out in the middle of rush hour. I suspect all the noise keeps them away.
I was wrong, you aren't part of the problem because you don't or can't drive.
You're an idiot, and I'm willing to bet you've caused some accidents, unlike me.
I honestly hope I never meet you on the road./I.
Agreed; you're a shit driver likely to cause an accident.
No, and third party means any party receiving software form the company, regardless of how many other companies. Unless the OP received the code from the client in question, there's no obligation. If you didn't get the binaries, either directly or indirectly, there is no force of honoring the written request. Read very carefully what you quoted again.
Ya, because the embargo is working SO well, Castro will be stepping down because of it anyday now. And the people that are living in poverty because of it will be able to throw rocks at the Communist army. Yes, very solid reasoning.
Ahh, the "what if" game. Before I go one, let me state that these what ifs statistically never happen.
Maybe a dog could run across the road
I've never seen a run across an interstate before. Not that it couldn't happen. Of course you assume that the person being overtaken won't see it, which isn't true. But in your parents situation, that's not what happened. By the way, most state laws say you have to hit the dog, because if you slam on your brakes and it causes an accident you're at fault.
or the car in front of them might suddenly slow down.
Cars don't suddenly slow down for no reason. Are your parents not paying enough attention to see what might cause someone to slow down?
The fact remains that switching lanes in close proximity to other vehicles, especially while pulling a trailer, is dangerous.
Driving under normal conditions is dangerous. What's your point?
If you can't see that, you are part of the problem. You think nothing bad will happen to you. I would guess you haven't had at least a semi-serious wreck yet and don't realize how quickly a situation can change for the worse.
No, you and your parents are for not moving out of the lane correctly. From a legal standpoint it is the FOLLOWING cars responsiblity to maintain safe distance, not the lead car!
Oh, as for a wreck; I've been driving 25 years now, and have had sudden sitution changes that could have resulted in an accident. However, because I'm paying close attention to ALL the cars around me, and I know my limits and my car's limits I've only been involved in two accidents, neither were my fault.
Here's the suprise; neither of the other drivers was paying attention and that's what caused the accident! Oh, and these were city steets, not the highways which we are discussing.
When opening a register, the stores do nothing short of saying "I can help someone over here now." People more or less move from the end of one line to the beginning of the now opened line. Sometimes it depends on who's faster. Once someone got pissy with me because I moved to the new line, and she claimed that the clerk said "can I help who's next." So she thought I should let her go, nevermind that she couldn't leave the previous lane until I was gone as well, and the clerk already started scanning my stuff. Mostly though, its whoever gets there first.
When closing a line, anyone already in the line is allowed to finish. People aren't kicked out and expected to move to another line. No new people are allowed to enter that line as well.
Now your contradicting your post, where you said each lane was a queue. Either way its NOT a queue because the "items" are the cars. You can't just arbitrarly rule out the fact that cars can change lanes at will, you're ignoring an important part of reality in your model, so your model falls apart.
If my parents had slowed down suddenly, the vehicle attempting to pass them could have very easily been hit.
Why would they do that? You fail to realize it's the following vehicles responsibility to maintain safe distance, not the leading. Sorry, your parents should have moved over sooner, end of story.
Are you kidding? You do realize that accidents incur expenses for insurance companies, don't you?
It only takes a small increase in accident rates to raise rates for the entire area. Believe me, the insurance companies know how to game things so that the costs are more than outweighed by the new premiums. After all, if accidents increase 100%, surely they can increase rates by 300%, right? You HAVE to have insurance is all states, AFAIK. You really don't think they can figure that out?
Only a tiny fraction of drivers go 30-40 mph over, like 99th percentile, not 85th. The link is interesting, but I wanted to nitpick two items on it. It says that drivers going 10 mph under the limit are 6 times more likely to be involved in an accident than those going at or above the speed limit. The way it is stated seems to presume that speed is the primary factor, but I'd contend the low speed is typically related to a deficiency of competancy, either on the part of the vehicle (poor visibility, power, braking, etc) or the driver (poor vision, response times, attention).
They have much more research that backs up their 6%. And if you read it, its not the speed per say, its the speed differences. Oh, you may also be interested in this link as well:
"Most U.S. jurisdictions report using the 85th percentile speed as the basis for their speed limits, so the 85th-percentile speed and speed limits should be closely matched. However, a review of available speed studies demonstrates that the posted speed limit is almost always set well below the 85th-percentile speed by as much as 8 to 12 mph (see p.88) (13 to 19 km/h). Some reasons for this include:
* Political or bureaucratic resistance to higher limits.
* Statutes that restrict jurisdictions from posting limits higher than an arbitrary number. "
The second item should be obvious. If you set the speed limit at the 85th percentile level, then 85% of drivers will be going less than the speed limit, which rather contradicts the objective implied by pointing out that drivers going under the speed limit are more likely to be involved in accidents.
Do you know what a percentile is? It means they will be driving AT the limit or less. Most drivers would likely be AT the limit. You really need to do more research into this.
