A smartphone app that allows public to submit evidence of speeding drivers
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- more likely to happen during the day so more potential for accidents
- more socially acceptable
- more likely to be done by the least experienced drivers (citation needed, I know. anecdotal evidence from living near a high school)
I suspect there will have to be some major event with multiple or high-profile casualties that will catalyze some sort of legislative action before anything changes.
> Compared to the legal limit of 30 mph, a typical vehicle driving at 36.1 mph takes an extra 8.0 metres to stop, is 2.2 times more likely to kill a pedestrian on impact, generates 14.6% more CO2, 55.4% more NOx and produces 1.7 BA more noise. [emphasis mine]
The stopping distance and likelihood to kill (though the not sure whether said likelihood is properly calculated as it's not a linear scale) is the only thing that should be relevant from a safety point of view which is the purported reason behind speed limits & their enforcement.
The extra information seems like an attempt to sway the decision against the driver and further some environmentalist agenda.
A reason, among several others. See, for instance, the most famous speed limit ever enacted:
poker response - I will see your "agenda" and raise you a "track cars all the time for ticket revenue agenda"
The stats seem off though, almost exactly as if they normalized by time rather than distance. Most cars increase their fuel economy till 40-50, and the only way you'd see that significant of a jump in CO2 emissions per mile from 30 -> 36 is if it were coupled with an insane amount of stopping and also waiting to stop as long as possible so that the excess energy would have to be consumed by your brakes rather than air resistance (if you have regenerative braking obviously that point is a bit moot).
The 40-50 band being more efficient isn't just a function of stopping frequency -- you can directly measure it on your favorite long, stop-free stretch of road. Your engine has a nonlinear efficiency with respect to throttle position and load, and at low speeds those dominate fuel economy rather than increased air resistance.
An engine optimized for efficiency would of course drive as slowly as possible, but other factors also contribute to the design of modern car engines.
"...and when you press the shutter as a car is passing and centred on the screen it selects a video snip of the previous one second and next one second"
In my country (dash) cams are practically forbidden due to privacy concerns and actively handing over footage of said evidence would get exactly one person in trouble: me, not the perpetuator.
In other words, higher velocities have longer stopping distances from a purely Newtonian perspective. But from a human factors perspective, making the job boring impairs the operator's reactions, also causing longer stopping distances.
Obligatory anecdote: over last summer a new family moved in down the street, put up their own "no speeding!" signs, and pestered the town until they got the town to put one of those radar "your speed is" devices right in front of their house. This seems like a really stupid tactical error. If you're concerned about the reaction times of drivers endangering your kids, the very last thing you should want to do is to put a flashing sign that demands the driver's attention right in your front yard. Why distract the driver from seeing your kids?
A street near somewhere I used to live started seeing more pass-through traffic and lobbied the city to install a speed bump on the street so cars would slow down. Unfortunately, that meant that drivers would speed up to the bump, brake hard (creating lots of noise) to go over the speed bump, or would roll around it via the bike lane. Ultimately the solution ended up closing off the street for through traffic.
So yes, ignoring how drivers will react to your machinations is indeed a tactical error.
It's intended to be used by someone outside of a vehicle at the side of the road.
Flipside, what does this really do? It's worse than police. When governments choose to develop revenue like this, it makes the police hostile toward the populace. Every single ticket incrementally increases fear in police and decreases police effectiveness.
Now do this with general populace at scale? Your fellow citizens are now the enemy. Ever so slightly those same knobs will tweak and what happens? Fear of your fellow citizens will not go well. Politicians would be forced to discontinue the app, but at the same time the amount of revenue would make it never happened. Speed limits do nothing but decrease, despite increase in driving safety tech. The incentives of this creates a system which will be very bad for society.
The 11/10ths cynical and optimistic take is that the sooner we make things so bad that the people who don't wanna be involved get involve the sooner the people who think these sorts of "turn people on each other" things are good will, um, return their carbon to the environment.
It never really plays out into violence. France implemented speed trap cams all over their highways and I'm sure they are all 100% calibrated and only ever give out legitimate tickets...
