Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately, US civil engineering is very dogmatic, so if it isn’t approved by AASHTO it won’t be done.

The civil engineers also like absurdly wide turn radii to accommodate 53 feet trailers and large fire trucks even in residential streets, so you end up with comically wide roads even for dead end suburban streets. https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/suburban-street-2779407.jpg

View on HN

I agree it's stupid but can you imagine how HNers would react if a trailer so much dragged an outside dual on their shrubbery. The hand wringing would probably start a fire.

Fortunately for traffic engineering, they often remove those too, to maintain a “clear zone” for road safety. (The clear zone is intended for keeping cars at high speed from killing their occupants when they decelerate into stationary objects.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com