Get thee behind me, Branwyn!

[branwyn]

Greetings.

Well, I'd forgotten about it until yesterday, but I just got back from a

Comments

[ambereyeslupus]

Alternately, you could always be wrapped around a telephone pole, nearby tree, or involved in a multi-car accident. Would those make you more or less sad than having to drive on the right? :\

The problem with breaking those laws is the least common denominator factor. It's kinda icky to say "Well, I can speed cause I can do it safely", or "I can drive better than you can so I should be able to do whatever", because everyone else - the least common denominator - decides they're missing out on something and they want to do it too. Then everyone is unsafe, and you're back where you started.

It's kind of like the situation here in America at least with SUVs. The people who actually have justification for SUVs bought them, and everyone else went "HEY YOU ALL I WANT AN SUV TOO". Now we've got everyone and their grandmother with an SUV, and they can't operate them well. Witness the cell phone use in cars too increasing. So we get bigger and bigger cars to make us "safer" than everyone else around us, which just makes everything that much more dangerous.

So drive the speed limit. I'd rather hear you bitch about driving in the slow lane, than bitch about how you can't walk again cause you got yourself wrapped around a tree. My dad almost died from a result of stupid driving decisions of which he was indirectly involved in - I'd hate for anything to happen to you.

-AmberEyes

[branwyn]

Well, and you're right in stating that better for me to suffer driving slower than to find myself in an accident, as a strict A vs. B comparison... however, I draw a fairly weak causal relationship between speed and danger, despite what the lady at the Ministry of Transportation seemed bound to instill in me. She must have mentioned about 5 times in the 5 minutes I was there that "most accidents are caused by speeding" -- which is the biggest load of crap I have ever heard, barring perhaps some of Bush Jr.'s comments. Sure, traveling a bit faster gives you a bit less time to react, a bit longer to stop once you have reacted, and a bit harder of an impact if you do hit something at that speed, but if you're traveling that speed you should be taking those into account... and if it's something you couldn't possibly have avoided regardless of speed, then a) speed didn't cause the accident and b) you are just as dead running into whatever-it-is at 120km/h as you are at 100km/h.

And you're quite right that a "choose a speed at which you are capable of driving safely" system doesn't work in (North) America, because we're too proud (and too stupid?) to know our limits. Hell, 100km/h is already WAY too fast for some people, but you dont' see THEM slowing down, do you?

However, my point was that the lanes on the right, although slower, are not necessarily safer, due to the calibre of driver found in those lanes, and the nature of that position on the road.

And even that statement is a bit unfair... when I originally wrote the "right lane" comment, I was actually thinking more of the "Collector lanes" on the 401, which I find much more dangerous to drive in than the "Express lanes" -- even though the Express moves a fair bit faster -- because there seem to be a much larger percentage of people in the Collectors who, even though they are driving slower, are less in control of their vehicles. In my mind these are the people who take the 401 only because it's a MUCH better and faster route than any of the other options, and who aren't really comfortable with the speed or the number of lanes or volume of traffic -- so they jsut barely manage to get themselves into the right-most of the Collector lanes and just "hang on for dear life".

In the Collectors I feel I am subjected to many more instances of people who: lane change without signaling or checking; tailgate (other than those going faster than you while in the leftmost lane of the Express, those are some nasty tailgaters - but a good driver sees that sort of person in their rearview mirror and moves over long before they're up your tailpipe); who can't keep a steady speed; who drive right on the edge of their lane, or in two lanes, or drift back and forth, particularly in turns; who brake for no apparent reason... stuff like that.

What those people (and, in fact, most drivers) don't realize is that the Collectors are also a more challenging driving environment - cars will merge in and out from both left and right in the Collectors (instead of almost-but-not-quite-exclusively from the right, as in the Express lanes), and anyone getting to or from the Express lanes generally has to cross all 3+ lanes of the Collector lanes, meaning a lot more lane-changing goes on in the Collectors.

This all factors in heavily for me, because my route to work is almost exclusively on the 401, which is split into Express and Collectors for about 3/4 of the distance that I am on it. I COULD drive the speed limit in the right-hand lane of the Express lane, but this would also be dangerous because it would be 10km/h under the speed normally traveled in that lane, PLUS I really hated people who drove slower than the flow of traffic in the Express, because it spoils a "system" which - though illegally fast - worked very well, and generally quite safely.

So, I hope that all gives you a better idea of the environment that I am not looking forward to driving in.

