YOU CAN'T DRIVE TOO SLOW

On Fri, 15 Apr 2005 12:31:07 -0500, (Matthew
Russotto) wrote:

>In article >,
>Dave Head > wrote:
>>On 14 Apr 2005 19:11:52 -0700, "Laura Bush murdered her boy friend"
> wrote:
>>
>>>Not while we have 110 americans killed EVERY DAY on our highways. And
>>>thousands more injured. Terrorists are a microscopic problem compared
>>>to speeders.
>>
>>Welll... you can't much do a lot about it - you can go as slow as you want, and
>>the death toll will still be unacceptable.
>>
>>It is amazing that we put up with this, on an absolute scale. I mean, if there
>>_were_ terrorists taking down 110 Americans a day, there would be armed citizen
>>patrols, curfews, etc. But, we're just USED TO THIS.
>
>If there were terrorists taking down 110 Americans a day, the solutions
>would be obvious.
>
>>Question: If there were a solution that would cut the carnage in half
>>_without_ slowing down commerce, how much would it be worth?
>
>Quite a bit. But there isn't. Your fantasy ideas require technology
>that would require significant breakthroughs in order to exist.

I've got the design of the key element - a railway switch that will allow a
railcar to be added or subtracted from a series of railcars running together,
without slowing any of them down. Build rails instead of roads, put
automobiles inside the railcars, use nuclear generated electricity, it'd work.

I think that switch is all that's really necessary, at least its the only thing
that is difficult.

DPH

James C. Reeves wrote:

> "Alan Baker" > wrote in message
> ...
>
>>In article .com>,
>>"Laura Bush murdered her boy friend" > wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Not while we have 110 americans killed EVERY DAY on our highways. And
>>>thousands more injured. Terrorists are a microscopic problem compared
>>>to speeders.
>>
>>People driving slower than the speed of traffic are responsible for as
>>many accidents as people driving faster. More actually, the speed with
>>the lowest involvement in accidents is actually a little *faster* than
>>the median.
>>
>>But those slower drivers are more likely to cause accidents involving
>>other vehicles than their own.
>>
>>--
>
>
> I've been looking for statistics on this at the NHTSA and other places. I
> can't find anything to substantiate this. Any link you can provide?
>
>

here's the first one I could find, but no cite...

http://www.sha.state.md.us/safety/oo...eedlimits2.asp

nate
--
replace "fly" with "com" to reply.
http://home.comcast.net/~njnagel

On Fri, 15 Apr 2005 11:25:35 -0700, "Jack May" > wrote:

>
>"Matthew Russotto" > wrote in message
...
>>>Question: If there were a solution that would cut the carnage in half
>>>_without_ slowing down commerce, how much would it be worth?
>>
>> Quite a bit. But there isn't. Your fantasy ideas require technology
>> that would require significant breakthroughs in order to exist.
>
>There is already technology on the market to reduce accidents and death.
>The technology is in higher priced cars which will migrate down to lower
>priced cars as always. All you have to do it buy it.

No, _anything_ that includes a driver controlling the transportation has the
same flaw of human error. The key is to get the human out of the control
loops.

>That technology collision avoidance with Radar or laser and automatic lane
>following. Next there needs to be communications between cars to prevent
>pile ups and to tell where there are bad road conditions like fog.

That would be good, for sure. Its just far short of what's needed.

>This is not breakthrough technology. Its mainly a matter of the technology
>getting cheaper and standards for things like road side and car to car
>communications to prevent accidents.

Its sort of a manner of money, too - each person has to buy the extra gadgetry.
A public transport system that moved a person's _car_ instead of just the
person, so (s)he isn't stranded at the terminus, is the technology that would
solve a lot of the problem by getting the driver error out of the equation, at
least for the part of the trip that the automation is handling the automobile.

