You Know What Really Grinds My Gears? Now with 3x more gears...

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

After returning from a week long trip to the Okanagan I have a bevy of ground gears

1. How is it that an $100,000 Mercedes SUV doesn't come standard with cruise control? At least that's the only reason I can come up with for having to pass the same GLS a dozen times between Canmore and Calgary. My cruise was set at 125, and he seemed to bounce between 110-140 at random intervals

2. Why is it that some drivers are unwilling to drive faster than 110 in the left lane until I end up passing them on the right, and then suddenly they're riding my ass at 125? Are they incapable of speeding unless someone shows them how? Or are they just so insecure in their manhood that the thought of someone actually passing them sends them over the edge?

3. It's madding how all it takes is one timid driver towing a trailer to completely ruin an otherwise nice drive for dozens of people by refusing to drive faster than 70 km/h through the mountains. That is of course until they hit a passing lane and gun it to 100. I just can't comprehend the lack of self awareness to not be bothered by the mile long line of traffic behind you

Lastly, why is BC so much better at setting speed limits than Alberta? The Coquihalla is a winding highway with lots of elevation changes and a 120 km/h upper limit, while the QE2 is completely flat and straight for 90% of it's run but it's locked at 110. And HWY 1 through Banff has extra wide medians with millions of dollars worth of wildlife mitigation, yet is stuck at 90 km/h. A few hours down the road though in BC the same road is single lane with no wildlife fences or crossings, yet the speed is 100 km/h around Revelstoke. It seems to me that BC highways are designed for optimal traffic flow while Alberta is more concerned with creating honeypots for cops

Just returned from BC last night and have experienced all three of your major gear grinders. Couldn't agree more on all three. I've been vocal about it here for many years as well like many others, I'm sure. My biggest one is when that vehicle does not move to the right and continues in the left lane driving same 90 km/hr when the passing lane comes up. This is beyond inconsiderate. This is asking for it.

I do disagree on the bold'd part with BC being so much better on speed limits. Passing lanes should be 110-120 km/hr, so that smaller vehicles could pass large semis and motor-homes cruising at 90. Having that 90 km/hr limit on passing lanes serves only one purpose - to get as many tickets as possible on any given long-weekend. Also, the large vehicles should be required to stay in the right lane and let others pass. I recall driving in Washington south of Seattle where the road had pockets requiring slower vehicles to move to and allow others to pass if there are more than 2 vehicles closely behind them. That was a really sensible thing to do and I wish we had something similar.

Also, for the n-th time, it is a national shame to have our only coast-to-coast highway not widened to 4-lanes all the way.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

Do people really actually drive slower than the flow or road speed their whole life due to irrational worry about their urgent stopping distance?.

In any road where emerging cars and people can obstruct the road unexpectedly, 30 is safer than 40 is safer than 50 is safer than 60. Because of stopping distance. Which is physics.

It frankly alarms me that there are people on the road who don’t understand that.

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

In any road where emerging cars and people can obstruct the road unexpectedly, 30 is safer than 40 is safer than 50 is safer than 60. Because of stopping distance. Which is physics.

It frankly alarms me that there are people on the road who don’t understand that.

This is incredibly flawed logic, Cliff. 20 is safer than 30, 10 is safer than 20 and 0 is safer than 10. The roads are made for driving.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

Do people really actually drive slower than the flow or road speed their whole life due to irrational worry about their urgent stopping distance?

Better tape a printout of that graph on the dash.

I dunno, I just keep my speed in check in residential areas but otherwise tend to speed a bit. But I actually spend lots of time outside around my neighbourhood with my kids so I know how annoying it is when people rip around in their obnoxious UUVs

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

In any road where emerging cars and people can obstruct the road unexpectedly, 30 is safer than 40 is safer than 50 is safer than 60. Because of stopping distance. Which is physics.

It frankly alarms me that there are people on the road who don’t understand that.

You’re safest going idling speed. Well, in terms of stopping distance, not from being murdered by the angry mob stuck behind your crawl.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

This is incredibly flawed logic, Cliff. 20 is safer than 30, 10 is safer than 20 and 0 is safer than 10. The roads are made for driving.

We drive faster for convenience and impatience. Not safety.

Safety <————— speed —————> Convenience

Because physics.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

We drive for convenience and impatience. Not safety.

Because physics.

Fyp

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Locke

And my argument is that I vehemently disagree. I dont think we're going to find common ground here.

Especially not with a filthy 'their/they're' transgressor.

They’re was a time people were against zipper merging.

[CaptainYooh]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

We drive faster for convenience and impatience. Not safety.

Safety <————— speed —————> Convenience

z

Because physics.

The longer we live the higher is our chance of dying. Because nature.

[mrkajz44]

I find it interesting how this 40km/h discussion is going and how it's very different from the highway discussions. Here's our two scenarios and the general prevailing opinion:

1) Going 40km/h everywhere residential is very bad because you should be following the rules of the road. The lack of following the rules makes you dangerous

2) Going 110km/h on the highway in the left lane is very bad because you should be following the unwritten rules of the road. The fact that you are doing the speed limit in a specific lane makes you dangerous

To be clear, I'm all for slower traffic keep right on the highway, and am equally annoyed by people doing 40km/h everywhere residential, but it's an interesting juxtaposition.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by mrkajz44

I find it interesting how this 40km/h discussion is going and how it's very different from the highway discussions. Here's our two scenarios and the general prevailing opinion:

1) Going 40km/h everywhere residential is very bad because you should be following the rules of the road. The lack of following the rules makes you dangerous

2) Going 110km/h on the highway in the left lane is very bad because you should be following the unwritten rules of the road. The fact that you are doing the speed limit in a specific lane makes you dangerous

To be clear, I'm all for slower traffic keep right on the highway, and am equally annoyed by people doing 40km/h everywhere residential, but it's an interesting juxtaposition.

