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Comment by perl4ever | Hacker News Reader

"Even if you try to give an example of someone coming up on your left at a 50+mph difference"

70 mph in a school zone? Not an issue if you just look both ways before crossing the street!

Seriously (not that you sound very serious) every morning, I make a left turn out of my development onto a nominally 30 mph road where people go 40-45, and it's impossible to see very far to the left before pulling out. Given normal speeds, it is possible to make the turn before the oncoming car if they are just out of sight.

So if anyone is ever going 80 there at the wrong moment, it will be impossible to avoid them and probably lethal to one or both of us.

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My example was mainly on a straight road because it's easy to understand. It applies to curvy roads where you won't see ahead too though. As someone driving, you should never drive faster than what you can see ahead and be able to stop in time. I kind of imagine what I'd like to call a "meteor" incident. Would I be able to stop in time if a meteor randomly crashed just outside of my vision ahead in a turn? If not - probably going too fast. (It's not uncommon to meet a "meteor" in the form of a car) One could call that "speeding" but that's not what it is colloquially. (Speeding to most is going 1+mph over the posted limit)

If the visibility is good, there's nothing wrong with going faster. Aggressive speed limits make more sense to be followed when there's very limited visibility, high chance of stops, people crossing the road, intersections, etc.

But if visibility is good, I don't see it making a difference much in what speed you're going.

"As someone driving, you should never drive faster than what you can see ahead and be able to stop in time. I kind of imagine what I'd like to call a "meteor" incident. Would I be able to stop in time if a meteor randomly crashed just outside of my vision ahead in a turn? If not - probably going too fast."

Seems like you've ignored what I just wrote in the previous comment. If I make a turn just as a car is barely out of sight, then at 40 mph there is just enough time to go before it hits me, assuming my car doesn't stall or something. If it is going much faster, say 80, then there would not be enough time. If I have no model of other drivers, and assume anything can happen outside my vision, which is what you seem to be expressing by the word "meteor" then there is no way I can make a turn in either direction safely at all, ever. The only way a person can deal with everyday situations is to assume roughly "normal" behavior (both in a social sense and in terms of physical law) and act accordingly.

In this case, you're the meteor and the other person is at fault. They turned a corner (I don't see how else they couldn't see the intersection - if it's a straight then they can see the intersection - thus my cornering talk) and went into an intersection where another car was already. It's no different than someone romping over a very steep hill (very prevalent in SF) and assuming the intersection they're running into is "clear". (It usually isn't!) It's not a thing they can do and they shouldn't do it.

Either way - sounds like a bad intersection and they should design it differently. (Turn on left with left arrow only, etc.)

"In this case, you're the meteor and the other person is at fault."

Ah, but I'm not. There's a lot of people who live in the same place I do, and they all have to come out of that road in the morning. It's very predictable, not like being hit by a meteor which billions of people have no experience with.

People can and should plan for people turning out of side streets.

A "meteor" would be a car making a turn and stalling right at that moment. Wanting to eliminate that sort of risk is probably related to the problems people are having developing software for self-driving cars.

> But if visibility is good, I don't see it making a difference much in what speed you're going.

Problem is, the speed limit is usually set with local factors in mind. I.e. if the speed limit doesn't make sense to you then the people who set the limit likely knew something you didn't.

Try driving in Finland, Sweden or Norway at dusk in the fall. That kind of attitude will often result in a white-tail or a moose through the front window. :D

> Try driving in Finland, Sweden or Norway at dusk in the fall.

See:

> But if visibility is good, I don't see it making a difference much in what speed you're going.

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