Dave Head

Jack May wrote:

> "Matthew Russotto" > wrote in message
> ...
>
>>>Question: If there were a solution that would cut the carnage in half
>>>_without_ slowing down commerce, how much would it be worth?
>>
>>Quite a bit. But there isn't. Your fantasy ideas require technology
>>that would require significant breakthroughs in order to exist.
>
>
> There is already technology on the market to reduce accidents and death.
> The technology is in higher priced cars which will migrate down to lower
> priced cars as always. All you have to do it buy it.
>
> That technology collision avoidance with Radar or laser and automatic lane
> following. Next there needs to be communications between cars to prevent
> pile ups and to tell where there are bad road conditions like fog.
>
> This is not breakthrough technology. Its mainly a matter of the technology
> getting cheaper and standards for things like road side and car to car
> communications to prevent accidents.
>

I kind of doubt it. The same effect was promised for ABS, airbags,
etc... and it seems that humans naturally have some sort of built-in
risk threshold that they feel comfortable with, so when you put an
average driver in a car with, say, ABS, he will drive a little faster,
maneuver a little closer, follow other traffic a little closer, etc.
because he *perceives* that his car is "safer" and therefore allows
himself to take a few more chances than he normally would. This isn't
my own personal theory, either, this effect has been documented. Have
you noticed that most insurance companies have stopped giving discounts
for ABS?

The real trick is to actually teach people how to drive, and a little
bit of the basics of vehicle dynamics so that they are more accurately
able to GAUGE their risk, or in other words their perceived risk isn't
lower than their actual risk.

nate


--
replace "fly" with "com" to reply.
http://home.comcast.net/~njnagel

"Dave Head" > wrote in message
news
> On Fri, 15 Apr 2005 11:09:20 -0400, ill > wrote:
> Now, lets invent something that takes the car off the road, and carries it
> automatically under computer control. Preferably on rails (if you've ever
> read
> any of my old posts on this subject, you'll know why I think it could be
> done.)

Why would anyone build rail and millions of mechanical rail switches to
route each vehicle to specific locations they want to be at. Can you
imagine a ten lane wide freeway with rail in every lane with mechanical
switches everywhere to get on the freeway, change lanes, and get off a
freeway.

The unreliability of such a mechanical Rube Goldberg contraption would kill
lots of people and bankrupt every transportation organization.

This is the 21st century. Electronics is far cheaper and more reliable to
do these functions on normal roads at low cost with far higher safety.
Electronic rails cost a few thousand per lane mile at most and is far more
flexible. Mechanical rails would cost at least a hundred million per lane
mile

With the next generation GPS we can build virtual rails in electronics
without any changes to the road. The electronics would be in the car. It
is far better to use reliable, low cost 21st Century technology than build
something based on 19th Century mechanical approaches.

"Dave Head" > wrote in message
...
> On Fri, 15 Apr 2005 11:25:35 -0700, "Jack May" >
> wrote:
> No, _anything_ that includes a driver controlling the transportation has
> the
> same flaw of human error. The key is to get the human out of the control
> loops.

What the existing devices do is over ride the driver with hitting the brakes
when the computer determine that an accident will occur if there is no
intervention.

>
>>That technology collision avoidance with Radar or laser and automatic lane
>>following. Next there needs to be communications between cars to prevent
>>pile ups and to tell where there are bad road conditions like fog.
>
> That would be good, for sure. Its just far short of what's needed.

We are certainly in the early days and caustion is required to be sure the
technology development is safe and can be affordable.

There is a lot more technology being developed to improve safety.

>>This is not breakthrough technology. Its mainly a matter of the
>>technology
>>getting cheaper and standards for things like road side and car to car
>>communications to prevent accidents.
>
> Its sort of a manner of money, too - each person has to buy the extra
> gadgetry.

Yes and we all know that the cost of technology is improving rapidly as cost
drops dramatically. We already have tens of computers in many cars. The
cost of cars is still dropping in real dollars even with all the new
technology that is being developed.

> A public transport system that moved a person's _car_ instead of just the
> person, so (s)he isn't stranded at the terminus, is the technology that
> would
> solve a lot of the problem by getting the driver error out of the
> equation, at
> least for the part of the trip that the automation is handling the
> automobile.