So what happens? People stop driving on the highways. They hit the backroads where those speedtraps dont exist. Then those backroads get WRECKED. They havent had the investment or design for this sudden change in usage.
Hell, I used to live in a small city. Per capita speeding tickets issued was often listed as highest in north america. Year after year. So what did I do? I left. I dont even speed, but it's obvious why the city is in huge decline for decades. Why they objectively have one of the worst brain drain per capita issues in the world.
This is rather a local problem specific to the US. It was shocking to find out that speed limits in the US are not limits really.
I was shocked when I found out Australia doesn't allow 1km/h over the speed limit. There's some straight and flat rural highways whose speed limit was 60km/h. Should probably have been 120km/h. Whereas this one other road which I really enjoyed driving was twisty, hilly, blind corner after blind corner. Speed limit 90km/h. I was scared to drive the speed limit there, I tended to stay around 70km/h and NOBODY passed me or even got behind me. In fact I was probably one of the fastest drivers.
Australia's speed limits don't make sense at all and worse not allowing 1km/h over makes the issue worse. Especially with risk of mobile speed traps. Driving around Australia was stupid, probably one of the key reasons I would not move there. I love australia in so many ways, even have family with permanent residence there. I would literally kill to get myself a holden ute maloo with manual trans.
Now, if we did the same... no speeding at all. I guarantee most if not all roads would be so artificially low on speed limit that it would be equally stupid. Police don't enforce speed limits because it doesn't make sense to do so.
All governments have an important unwritten rule. All crimes can criminalize 20% of the population AT MOST. Murder never has this problem because 20% of the population is not murdering. If 50% of the population smokes weed. You must decriminalize or legalize. With speed limits where they are in north america... easily 90% of people are criminalized. Police cant enforce that law. Clearly the law doesnt change behaviour. What do you think would happen to the politician who says police start enforcing 1km/h over the speed limit. I suspect the prisoners at gitmo will be like DAMN that's harsh compared to my torture.
The only way forward would be to raise speed limits until at maximum 20% of people are criminals. What do those speed limits look like? It sure isn't 60km/h on a rural flat and straight high way.
Flipside, why are highways designed with artificially low speed limits to beginwith? Revenue generation for the government.
[0] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/vehicle-speed-compl...
I recite the first and second traffic rules in Germany. I assume other countries have similar rules?
Participation in road traffic requires constant caution and mutual consideration.
Anyone participating in traffic must behave in such a way that no other person is harmed, endangered or obstructed or inconvenienced more than is unavoidable under the circumstances.
Our always-on, instant communications combined with a rapid-fire news cycle has turned us into snitches and scolds instead of more and better informed citizens.
What I care is about the person with a 20 to 30 mph variance in speed on an empty road. The person who can't choose a lane and instead straddles both with a little wiggle so you can't tell where they're going. The person who uses the entire turning lane to actually merge into the turning lane, slowing down the whole time. People who don't understand 4 way stops. 4 way stops in general because they're always clusterfucks due to the fact no one understands them. People who don't turn on their blinker until they are stopped for their turn. People who attempt to jump the line in the turn lane by going around the people waiting for the turn lane and then stopping in the lane of traffic waiting for the turn lane (this one is really local).
And a whole host of other bad driving behavior that basically boils down to "the driver doesn't seem to know what they want to do".
Honestly, my observation having driven in multiple different countries (but predominantly in the US and across different states) is that Americans drive without forethought. One of the things you learn in drivers education in most countries, and are also taught during on-track instruction if you ever go to an HPDE, is to look farther ahead so you can be focusing on what your next action is going to be. The natural inclination of drivers in America is to look at whats /directly/ in front of their vehicle and think no further ahead. This type of (semi-literal) short-sightedness is a direct cause of so many of the bad (and sometimes downright stupid) behaviors I see on roads in the US.
