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 :)
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