The delays and cost of such an approach are unacceptable. Effectively any
commute option is limited by people to a total door to door trip time of
about an hour per day of total travel. That includes loading the cars,
stopping at all the locations to pick up and let off cars, and the time to
unload at each of those stops.

I doubt there is any practical way a train could ever meet the hour
requirement and cost would be outrageous. You are trying to solve 21st
century transportation problems with 19th century train technology. That is
a totally dead end approach.

BTW, trains have a very high accident and death rates with people and
vehicles outside of the train. Loading and unloading cars will in
particular be very dangerous with drivers doing the work. Having paid
people to do it would be far too expensive and slow.

Public transportation is an abject failure that is slowly dying. There are
no realistic public transportation solutions because of the monumental
problems associated with public transit.

"Jack May" > wrote:
>
> "Laura Bush murdered her boy friend" > wrote:
> > Roger wrote:
> >
> >> Feed your car crash fetish elsewhere. This has nothing to do with
> >> alt.politics.
> >
> > Of course it concerns politics, you nitwit. Speeders are the same as
> > terrorists except there's a lot more of them.
>
> Thanks for your confirmation again of my assessment that you have a very low
> IQ and are insane :-)

I agree... Judy has a very low IQ and she is psychologically sick.

She is also a chronic and persistent Usenet troll.

--
Scott M. Kozel Highway and Transportation History Websites
Virginia/Maryland/Washington, D.C. http://www.roadstothefuture.com
Philadelphia and Delaware Valley http://www.pennways.com

"Nate Nagel" > wrote in message
...
> Jack May wrote:
>

> I kind of doubt it. The same effect was promised for ABS, airbags, etc...
> and it seems that humans naturally have some sort of built-in risk
> threshold that they feel comfortable with, so when you put an average
> driver in a car with, say, ABS, he will drive a little faster, maneuver a
> little closer, follow other traffic a little closer, etc. because he
> *perceives* that his car is "safer" and therefore allows himself to take a
> few more chances than he normally would. This isn't my own personal
> theory, either, this effect has been documented. Have you noticed that
> most insurance companies have stopped giving discounts for ABS?
>
> The real trick is to actually teach people how to drive, and a little bit
> of the basics of vehicle dynamics so that they are more accurately able to
> GAUGE their risk, or in other words their perceived risk isn't lower than
> their actual risk.

Yes this is a factor, but death rates have significantly dropped from the
past even with major increases in total miles driven.

If a computer prevents you from running into the vehicle in front, you would
hope that the tendency of people to drive closer to the edge would be
thwarted with computer preventing that behavior.

Hopefully we learn and keep improving so that the death rate continues to
decline over the long term.

"Dave Head" > wrote in message
...
> On Fri, 15 Apr 2005 12:31:07 -0500, (Matthew
> Russotto) wrote:
>
> I've got the design of the key element - a railway switch that will allow
> a
> railcar to be added or subtracted from a series of railcars running
> together,
> without slowing any of them down. Build rails instead of roads, put
> automobiles inside the railcars, use nuclear generated electricity, it'd
> work.
>
> I think that switch is all that's really necessary, at least its the only
> thing
> that is difficult.

You have to switch individual personal car carried by rail cars to be even
remotely useful. You would also have to load and unload individual cars
with rail cars running non-stop. You have not solved the most important
part of the problem,

You also have to be cheaper than the electronic type solutions. Little
chance you can do that.

> > "Laura Bush murdered her boy friend" >

> I agree... Judy has a very low IQ and she is psychologically sick.
>
> She is also a chronic and persistent Usenet troll.

If this person is an insane troll...

WHY DO YOU ALL REPLY TO HER?

I am so tired of seeing ' "Laura Bush murdered her boy friend"
> wrote:' at the top of so many useless server clogging
cross-posts.

Don't reply, add her to your killfile and move on!!

Jeesh, it's just that easy...
--

Tim
Exit 4, NH 101