The written rule of the road is keep right except to pass so going the speed limit in the left lane is not acceptable unless you are overtaking someone.

[GirlySports]

With more and more exits on the left, I'm not sure this applies 100% anymore.

You're supposed to: Plan ahead. Be in the proper lane well before you reach your exit.
Use your turn signal well in advance of the exit to alert the drivers behind you.

I'd say 1km before a left exit, the left lane is no longer a passing lane, it's an exit lane.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

With more and more exits on the left, I'm not sure this applies 100% anymore.

You're supposed to: Plan ahead. Be in the proper lane well before you reach your exit.
Use your turn signal well in advance of the exit to alert the drivers behind you.

I'd say 1km before a left exit, the left lane is no longer a passing lane, it's an exit lane.

Keep right except to pass doesn’t apply to roads that have left exits and left turns. With very few exceptions, anything that has left turn lanes isn’t a freeway so keep right except to pass doesn’t apply.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

This is incredibly flawed logic, Cliff. 20 is safer than 30, 10 is safer than 20 and 0 is safer than 10. The roads are made for driving.

There is an asymptote of pedestrian fatalities where at around 30km/h fatalities rise dramatically. So one goal of residential road design could be to keep pedestrian collisions occurring at below that speed.

The idea that roads are made for driving in residential areas is one that should be challenged. Roads are made for hockey, biking, playing on, and driving. It’s multi-use space that we allow dominated by cars. Most of the time residential roads are not used for driving.

[monkey brewery]

I picked up my new eyeglasses on Friday, and I think they were made wrong, are the wrong prescription (which hasn't changed in two years according to the two Rxs I have) or something is off.

It makes me a pretty grumpy that I have to deal with this tomorrow morning now. We're set to go on holiday in europe on Thursday for three weeks.

The problem is hard to describe, but if glasses provide 180 degrees field of view, the outsides of the lenses are blurry for everything that is about 10 feet away or farther, so the field of vision is reduced by 25% on each side. I have a sort of tunnel vision with these glasses. Oddly the problem doesn't happen when I look close up at something like this computer monitor.

They are supposed to be distance glasses.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by GGG

There is an asymptote of pedestrian fatalities where at around 30km/h fatalities rise dramatically. So one goal of residential road design could be to keep pedestrian collisions occurring at below that speed.

The idea that roads are made for driving in residential areas is one that should be challenged. Roads are made for hockey, biking, playing on, and driving. It’s multi-use space that we allow dominated by cars. Most of the time residential roads are not used for driving.

I'd add not just playing on, but playing near.

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by stone hands

This is a pretty common misconception, you really cant. The human brain evolved to estimate and handle running speeds. Travelling by car makes people overestimate their abilities

Let's say you have average reaction times and register the need to brake in your head to actually putting your foot on the brake in 3/4 second, 110km/hr is 30m per second, so in one second going 110 you have almost traversed 1/ 3 the distance before even starting to slow down. There are tons of articles or YouTube videos you can watch that go into far more detail, but the tl;dr is that people are notoriously bad at estimating how much time and space they actually have in a vehicle

I won’t argue on the reaction time - and will even take the 25-30 yards reaction to break push as accurate (I think it’s still slow for any aware driver but sure for average )

If you car takes 2 additional seconds to stop your vehicle has an extreme problem . 2 seconds is an eternity

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

Keep right except to pass doesn’t apply to roads that have left exits and left turns. With very few exceptions, anything that has left turn lanes isn’t a freeway so keep right except to pass doesn’t apply.

Yet it's still a rule that if you're in the left lane basically anywhere and moving slower than right lane traffic, you're doing something wrong.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

Just returned from BC last night and have experienced all three of your major gear grinders. Couldn't agree more on all three. I've been vocal about it here for many years as well like many others, I'm sure. My biggest one is when that vehicle does not move to the right and continues in the left lane driving same 90 km/hr when the passing lane comes up. This is beyond inconsiderate. This is asking for it.

I do disagree on the bold'd part with BC being so much better on speed limits. Passing lanes should be 110-120 km/hr, so that smaller vehicles could pass large semis and motor-homes cruising at 90. Having that 90 km/hr limit on passing lanes serves only one purpose - to get as many tickets as possible on any given long-weekend. Also, the large vehicles should be required to stay in the right lane and let others pass. I recall driving in Washington south of Seattle where the road had pockets requiring slower vehicles to move to and allow others to pass if there are more than 2 vehicles closely behind them. That was a really sensible thing to do and I wish we had something similar.

Also, for the n-th time, it is a national shame to have our only coast-to-coast highway not widened to 4-lanes all the way.

They had to blow up mountains to get four lanes. It’s more complicated than you think.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

Keep right except to pass doesn’t apply to roads that have left exits and left turns. With very few exceptions, anything that has left turn lanes isn’t a freeway so keep right except to pass doesn’t apply.

I’d argue almost every road with a left exit is a freeway, actually. Those are all the examples I can think of (though that’s counting multi-lane freeways that split into two different freeways). I suppose the QE2 headed into Calgary from the south could count. In California they’re everywhere, the majority of which are on freeways (but keep right except to pass is very much not a thing outside of state highways and interstates).

Outside of the QE2 example I can’t actually think of any Calgary multi lane roads with left exits.