Hacker News Reader

Comment by pitt1980 | Hacker News Reader

pitt1980

I'm just going to throw this out there,

people don't pass marked cars

so a marked car driving the speed limit causes traffic to back up behind them

for no other reason than to alleviate traffic congestion, it probably makes sense for them to drive 15-20 miles over the speed limit

(that obviously doesn't excuse driving 130 mph)

View on HN

I would argue that for the sake of the law, having a backup of cars behind an officer all doing the speed limit is a good thing. It's called the speed limit, not the speed range. As in, the maximum you're allowed to do on that road in perfect conditions. If we want to enforce the laws, having everyone follow a pace car going exactly the speed limit is a good thing.

Having an officer going 65 in a 55 just to relieve congestion means the law is irrelevant.

I suspect a lot of people would may the majority of speed limits are irrelevant, but I digress.

Agreed. Having laws that _everyone_ breaks is worse than useless, as it encourages a disregard for the law and resentment towards enforcement officers, as well as leaving lots of room for unequal enforcement.

Also, having pace cars alleviates traffic jams (assuming the pace car is leaving appropriate space in front of him to absorb traffic shocks). This obviously doesn't work in the current situation because no one feels bad passing a cop in a traffic jam, but there's something to this idea.

What's the problem with the marked cars driving the speed limit? If all the cars drive at the speed limit, that's good, right?

I always thought the speed limit was there as a speed limit. I've found that in Australia, speed limits are obeyed much more than in North America, where they seem to be suggestions or lower bounds on speed. Many times in Canada I've been travelling in traffic that's doing 30 - 40 kph over the speed limit. That's enough to get your car confiscated in Western Australia!

first thing that pops up when googling cost of traffic jams

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2009/11/10/oecd-...

the cost is real, and should be accounted for

I would have to see a study that shows that the speed limit is the source of traffic congestion. I seriously doubt it is. Most sources of congestion seem to be more along the lines of disabled vehicles, accidents, several roads converging in the same area, merging issues, and just stupid drivers at any speed. Increasing the speed limit by 10 or 15 MPH doesn't address any of that and in fact would likely make it worse in some of those examples.

I don't have a study to link to

but I'm seen how one slow driving cop can cause a bottle neck behind him as noone wants to pass him

some links about about how seemingly minor factors can cause traffic jams

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/car-driving-safety/accidents-h...

http://www.amazon.com/Traffic-Drive-What-Says-About/dp/03072...

The cop car obeying the speed limit and every one behind it doing the same is not an example of congestion. As long as the cars are flowing at the posted speed limit then I don't see that as congestion, the traffic is just not speeding along as quickly as one wishes it would.

By that logic, any street that has two or more cars following the speed limit in close proximity to each other could be classified as congestion.

Once you have a buildup of cars that are traveling slower than the intended speed of the road that causes further slowing up the line that eventually creates bumper-to-bumper traffic with little movement, then you have congestion.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com