This is BASIC OS design, and frankly, I'm shocked that you're unable to draw the parallel between a roadway and a queue.
I'm shocked you don't. You're not describing a queue at all; you're describing a list. Queues are FIFO.. you can't pull things out of the middle, nor can you insert items into the middle.
But please, apply your style of "queue" at the grocery store tonight, I think you'll piss off quite a few people.
Oh, like common sense that told us the earth was flat? Or the common sense that says lowering speed limits increases safety? Or that lighting sidewalks at night improves safety? That common sense?
If the buses are consistently driving on the shoulder, I don't see how anyone could not expect it. Surely drivers in your state also LOOK before changing into either lane, including off ramps? Something isn't right there. I think your "common sense" is once again leading you from the truth of the matter.
I have worked on large software projects that lasted years. You apparently haven't. If the security and driver models were designed and tested from the start, as they should be for such a project, it would not take 5 years to find a major flaw. Apparently the flaws were big enough that they had to change the design at the last minute. Again, we're not talking about one poorly implemented function call, but the fundamental model upon which everything else is built. Part of the project manager's job is to make sure nothing big like this slips through the cracks.
Sorry if I don't believe you. You see, if what you were saying is true, and you really know software development, you should know that all your statement means is that there are no vulnerabilities that you have found. That doesn't mean there aren't there, and it doesn't mean one of these may force a redesign.
Of course it's preferable to fix the flaws. But letting those flaws go unnoticed until just before release is a sure sign of incompetence.
Again, if you know software development, you know how silly this statement is.
And then blaming 3rd parties for not conforming to the recently changed model is disingenuous.
I'm sorry, where did I mention my thoughts on this at all?
Well, fortunately in the US when one makes a product they are free to sell it for whatever they want.
I'm sorry, where did you indicate that an accident had occurred? You didn't, so there must have been enough distance, or surely you'd have mentioned someone missing some paint? There was enough room for an entire vehicle to move to the right lane and pass your parents. Given they were passing, why do they need that much room, since I assume they'd continue to travel at the same rate, as would the vehicle they passed?
The other side of this problem are the assholes who believe the lies they've been sold by car commercials and have been deluded into believing that it is their God given right to travel 30-40 over the limit and fly into hissy fits if anyone dares impinge upon their "right".
Except that civil engineering studies have shown time and again that the best limit is no limit at all, and if there must be a limit that it follows the 80th percentile rule. Unfortunately, pretty much every government in the US breaks this rule and uses speed limits to raise revenue. This also pays off for the insurance companies, because limits which are too low increase accident rates, thus justifying higher and higher premiums. As a rule, if the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says a certain law will improve safety, they are lying. After all, they are funded by the insurance companies.. what do you expect them to say?
http://www.motorists.org/speedlimits/
You may want to check NH state law; that dump truck or whatever going 35 in a 55 may be doing so illegally. In VT, you may not "interfere with the flow of traffic" and have to pull off as soon as you find somewhere safe. Interstates have a minimum limit that you must obey as well. Its unfortunate that slow moving vehicles(including bikes riding in the car traffic lane) are not ticketed for blocking traffic.
Well, if there was room for that car to move to the right and pass your parents, then there was more than enough room for your parents to have done so as well.
I would argue that if they really did #2, there is no way that anyone could have passed them on the right, therefore they did not do #2.
Tailgating is a problem too. It really pisses me off, that even in non-rushhour traffic, some idiot is always less than a car-length off my back end. Leaving a buffer zone allows you to avoid using your breaks when traffic slows.
If you're being tailgated a lot, did you think that perhaps you are the problem and should speed up, or maybe move to the right lane?
I wonder how much aggressive driving (someone speeding up to 90, and then cutting in front of you for seemingly no reason), contributes to breaking shock waves. I've seen it happen often enough where someone will make an unnecessary maneuver to get 30 feet ahead of traffic.
I see people driving aggressively because some other twits are blocking up the passing lane. If people were doing this on a sidewalk, I have no doubt they'd push past the slower people. Obviously that can't be done in a car.. so perhaps you should be a bit more considerate of others.
I've found that VW drivers are worse than Audi drivers. They are even stupider, which is why they can't afford the Audi. Although the intelligence of both groups is in question, given the reliability of VWs.
Jams happen because cars are coming to the back of the queue faster than they are leaving the front of the queue.
First, traffic isn't a queue. You can pass people at will. Second, did you actually read the article? The problem wasn't "bandwidth" or "throughput" it was simply that one person braking caused others to brake and that affect becomes cumulative. The problem would be solved by people being better judges of speeds and when they need to brake.
I've learned to avoid it, instead letting my car naturally slow down if I'm coming up on someone moving at a lower speed.
We have the shoulders legalized for travel during rush hour to get into and out of Boston (on I-93s, just before I-95), it only marginally increases bandwidth (which isn't the problem anyway), presents a -huge- safety issue, and prevents most onramps and offramps from being used in a sane or efficient manner.
And I assume you have a study which backs this up, and its not your personal opinion? it sounds like England was able to allow this fine, so I'd be surprised if the opposite was found here.