And then you have legitimate bad actors who are selfish and behave in purely anti-social ways. These folks should frankly be identified and just straight out banned from driving. Driving enforcement is lax in the US, as well, mostly used for revenue generation via fines rather than license removal. There should be a LOT less licensed drivers in the US, but we have no real alternative transportation pathways in most locales, so our society is not willing to actually take away a license from someone despite considerable evidence that they can't drive safely. Even multiple DUIs will not get a license permanently removed in the US.
Reports go to the TLC commission who actually do process an enforcement (it takes a while) and they issue decently steep fines and points. It's basically the only way bike lane violations are ever enforced.
Not sure how I'd feel about something like this rolling out officially where we're making citizens take over the role of enforcement agent in general. I'd much prefer the city implement more aggressive automated enforcement. As it stands we turn the bloody speed cameras OFF at night... as if speeding stops being illegal after 10pm!
We (as a neighborhood) can petition the city to install traffic calming measures like speed bumps. But the city requires some form of traffic analysis to prove that more than a certain percent of drivers are speeding.
I don’t know if this app would be acceptable as a data source (e.g. if I mounted a phone to our mailbox somehow). But I was surprised by seemingly how few affordable traffic / speed measurement devices there were. Most cost thousands of dollars, or we could hire a consultant which would cost even more thousands of dollars.
Seems like a market opportunity, though maybe a niche one.
The police department itself is also a different entity than the department that repairs potholes and fixes signage: the latter doesn’t have any law enforcement powers.
Further, that doesn’t address the potential for decreased costs for law enforcement.
This idea sounds like some half-baked high school physics mixed with OpenCV, and yet they are talking about pioneers hassling the cops with iffy reports using it already. I'm lost. Would any of this be admissible in court?
1. People on their phones not paying attention while driving.
2. Cops in effectively unmarked cars doing traffic duty and causing ripple effects when they suddenly enter the highway.
3. Slow drivers in the left lane toodling along and impeding traffic, forcing people to make dangerous lane changes
4. People who lift their vehicle to the point it both blinds everyone at night with its light and exceeds bumper height restrictions so would decapitate me in a crash with my normal car.
5. Motorcyclists with no gear whipping between lanes, lane splitting, and on the shoulders doing 20+ over the speed of traffic (although lets be honest, this problem will eventually take care of itself).
Cars speeding (which is mostly a steady rate of 80 on most interstates which inexplicably have a speed limit of 65) is not something I am even remotely concerned with on the road.
I urge you all to watch "From One Second To The Next" by Werner Herzog then come back with a good argument for why being caught using a phone at the wheel shouldn't mean an instant lifetime driving ban.
edit: (authoritarian dystopia afterthought) - of course, for those of you who love locked-down stuff, you could obviously build self denouncement )or at least deactivation) right into the phone itself through context awareness.
Personally, I think if we were serious about saving lives, instead of trying to idiot-proof cars, we need to stop letting idiots drive cars. Reading a message on your phone in a holder directly in your field of vision, on an empty, limited-access highway in good weather carries virtually no risk. Going the posted speed limit and "obeying the law" on a road covered in black ice or on a foggy morning could be insanely dangerous and reckless, but most drivers receive zero training on those situations (At least in the USA).
We need better training and tougher driver licensing standards, not thousands of rules in a futile attempt to stop people from doing every conceivable stupid thing.
BTW, keep in mind that physical damage is proportional to the square of velocity. A collision at 80mph is 50% more energy than at 65mph, even though it’s only 23% faster.
Yes, this is true. In every study that's been done on this matter in the US, it's been determined that drivers who speed have a lower probability of getting into an accident, but when they do it has a higher probability of being fatal. At basic pass, this makes sense, as there's more energy involved in the crash if one or both drivers are at higher rates of speed.
Why this doesn't bother me, is because I'm not concerned with behaviors that increase or decrease fatality, I'm concerned with behaviors that increase or decrease the risk of an accident happening in the first place. Speeding does not cause accidents, and all of the evidence supports this. The motorcyclist /does/ cause accidents, generally fatal accidents (although only for themselves).