B.

[ambereyeslupus]

Well, and you're right in stating that better for me to suffer driving slower than to find myself in an accident, as a strict A vs. B comparison... however, I draw a fairly weak causal relationship between speed and danger, despite what the lady at the Ministry of Transportation seemed bound to instill in me.

And to note, speed itself doesn't kill - it's difference in speed that kills. If everyone is driving at 130km/h, yah, that might be fast, but because everyone is going the same speed it's a safer than mixing 100km/h and 120 km/h people. Obviously, as you increase the km/h, it does get more dangerous, but those variations are extraordinarily dangerous.

Hence the everyone has to take it slow mentality. Again, because like you said, hubris and ego gets to the point where if one person is speeding, everyone else wants to, that difference in speed (as people settle into their own speed limit) gets dangerous.

I agree with you though, it sucks to have to drive in the slow lane (as much as I hate driving on the highway, I do feel safer there than on the slower roads). I just hoped I was giving some perspective that you really ought to not drive over the speed limit because of that speed difference. A lot of people would be very upset if something was to happen to you, whether it was your fault or not. :\

-AmberEyes

[branwyn]

Ah! The key point that you are then missing is that the flow of traffic on the 401, at least in the express lanes, is about 120 km/h -- 20 km/h over the posted speed limit. On the basis of speed differentials, it's probably safer to drive 120km/h in the 401 Express than the speed limit of 100 km/h ANYWHERE on the 401. But not for me... because that may mean losing my license. If there was a reasonable alternative to taking the 401 I'd consider it... but there's really not.

Interesting story - possibly an urban myth but who knows, because I guarantee if someone did this, it would play out exactly like this - of a guy who got a speeding ticket on the 401. As a protest, he and a friend drove side-by-side going the speed limit down the 401 in rush hour, and backed up traffic clear through Toronto. They were pulled over and given tickets for dangerous driving for going the speed limit. It's at least true that when taking your driver's test one of the biggest points of confusion is that you have two conflicting directives: travel at or below the speed limit, but also travel "with the flow of traffic". When the flow of traffic is faster than the speed limit, you might fail your driver's test either way (and I've heard of both instances).

Ah well. I'll live. I mean, that's the whole point, I think. ;)

B.

[ambereyeslupus]

Oh! Yeah, I didn't mean hard numbers there, I just meant that speed differentials kill, period. The higher the speeds involved when the accident occurs, obviously make a difference in creating a more serious accident - should one occur. Hence why if everyone is doing 140 km/h, it's probably safer than if one person is doing 120km/h and another is doing 90km/h.

One of my friends here that I used to talk to had a dad for a cop. I talked with him a lot about laws, because I was interested in the purpose behind the laws. The myth you are talking about is something I could easily see happening. I know that we used to talk about speed limits and speed traps a lot, and as he puts it, the purpose of speed limits is two fold - first to reduce the speed so that in case of accident, fatalities and injuries are minimized, and second to try and keep everyone at the same speed to reduce altercations resulting from traffic flow rate inequalities.

For example, it's very easy to start a traffic jam - drive a bit slower than normal, so cars begin to pack up behind you, then accelerate quickly for a distance and then slow again. That "ripple" effect will cause a compounding flow problem as the cars behind you do the same, ultimately causing a huge problem, especially considering when people begin to change lanes. Interestingly, this is also how you can solve a traffic jam - slow down to allow the cars ahead of you to get a good distance away, then begin accelerating to the speed limit and don't slow down. The ripple smooths out, and the jam goes away.

Anyway though, as he puts it, most cops don't care about the speed you are going as long as you are not causing dangerous conditions by deviating from the norm. That means if everyone is going 140 km/h, you can do it too, and you're not going to get into trouble. But if you go too slow, to where the cars around you are having to adjust their own speed quickly, or cause conditions that will cause congestion by that ripple effect occurring, you'll get a ticket. Likewise, if most of the other people are going a little under the speed limit and you go the speed limit, your chances of getting a ticket increase because, like your myth says, you're causing a dangerous situation.

And I can see you failing your driver test for keeping with traffic, because no driving test judiciary is going to give you the ok to go about the speed limit. Imagine how many teenagers would only hear the "you can go faster than the speed limit" and miss the "if the rest of traffic is doing so". Again, you run into that driving hubris. But cops are generally not going to pull you over if driving slower means you're going to cause traffic flow problems.

-AmberEyes