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Automotive News & Views Should the US government bring back the 55 mph max speed limit again?
1418 messages, Last post on Dec 16, 2008 at 11:21 AM
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Replying to: farout (Feb 07, 2008 12:38 pm) I'm with you. But how long and how much money do you think it would cost just for an oil company to get an approved plan? How many local, state, and federal studies would have to be done? I would guess if the oil companies could make money by building a refinery here they would. If they're not, then ask yourself, why, and then you probably come back to the problems with building and running a refinery here in the U.S. If its easier to put the refinery in Mexico, then that is where it is built, and we import the gasoline.
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Replying to: kernick (Feb 07, 2008 5:58 am) Poor logic because if you drive 40 MPH you wouldn't get there until after we all get off our roads. Not only that but people don't drive in packs like that. Traffic usually has a steady stream of people entering and leaving so there is the same amount no matter what the speed is.
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Replying to: nippononly (Feb 07, 2008 8:15 am) Ah, no. The least amount of congestion will be when the least amount of cars are on the road. |
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Replying to: waltchan (Dec 04, 2007 3:42 pm)
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Replying to: kernick (Feb 07, 2008 2:08 pm)
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Replying to: snakeweasel (Feb 07, 2008 4:10 pm) Maybe my poor logic is in the way I'm explaining it and the examples, but it is not poor logic that many of our roads are fairly congested, and that driving slower means cars are on the road longer. And having cars on the road longer, increases the traffic density. A roadway is not much different than a factory assembly-line. If your line is running well at 6.5ft/min, and you slow it down to 5.5 ft/min you're going to get less parts thru that section. Now if you take the typical congested roadway around any major city - not one that is already stop-and-go, but one that actually flows at 65mph, and slow down 10mph, you have a problem. Why? ecause the same amount of cars want to use that road at that time. So you're basically taking the same number of parts that you could process at 6.5ft/min, running the line at 5.5 ft/min, but still trying to put the number of parts from 6.5 ft/min into the assembly-line. Slow down the speed of the assembly-line more and the problem becomes worse, because you still have the same number of parts that want to get down the assembly line. It's pretty simple to understand that whether you're in a line at an airport, or an amusement park, you want to keep people moving as fast as possible.
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Replying to: grbeck (Feb 08, 2008 6:57 am) If what I've heard from other posters here that there hasn't been a new refinery built in decades here in the U.S., and knowing that gas usage has gone up several fold in those decades, I would guess that improvements at existing refineries wouldn't be able to keep up. You might guess a refinery could do 50% better but gas-demand during these decades is 300% higher. If you want some other proof: 1) someone could see how many new refineries were built globally during those decades, or 2) find some historical data from (the DOE?) on gasoline imports into the U.S. |
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Replying to: vibsr (Feb 07, 2008 8:40 pm) |
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Replying to: kernick (Feb 08, 2008 8:00 am) While many of our roads are faily congested it is not the result of a slower speed but a result of more cars on the road than the road is capable of handling at its speed limit. In other words roads are congested due to the number of cars on the road not the speed that they are going. FWIW a road with a slower speed can hold more cars more comfortably. Now if you take the typical congested roadway around any major city - not one that is already stop-and-go, but one that actually flows at 65mph, and slow down 10mph, you have a problem. Why? because the same amount of cars want to use that road at that time. Here in lies the problem with your logic. Lets take a mile long section of that road, lets say that there are 'X' number of cars on that road going at 'Y' speed. At that speed there are a certain number of cars entering that section of road but you have that same number of cars also leaving the road. Hence the number of cars on that section of road remains somewhat constant. Slow done the flow of traffic and the number of cars entering and leaving that section of road by the same amount leaving the number of cars on the road reaming somewhat constant. Again I think you are putting the cart before the horse. Putting more cars on the road slows down traffic. Traffic doesn't get congested because the speed drops. It's pretty simple to understand that whether you're in a line at an airport, or an amusement park, you want to keep people moving as fast as possible. It doesn't work that way in the real world. The faster traffic goes the more room you need between cars so the fewer cars can be on any stretch of road. So let us say that congestion begins when the amount of cars on a stretch of road exceeds that number where all the cars can maintain a safe distance. That being the case the slower the traffic flow the more cars are needed on a particular road to cause congestion. In other words a highway with a set speed of 60 can hold more cars than at 65.
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