If you care about whether you’ll get hurt, which sounded like your initial premise, then it’s a good idea to worry more about the statistics of outcomes than of whether there’s an accident or not, especially if many accidents are injury-free, right?
The speed of me and the other driver only comes into a factor in this calculation after the accident has happened. If the accident never happens, the speed is irrelevant. So I am focused on what reduces the probability of accidents occurring (not to mention that they are a problem to deal with even when it's low-speed).
I'm nearly 40 and I've managed to avoid ever being in any accidents other than being rear-ended while stopped (and in one case while parked and not even in the car), because I'm a skilled driver who pays attention and can generally avoid the mass quantity of idiots on the roadway. It's not for lack of trying to hit me on the part of others, though. I'd much rather have a less stressful driving experience (that's probably materially impacting the number of quality adjusted years of living I have) by everyone driving more attentively and reasonably.
Exactly. This is exactly why you should care about speeding, and not about motorcycles, cops, or slow left lane drivers. You & others speeding is a bigger risk to your safety than all those other things combined, by many multiples.
> The speed of me and the other driver only comes into a factor in this calculation after the accident has happened.
I don’t understand what you mean, can you elaborate? Speed is safe until after you crash? Are you suggesting it’s not a cause?
Everyone believes they’re an above average driver, you’re demonstrating one of the most common biases on the road.
Btw in light of the fact that most accidents happen at lower speed you may also be demonstrating a correlation-causation accident by asserting that speeding is safer. Driving faster does not reduce your risks, generally speaking.
> Everyone believes they’re an above average driver, you’re demonstrating one of the most common biases on the road.
Sure, and in my case it's actually true. I don't feel like it's necessary to list off credentials, but if you had read my other comments you would probably have picked up on the fact that I drive on track. E.g. I have engaged in significant amounts of high-speed maneuvering under professional instruction and solo that exceeds the level of car control understanding necessary for driving under normal road conditions. I hold a competition racing license from more than one racing body, and have lived and drove outside the US where I was licensed to drive under much more rigorous conditions than required to get a license in the US. While this is a common bias, in my case, it is absolutely true that I am a better driver who is more educated about vehicle dynamics and car control than the average driver on US roads.
> Btw in light of the fact that most accidents happen at lower speed you may also be demonstrating a correlation-causation accident by asserting that speeding is safer. Driving faster does not reduce your risks.
Every single study on this matter I've seen that was conducted in the US clearly showed that increases in speed increased the probability of fatalities when an accident occured /and/ lowered the probability of an accident occurring. I don't know the "cause" of this, but I have a few guesses, my primary one being that people who speed habitually tend to be more focused on driving and that lowering speeds results in driving being boring which causes attention to shift. But that's just a guess. The evidence supports my viewpoint, and I've already pointed out to you directly that I am optimizing personally, for reducing the probability of an accident occurring, not the consequences of an accident when it does occur.
Drunk driving is, by your logic, safe until you crash, “by definition”. Same goes for using a phone while driving. Your example is false. People speeding do increase the risk profile. There are scenarios where it’s low, but speeding always reduces reaction time for something unexpected, and always increases damage when a collision at that speed occurs.
Claiming that speeding is safe until you crash is not a useful way to evaluate risk. You need to look at outcomes to understand risks. Counting accidents is one valid way to estimate outcomes, but if you only count accidents then you are “by definition” ignoring damage and therefore your safety.
Your clear statements contradict each other. When you say you’re optimizing for your safety, and then say you’re ignoring the consequences of an accident after it occurs, then one of those things isn’t true.
I'll reiterate, I'm concerned with reducing the number of accidents that happen, not the consequences of the accidents that do happen.
Something unexpected is always a possibility. Therefore, choosing to speed is always risky, it’s a poor choice because unexpected things happen.
> I'll reiterate, I'm concerned with reducing the number of accidents that happen, not the consequences of the accidents that do happen.
Yes. I’ve heard this point loud and clear multiples times. You don’t seem to be hearing the response. If you ignore the consequences, you are ignoring safety.
BTW the stats I posted show the number of speeding accidents increasing while the total number of accidents is decreasing. You should care about speeding even by your own standards.
