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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
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: snakeweasel (Feb 09, 2008 11:09 am) me: In the real world where I drive on the interstates, cars are 3 car-lengths apart whether at 65, or 75+ mph speed during peak-traffic hours. No one leaves more than that or else you'll have people cutting in front of you, which is more of a danger than leaving that amount of room. Driving 55mph and leaving 3 car-lengths apart will cause more congestion, to the point where people can't find a spot to easily get on, "push" their way on, causing lane-changes and people hitting brakes, and then you have a whole chain f people hitting their brakes. Theoretically you're right about higher speeds requiring lower density of traffic, but it doesn't work like that on many urban highways. 3 car lengths is about the norm whatever speed traffic can flow at at that time. This experience is from MA, CT, NJ, NY, and the Phil. area .
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Replying to: kernick (Feb 09, 2008 1:22 pm) Again that would be congested, doesn't matter what the speed is its congested. Driving 55mph and leaving 3 car-lengths apart will cause more congestion, to the point where people can't find a spot to easily get on, I disagree with that as it would make getting on the road and lang changes easier and safer due to the lower speed. but it doesn't work like that on many urban highways. 3 car lengths is about the norm whatever speed traffic can flow at at that time. But here is the thing, 3 car lengths are more palatable the slower you go. Also note that slowing down the traffic is not causing the congestion. The congestion is caused by having to many cars on the road, that is what causes the slow down. The whole contention is that slowing down traffic causes congestion. That simply isn't true.
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Replying to: snakeweasel (Feb 09, 2008 1:37 pm) Again, if you have a factory assembly-line which represents a road fairly well, and you have more parts trying to be put on the line when it is already full, the way to breakup tat congestion is to speed-up the line and process the parts quicker. The amount of water you can put thru a hose also goes up with the speed of the water, and the same applies for cars on highways. (I work in a factory as an engineer, and I can tell you all about keeping product flowing, and estimating capacities). Congestion depends on how fast cars travel and thus how long they are on the road. You decrease the number of cars on the road by getting them off faster, such that other cars that want to enter then have room.
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Replying to: kernick (Feb 09, 2008 5:15 pm) Congestion is not dependent on how fast cars travel or how long they are on the road. Congestion is dependent on how many cars are on the road period. Once you get beyond a certain number of cars traffic gets congested. So slowing down traffic will not cause congestion, nor will speeding them up will solve congestion. |
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Canada looking at ways to cut down on speeding Not really on topic, but Transport Canada is testing a speed limiting device on cars owned by habitual speeders. It's basically a gizmo that combines a GPS, speed-limit map, and an undisclosed way to manually override a car’s controls.
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Replying to: steve_ (Feb 11, 2008 6:43 pm) Via satillite, every truck can be monitored by their dispatcher center and if the driver refuses to rest, the center can slow the truck down and then within 20 minutes shut it down. 
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In Canada, the highway speed limit is 100 KMH (Kilometer per Hour), equivalent to 62.5 MPH. Instead of re-instating the 55 mph, let's think again about going metric and, as in Canada, put a 100 KMH highway limit. As a starting point to joining the rest of the world and going metric, the US was supposed to start posting both MPH and KMH back in 1993, but Bill Clinton, with an eye to his re-election, issued and Executive Order canceling this as soon as he became President in 1992. (Why does my present 2008 Honda' Accord's speedometer go up to an astronomically high 160 MPH? For what purpose? Maybe that's a topic for another discussion)
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Replying to: imscf (Feb 12, 2008 2:50 pm) My car gets 16,700 furlongs to a hogshead highway and thats the way I like it.
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Replying to: snakeweasel (Feb 12, 2008 3:24 pm) You called? I only buy "engineers" tape measures. A rod is the length of a typical tandem canoe btw (~16'). Not sure how many stones mine can carry. 100 kph does have a nicer ring to it than 62 mph. But I can't drive 88.5. |
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Replying to: imscf (Feb 12, 2008 2:50 pm)  On the speedometer question, the V-6 can probably go over 140mph; so it makes sense to have a speedometer that can show the speed. Now I think you're asking why someone needs to go that fast - run from a tsunamai or tornado? rush someone to a hospital? race?
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