Rant Rant Rant Rant and Spam.

[aiglet]

I do most of my driving these days in stop-and-go traffic. It irritates the hell out of me, especially since it's almost entirely caused by some idiot "tapping" his brakes because he saw his shadow^W^W^W didn't like road conditions.

Comments

[scifantasy]

"Traffic calming" is one of the dumbest--and scariest--concepts I think I've ever heard of.

As to the rest, good list. I haven't driven in some time (and likely won't for some time more), but I recall the frustrations of the Beltway well.

[tibicina]

Well, arguably, from a handling the car position, not a traffic position, what you want to do is brake/slow down just before the curve so you enter it more slowly and then accelerate through it and leaving the curve.

Also, in many places the speed limits on the serious curves are much lower than on the straighter sections.

[funjon]

no, you don't want to touch the brakes in a curve, EVER.

If you have to touch your brakes you were going too fast to begin with.

She's 100% right, you want to apply a slight amount of acceleration through the curve to increase grip.

[gdmusumeci]

I think tibicina is correct: maximum cornering performance involves hard braking to the maximum safe corner entry speed, then releasing the brake and applying increasing amounts of throttle through the corner apex and exit.

However, I've never seen the speed limit actually decrease for a curve in the US. (The yellow and black signs are merely advisory.)

[tibicina]

Well, okay, advisory, yes, but when the advisory speed limits are 20 or more mph less than the normal speed limits, which they frequently are around L.A., it still behooves one to slow down.

[ckd]

WRT #4, see also http://trafficwaves.org/ which discusses why that's so good at clearing up jams.

[almeda]

You would not believe the dirty looks I get for allowing, oh, the RECOMMENDED NUMBER OF CAR LENGTHS between me and the guy in front for a conservative hard-braking stopping distance. Everyone else, moderately-dense, moving-well Chicago freeway traffic, seems to tend to settle for 2 car-lengths as Perfectly Good, which drives me UP A WALL. But then, I've had to hard-brake in traffic that dense, and ended up about three pieces of dental floss off the guy in front of me -- who was actually the guy in front of HIM, the guy in front of ME having pulled off into the shoulder when he saw what was happening (wise of him. I have learned from his experience).

But then, they do it on city streets, too -- lots and lots of drivers seem to think "There is empty pavement in front of me" means "I am going too slow," even when they're going 45mph. On city streets. Where the speed limit is 35. And with a red light half a block in front of them that they're going to have to stop for.

Arrgh.

[almeda]

It's common in many cities.

As opposed to Chicago-specific driver-culture idioms, like the idiosyncratic meaning of turn signals: in Chicago freeway driving, turn signals are used to say, "Blink, blink, ok, I'm COMING OVER!" instead of what is more common elsewhere (and specified in our Rules of the Road manual), "I'm going to turn on a signal to let everyone know my intentions and give them at least ten seconds to notice and take my wishes into account."

[lordcamiliano]

Amazing how so many people are lacking in common sense and intelligence. Leaves me with little hope for our species.