Slow Drivers cause majority of accidents--BS

It is more than simply greater weight. Their exemption from passenger car crash compatibility standards makes them more lethal than cars of the same weight.

As for blocking view of the road ahead, cars now do the same thing. Between sharply raised beltlines and trunks on even compact cars, and tints that effectively black out the rear window, even most cars do not permit the road visibility that we had two and three decades ago.

 

The conclusions of this are clearly stupid. It's like the Onion article/headline that most domestic abuse cases are caused by burned pot roast. a classic blame the victim mindset.

Of course, freeways have minimum speeds. Freeways really are their own animal. In theory, there should never be traffic jams on them, but people "don't know how" to drive on them approporiately to the nature of the design. It's the damned human element.

I do generally think that while it's not the victim's fault if they're going the limit and there's an accident because someone's impatient, there's no reason to ask for trouble. No matter who's at fault, we don't want accidents to happen. So if you're going to drive slowly, do it in the right lane. And honestly, if there's no minimum but the limit is 50+, don't go like 20. Sheesh.

I believe in Texas, it's illegal for a farm vehicle or similar to pull onto the shoulder to allow passing, but I saw it done plenty on a route I used to drive and loved it. Passing on the other side was a huge risk, and those tractor drivers were kind folk. I always say a ticket is better than a wreck in the end of the day.

 

There's something very wrong with passenger car standards not being applied to road vehicles designed to carry passengers. If the truck never leaves the farm, that's not a problem, but most trucks have never seen a farm - they are quite clearly passenger vehicles only, and should be required to meet all safety standards.

 

We need more of this for a start.

 

lol.

 

Very helpful of that trooper.

I figure every cop should have a "keep right except to pass" sign in their car.

 

What got me was the car that stayed in the left lane, behind the trooper.

 

I see that all the time. Like they are drafting the officer. lol

 

Gotta be careful with that here, where officers are permitted to give speeding tickets after pacing drivers from ahead.

 

What is horrifying is that afterwards the car driver probably still had no clue what was going on. Most likely they have no concept whatsoever of passing, travel, and slow lanes.

 

No doubt Carlin and Twain had a lot in common. Though Twain was a much better writer.

In case you didn't notice, cars are driven faster on the highway in Europe--even in England. You have to keep to the right if you are going below 70 mph. Or to the left in Britain?

"Slow" over there is more dangerous than "slow" over here.

Though here, a really slow driver on a one lane road with no passing, or one in the passing lane on the highway, is a big pain in the nice person and can cause an accident.

 

Our County got their first Police Speeding Camera Van with full video recording for evidence last week. Within an hour they'd booked something like 70 drivers, the fastest of which got nabbed for 116 mph in a 70 mph zone

Luckily it was my day off!

 

Oops. What's the fine for that? Here, the cops can take your licence and your car on the spot, never mind the insurance penalties and fines!

 

The only important stat is that (according to CA highway patrol and other agencies as well) drivers driving at or below the speed limit (in the appropriate lane) are less likely to be in an accident ..... LESS likely. Is that enough reason?

So . . . the fact that there are speeders getting stressed when I drive the speed limit? . . . having to pass me on the shoulder to prove a point, etc? . . . . .only one thing I can say about that:




.

 

I don't believe that is quite correct. It's common to set speed limits using the 85th percentile of drivers. The 85th percentile has the lowest number of accidents. On the curve I've seen, the difference is pretty flat slightly below that number but increases more rapidly outside of that small range.

I think it's better to say that accidents are less likely at or slightly below the speed limit.

 

It is?? So how come when I do 55mph in a 55mph zone on I-95 (or any other interstate in CT/MA/NY), 50 in a 50 zone, or 40 in a 40, EVERYBODY whizzes past me? I think speed limits are set by traffic engineers based on certain safety criteria (some of which may not be evident to drivers), not by empirical observations.

 

It is not necessarily slow speed, or high speed, that causes accidents, but speed Differentials (some people going slower than the speed of traffic, and others moving at the speed of traffic) in a body of traffic that cause accidents. Slow drivers cause "wolf packs" or density waves, which is where most traffic accidents occur on the highway.

Please also note that if you are the one driving slower than traffic, and therefore the one likely to "cause" an accident, you are the one least likely to be in that accident, which is why driving more slowly might appear to be safer than driving at the higher speed of traffic. You are still going plenty fast to kill yourself in an accident at a "leisurely" 55 mph.

Driving the speed of traffic does not mean that you have to tailgate, which is why accidents happen in density waves. Just leave a gap and drive the speed of traffic, and consider others when you drive, not just your own mileage stats. That is as bad as the self-absorbed SUV drivers who want to drive a tank at the expense of others with excessive fuel demand and higher inertia in an impact.

 

Sorry, my bad. From Speed limit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The speed limit is commonly set at or below the '85th percentile speed' (which is the speed at which 85% of the traffic is travelling)[43] and in the USA is typically set 8 to 12 mph (13 to 19 km/h) below that speed.[44]"

That would explain part of what you see.

Here's the Maine DOT take for local roads:
Why 85th Percentile Speed

Incidentally, if you drive below average speed (which you probably do) judging average speed by cars overtaking you will give you an impression that the average speed of other drivers is higher than it really is:
- imagine you're driving and there are two lanes to your left
- in the lane directly to your left people are driving at +5mph.
- in the lane 2 to your left people are driving at +10mph.
- if the two lanes have the same number of cars then in any given time period twice as many cars will pass you at +10mph than at +5mph because they catch you twice as fast
- writing generally, the "multiplier" is proportional to the difference from your speed.
- The actual mean difference is k*sum(d)/n where d is the difference for each vehicle, n is the number of vehicles and k is some constant factor taking time into account.
- The "perceived" mean difference is going to be k*sum((d*|d|)/n, which will be significantly higher: +10 has 4 times as much weight as +5. (|d| means ignore the +/-).
- Note that the perceived average is based on difference not absolute speed, so in an even distribution of speeds an extreme speed would distort the perceived average more. However, the actual distribution is probably closer to normal, which should even out the result a bit.
- The result: when people feel they have to "keep up with traffic" the perceived average speed increases more than the average speed, which makes more people speed up to "keep up with traffic", which makes ...

 

Just as long as you realize that you may be literally aggravating people into driving in such a way that they kill themselves or others.

 

If they kill themselves then so be it. I only regret the cost to society when we have to pay for their ambulance/hospital service etc..

If it's a one lane road then I will speed up if they cannot pass safely but I'm not going to do 80mph done a rural highway just because some asshat is riding my butt.