Phoenix is a fast city, we have some of the most logicaly laid out roads in the country, its just a bunch of squares. If you want to go somewhere and drive slow take the ave's instead of the freeway. Durring rush hour I have found that I often get where I am going in the same amount of time on the ave's as on the freeway. However off rush hour then yeah its fast, 70-85 easy. I am not a slow driver, however I can say that of all the accidents I have seen, or a couple near ones I have personaly experienced have never really been directly related to speed. Accidents are almost always caused by inattentiveness or recklessness. One time I got hit from behind, the traffic was actually stopped, I was sitting there not moving for about 10 secs or so before this huge truck (I think his attention was on this cop across the street) had not noticed the traffic in front wasnt moving and he swerved into the ditch missing me fortunately, however a smaller car behind him hit me instead. Nothing really damaging. I remember a similar setup with the roles reversed before that, I was going through the tunnel durring rush hour at I think about 50 or so (ironicly thinking "hmm this is nice, traffic is moving along pretty well today"). Well halfway through the tunnel this truck (not exactly sure what kind but it was rather big as I couldnt see around him regularly) I was about 3 secs or so behind him, a pretty normal distance. Well he signaled and switched lanes in a pretty unsuspecting fasion (no brake lights) and it turned out that the car in front of him who was not only RIGHT in front of him, but not moving either. So of course there was no way I was going to get from 50 to 0 in a few secs. Managed to dodge it fortunately. However from that I definately learned that its not the car in front of you that you need to be as concerned about, but rather the one in front of him. So now I always try to keep tabs on that next car and if I cant see around it then I just get way the heck back and let someone else take that spot :) Honistly I think one thing that everyone would benifit from would be a class on evasive action. Lets be realistic the speed "limit" is not going to be lowered to 30 any time soon, but almost noone on the freeway has mastered how to evade an accident should the situation come up. Peoples first reaction is just to lay on the brake and sometimes try to turn. However at a decent speed if you lay on the brake your not going to turn even you try and when you do you probably have over compensated. It would be cool if they had an obstical course or something for people to learn on, where you could be surprised with popup obsticals while going at 50 - 80mph so people could get used to taking a proper corrective action. It takes a long time to learn to do that under pressure and many people never learn it. > If you think about that, cops rarely pull anyone over for reckless > driving. You have to be pretty bad to get their attention. Cop or no > cop, if a person is driving that bad they should be cited. They should, in fact it should be their primary focus, I have no problem with someone driving 75 - 80 if thats the flow, or if they are pretty much alone. Pull over crazy motercycle riders that cut through traffic and drive on the margins. Pull over the car that cuts over 3 lanes at once while not signaling. Pull over the cars that drive across the deadmans zone. Pull over the cars that dont signal when turning. And yes pull over that sob thats driving 40 mph in a flow of 75 causing the whole lane to split around him or the guy dodging around traffic at 75 in a flow of 40. > As for Mike comment about 55 being more dangerous that driving 70 to > keep up with traffic... > You have a valid point except for a couple issues. > 1) Wouldn't it be safer if everyone was driving 55 instead of 70? > Just because you can't obey the law, doesn't mean everyone should. 55 is safer than 70 if everyone was doing it. However thats idealistic and its not going to happen, laws should be made with a sence of reality not idealism. 95% of everyone on the road has decided through action what the speed is going to be. The law should not be based on some minoritys idealisic opinion about the speed at which everyone shoul drive. I might get flamed for that but next time your on the freeway driving +10 +15 consider that you have just agreed with me. I would suggest that posted speed limits would be written as an advised speed (55 or whatever the road was intended to be driven at) and then a relative speed limit based on what others were actually driving so you could have like +-15 for out of city roads and +-5 for in city roads or something. Cops would primarily look for people who were obviously violating this or driving recklassly. > 2) How fast is the vehicle designed to go? > Most of those skid marks are from vehicles exceeding their "safe" speed. > Anyone care to guess at which speed a set of standard highway tires > begin to de-laminate in 110 degree heat? It's a lot lower than you might > think. You want everyone to think? Honistly we are talking about humans here. Few humans think ahead, they react. In the end, if you dont feel safe driving (and heck your foolish if you do) then perhaps you should take the bus / train / personal helicopter etc. Thats what europe does and it works a whole lot better than having a bunch of cars on the road. Besides when it comes to driving, I for one OWN. Honistly, your complaining about people who can drive faster than you can, but can you truly comprehend the skillz it takes to drive a stick shift at 80 mph while talking on the phone and eating a bowl of chicken teriaki with chopsticks? Ha noob!. Just kidding :) --------------------------------------------------- PLUG-discuss mailing list - PLUG-discuss@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us To subscribe, unsubscribe, or to change you mail settings: http://lists.PLUG.phoenix.az.us/mailman/listinfo/plug-discuss