By your logic, when taken to the extreme, you should never exceed the speed by which the safety technology in your vehicle can completely prevent injury (which is about 35-40mph in most modern vehicles). By my logic, when taken to the extreme, you should never take any action that you haven't planned ahead and signaled clearly to other drivers.
Neither is unreasonable, but they come from a different place. I keep reiterating my main point, because I think we should agree to disagree. Speed does not cause accidents, erratic behavior and not looking ahead causes accidents, speed makes the accidents that do happen worse, but if we had less accidents we would still be safer overall. Since I'm not concerned with myself causing an accident, I am most concerned with others causing an accident with me, speed is not what concerns me. In actuality, I see speed on the roadway as a tool to avoid other people who are likely to cause an accident. I almost always drive faster than surrounding traffic to try to get out of being in a position of having cars all around me, because I don't trust other drivers to not do something stupid and dangerous. I've been proven right time and time again, by being able to avoid accidents using speed as a tool.
It's somewhat ironic that I feel safer on a race track than I do on a public highway, because of the skill differential of the drivers.
> On a track, speed is kind of the point, so reducing speed is not an appropriate way to reduce your risk profile and increase safety.
False. Reducing speed will reduce risk on the track. You’re conflating racing and safety.
> By my logic, when taken to the extreme, you should never take any action that you haven't planned ahead and signaled clearly to other drivers.
I’m still not sure why you don’t acknowledge the clear and obvious reasons why speeding increases your risk under your own stated reasons. Speeding increases the probability of an event the driver hasn’t planned ahead.
> Speed does not cause accidents
Is it useful to play this semantic game? Don’t you think it’s more valuable to talk about which choices lead to greater risks? There are many valid ways to classify the ‘cause’ if an accident. Blaming the road when you’re doing 35 over seems like a way to stick your head in the sand and discount a bad choice. When it comes to public road safety, don’t you think we should focus on the things we have control over, and not pretend like accidents are uncontrollable, especially when the stats and safety experts all point to excessive speed being a major factor?
Since you drive track, you are well aware that roads are designed with certain speeds in mind, and that exceeding the design parameters is more likely to result in an accident.
I'd like to point out that much of the argument against speed is the assumption that, in order to avoid an accident, speed must be shed. I believe this is false - or really, that it depends on circumstances.
In normal circumstances, slowing down or stopping may be the best way to avoid an collision depending on the specifics. But there are other specifics in which you can, e.g., avoid the car coming at you by going faster yet. The obvious example is at a 4-way intersection, where you can avoid being T-boned by breaking before entering the oncoming path, or by completely crossing the path before the other car arrives.
So simply saying that a faster-moving car is more likely to be involved in a collision because it takes longer to scrub the speed isn't necessarily true.
(And while that's one factor against the "war on speed", I still think, as you stated above, that the most important factor is that driving slow allows people to let their attention wander.)
I remain safely at zero speed, most of the day and night. Much, much safer than non-zero speed.
I find this very hard to believe. Do you have a reason for believing this? Also, what about when you're a pedestrian or for cyclists?
In most cities, the left lane is not designated as a faster lane, unless on a highway. Most accidents occur in cities and not highways. Putting this in the list seems silly.
Also, at least on the highways in/near my city, people are as likely to overtake on the right than on the left (e.g. if a car is in a center lane, it's not a given that other cars will overtake on the left). This is a strong signal that it's not merely the slow drivers that are the problem.
In most US cities, most of the driving is done on highways. The typical driving pathway for a commuter in most major US cities is to drive on surface streets from their home to the nearest major highway artery (which is likely also an interstate highway, but may not be), merge onto the highway, and go on the highway (possibly changing highways) until they reach the correct exit for their destination.
So, yeah, most driving is actually done on highways, and this is where I'm most concerned with how others drive. It's also pretty much always at higher speeds than surface streets, so as other commenters are pointing out, the consequences are more severe when an accident does occur.
