Vision Zero and road safety

i'd have to look at all sides of the issue, but it does seem like a good idea.

why is there no political will for enforcing speed limits? what are those cops doing these days?

when we started driving to florida in 2004, as soon as you hit the ct line, there were cops everywhere, and there was a policy of speeding fines commensurate with rate of speed.

people were getting $500. tickets. within a few short years, there wasn't a speed trap to be seen, no idea why.

 

Totally agree... Up until the Pandemic hit I'd drive from Seattle area to Sacramento area sometimes as often as every other month and that's usually a little under 2K miles per trip. 20 years ago I got more than one speeding ticket even though I'd almost never drive faster than 73mph and not an hour would go by on those drives that I wouldn't see a cop waiting to pull someone over, or someone who was being pulled over. These days it doesn't seem to matter, and maybe that helps less people of color get shot by cops less often, but it also creates a general sense of lawlessness.

Seems more and more people treat stop signs as optional and there's a general sense of being a good citizen as a bad thing / being woke. Add to that all the increase in pedestrian fatalities due to drive visibility issues when in giant SUV and mega trucks, which also required the whole country to have to upgrade the size of the guard rails and K-rails to protect us form ourselves and its no wonder car accidents rates are way up.

As for onboard solutions, I always say that eye tracking software that's tied directly to your insurance rates is the way to go because I don't really care if some idiot is driving way too fast as long as they're able to notice me cruising along in the slow lane and not crash into me.

Besides there's so many elderly people that we need to get off the road and the way we do it right now makes it really hard. But if the insurance company sent a letter to the little old lady from Pasadena that on her way to Church on Sunday that their were 25 pedestrians and 30 cars that she needed to drive defensively around and she never even saw them while driving, it'd be pretty clear why they were reporting her to the state for immediate revoking of her license. Could save alot of lives that way!

 

We have the technology to have a cop pull you over and you then you simply pull up the cop and the traffic court judge on the phone and get processed, pay your fine or get acquitted and be on your way. What we don't have is the political will to reform our courts, as well as our law enforcement. Humans resist change even when it's change for the better.

Like when the iphone first came out, everyone was outraged that it didn't have a keyboard like the Blackberry and said it had no future.

 

Speeding tickets in Texas are common on state highways especially around small towns where the police dept is primarily funded by the revenue.

Rare on freeways but congestion self regulates speed.

Distracted driving is the big problem followed by dui.

Lots of weapons means very few honking cars.

 

I miss the good ol days when you could honk at someone who didn't notice the light turned green and not have any worrying about them losing it and pointing a gun at you. Road rage use to be so much more fun and less worrisome than it these days.

 

A subset of 'traffic engineering,' it means designing everything on the public streets to reduce probability and severity of accidents. Signage and traffic light timing are important too.

Speed is important and Tesla AutoPilot/FSD uses a 'Google Map' or GIS based navigation map with what it thinks are the speed limits. When the map speed silently changes, we called it a "phantom brake." However, the most recent release makes it a softer slow down ("phantom speed zone"?) that can be manually overridden.

Transportation needs to be seen as a system ranging from the pavement up and including everything including vehicles. Somewhat jaded after the "Bell the Hybrid" legislation, I know there is no 'magic' solution.

Bob Wilson

 

That's a good example of the level of learning involved to maximize the enjoyment of driving your EV. And from that perspective, how many times did people who rented these cars never have enough drive time behind the wheel to learn how to use it? I bet there were plenty of distracted driving accidents trying to figure out the control panels. More to the point everyone I know who owns an EV treats it much more carefully/presciously than regular car owners. And maybe that hid some of the durability issues that you don't get from short-term car renters?

 

I agree that AutoPilot/FSD should be mentored in the first hour or two. But in simple car mode, it is quite ordinary except for the center, integrated display. Similar criticism was leveled against the center display of the Prius.

Bob Wilson

 

What cops? I don’t know about the USA as a whole, but in Minneapolis police staffing has fallen approximately 40% since 2020.
I am guessing Emergency calls, felonies, domestic violence & property crimes are a higher priority.

Yes, traffic enforcement is important, but until we get staffing back up, something has to give.

 

i'd have to see data on staffing. locally, i don't think it's gone down, but who knows?

we live in the suburbs where the crimes you mention are rare enough that they wouldn't take up much police time, but speeding is a major issue.
there's always a cop to be found in the back of a parking lot.

we have a local intersection on a 30mph road where there were so many accidents, they painted the whole street with warnings and put up flashing 25mph signs.
people drive the road at 40-50mph and if you ever slowed to 25 you'd get rear ended.
never a cop to be seen there, but plenty hiding.this is not an area where police get shot during traffic stops.

 

Round here another “universal infraction”:

NOBODY comes to a full, legal stop, at stop signs, or when turning right on a red light.

 

i haven't hit anyone yet...

 

Besides potentially running over pedestrians, it’s hard on the nerves (as a driver on the through street with right-of-way) as they’ve got the potential to t-bone you.

 

Another side effect of no traffic enforcement, lot of uninsured motorist and generally bad drivers on the road. Next time your sitting in traffic, look at the registration tags on the cars around you. Over the years, I'm seeing more and more expired tags - then what are the chances those same drivers are caring insurance, paying their taxes, or the vehicle is running safely or legally?

This translates into higher insurance premiums and taxes for all of us.