Hacker News Reader

Comment by blue_devil | Hacker News Reader

There is a solution to any problem - good design.

Look up "traffic calming measures". I doubt any driver who values their vehicle would text/use their phone while going through something like this: https://www.google.com/search?biw=1525&bih=760&tbm=isch&sa=1...:

View on HN

Physically changing road design is the only thing that works. Handing out tickets and traffic cameras are an o.k. way for a government to make some money, but does nothing to stop accidents.

This is wrong. Speed cameras save lives. A lot of research confirms this, for example: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/86567/1/sercdp0221.pdf

The best way to save the lives of pedestrians and cyclists from the predation of motorists is to eliminate cars in urban areas. The second-best way is fast, sure, automated enforcement.

>>to eliminate cars in urban areas

Hope to live to see this utopia. In the meantime, I'll take it if public money is invested in traffic calming - this might deter some driving at least, and definitely will make it safer. Also serves as an indicator that the place is not "car-first".

As someone who's done this type research, it's highly cherry picked and riddled with conflicted interests. It also encourages unpredictable driver behavior, which goes against the basic principles of right-of-way. You want drivers to be as predictable as possible for the benefit of drivers around them.

This is in addition to philosophical arguments against:

contest/court fees that are higher than the fine for pleading guilty,

The entire idea that criminal police enforcement can be contracted out,

Or, if civil enforcement, the idea that speeding in-and-of-itself is a justicable suit. Ie, the idea that the city suffered damages by someone speeding, and that an arbitrary fine is the appropriate remedy.

Get rid of companies collecting a rake, as well as the cities keeping the fines, and suddenly no one is fighting for the programs anymore.

Cameras are effective but only if deployed widely enough that they aren’t a surprise or annoyance. We need red light cameras at every intersection and speed cameras on every road.

Lightly deployed cameras do end up being what you say they are because people just mark them on Waze and drive carefully only in a certain area.

Design is only 1/3, but is what people usually look to first.

Three E's: Engineering Enforcement Education

Look to Germany for an example of education: my favorite is get off the road while not moving, no matter what.

https://i.imgur.com/PkVYVfj.jpg

The opposite is in the US, where it's become almost universal to put on flashers in heavy rain while still driving, or waving people ahead of you into traffic. Both are illegal and dangerous, yet people think it's the smart/nice thing to do. Both have been socially reinforced to the point where I don't know they can be corrected.

Doesn't designing road features that require slower speeds and risk car damage penalise all drivers - even those who would never text when driving?

What do you mean by penalising?

If a road has a 40km/h speed limit, and then road features designed for 40km/h are added, what's the penalty? The point is to require the driver to focus, which a good driver does anyway.

Don't speed limits on city streets do the same?

A practical answer is “no”. Speed limits were set when cars really couldn’t safely do any more. But, modern cars have better acceleration and braking and suspension. They remain “comfortably” within their handling capabilities even when 30% over the speed limit. (Estimates are my opinion)

One of the article's main points is that when cars drive faster, they are much more likely to kill pedestrians in an accident. So even if modern engineering may allow drivers to stay in control of their cars at higher speeds, cars still become more lethal to non-drivers.

Totally agree - I was more saying that the roads themselves do nothing to control speeds. Or, in a modern car it is easy to speed without realizing it.

To look at it another way, it makes the road safer for everyone regardless of the attentiveness and skill of any particular driver. Surely, that's a reasonable trade off in areas with a lot of vulnerable pedestrians.

I am not sure how this is a penalty. It's not like it's more physically difficult to drive slower (or faster).

This isn't really true. Road design is more complicated than people think. There's actually a table (I think in the green book) that gives you what are essentially coefficients for drivers "subconscious" speed, given certain design features. Meaning that reducing lane width, shoulder width, or even sign size will cause a driver to "naturally" drive slower. Setting the speed limit outside of this natural range happens all the time, usually in good faith, but results in speed traps.

So maybe not "physically" difficult, but it certainly takes a mental effort.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com