Being forced to overtake on the right because a driver obstinately refuses to get out of the left lane despite it being a passing lane and going below the speed of traffic is exactly the issue I'm pointing out, because overtaking on the right is more dangerous. Either /everyone/ slows and a conga line forms or everyone passes the slow driver on the right. The slow driver should not be in the left lane and in fact it's illegal and signs are posted on nearly every American highway that either says "Slower traffic keep right." or "Left lane for passing only." (depending on state/locality).
Blatantly false, given that a town of 100,000 is still a city, and most cities don't even have a highway running through them.
And as I said, given that roughly 50% still overtake on the right when the left lane is clear, they are as much the problem as the slow drivers.
I think you are using a different definition of "highway" than I am, and the DOT uses. By definition, nearly every town and city in the US has a highway, in fact, the "main street" (often called Main) in most US municipalities West of the Mississippi River is intentionally built to overlap on a US highway, including the famous and definitive US Route 66.
But more specifically, when I am saying "city" (and I later use major city), I'm not talking about 100k people, I'm talking about what comes to mind when you hear the word "city". E.g. Los Angeles, Kansas City, Dallas, Atlanta, Denver, et al.
In all of those places, a major interstate runs near/through the city and all of them have auxillary interstate highways (3 digit number).
You seem to be trying to be as literal as possible to call me out, but are in fact wrong even in your literal interpretation because you're being literal about "city" but not "highway".
That is true, but also irrelevant, because the left lane rule does not apply on those highways when within city limits.
I spent much of my life in such cities.
AFAIK, the normal rule (certainly in NJ and TX where I've actually researched) is, when there are more than one lane in a direction, "keep right except to pass". It doesn't matter at all how fast or slow you're going. If you're not actively passing, you should move over to the right. You don't get to say "I was doing the speed limit, and nobody should go faster, therefore I'm the faster traffic that is entitled to the left lane".
Personally, I blame the Eagles for popularizing the song Life in the Fast Lane, and thus bringing that mis-characterization into common usage.
It's a meme at this point, but Not Just Bikes does a great job covering the terrible "stroad".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM
Most places in the US are filled with wide, multi-lane roads posted for speed limits of 35-45 mph. But those roads will be packed with unsignaled driveways, where drivers entering the road needed to make unprotected and right left turns with and against traffic that's likely going 45-55mph, and drivers on the road need to predict the behavior of cars coming from almost any direction.
Meanwhile, a thin stripe of white paint gets added to the gutter and is somehow called a bike lane - like anyone wants to ride their bike at the same grade as 2+ ton trucks flying by within a foot of your handlebars. Those same lanes will frequently disappear or reappear within a shoulder, and at intersections will suddenly cross or dump you out into a right turn lane. Better hope that driver turning right noticed you before you get hooked.
It's even worse for pedestrians, where even in dense cities, a walk signal is by no means a safe time to walk. Unsignaled left and right-on-red means a car will likely fly through their path at any given moment. On your way to this intersection, you'll continuously cross driveways and slip lanes with curve radii to encourage speeding, sidewalks that dump you into parking lots (if they exist at all!).
Sweden has a policy that all roads shared with pedestrians and cyclists have a maximum speed of 20mph, and have spent a lot of money on infrastructure to separate roads so that cars aren't completely inconvenienced by the rules.
Also it seems backwards - the UK got close to increasing its speed limits on motorways recently. The tradeoff was between economic benefits from more efficient travel on motorways and increased risk due to the higher speeds. The discussion was supported with ample data, although I believe it didn't succeed for political reasons.
You're suggesting almost exactly the opposite.
Basically the more homogeneous in speed and behavior the traffic is the safer it is.
You should be able to Google up some civil engineering studies at will. This stuff was "new" decades ago.
Uneven traffic flow results in a lot of lane changing and passing and when drivers are preparing to do those moves they're spending a lot of effort figuring out where the cars are and that creates a prime opportunity for anything motorcycle and smaller to be missed.
So yeah, a uniform 30ish MPH traffic flow on your city street is probably better than a more bimodal one even if the average speed is slightly higher.