I do wish people would not publicize cannonball runs. Racing on public streets is dangerous and should not be encouraged.
The Porsche Taycan looks worse than the high performance Tesla's based on published EPA numbers but it has some advantages the EPA numbers do not show. The Taycan can maintain high power output for longer before overheating.
This makes it good for racing, probably better than the Teslas, but please do your racing on proper race tracks.
it really speaks to the obvious bias on this site that on this story multiple comments are shedding crocodile tears about safety but on the stories where tesla is bragging about its speed and performance you only see comments admiring their technical prowess.
I think we should have some sort of multi-tier license system so that scenic routes are sometimes limited to certain license classes.
For example, Highway 1 is a beautiful drive, but it's often kind of ruined by idiots in minivans driving 5 miles below the (already low) speed limit and being too rude and self-centered to pull of into a stopping lane and let the dozens of cars behind them pass.
If, for example, on Saturdays the 1 was restricted to people with a "reasonably competent" license (indicating that you're willing and able to safely drive e.g. within stated speed limit to speed limit + 10mph), with ticketing expected for people driving too slowly, that would be awesome.
You could have further refinements along the lines of once a month the road is restricted to people with "very competent" licenses, indicating that they intend to drive high-performance vehicles at high speed.
I think the social utility of this kind of policy would be very positive. The negative externality to mediocre drivers of not being able to drive on scenic routes occasionally isn't very large, but the benefit to good drivers would be huge!
Far simpler would be to adopt Germany-style passing rules - ticket heavily for passing on the right (or in other unsafe ways) and for not letting people pass who signal they intend to. Then if someone wants to go slow, they just have to contend with being passed and having to pull a side when someone behind them signals intent to overtake. The person overtaking will have to wait their turn to pass safely. Roads remain public and we likely reduce the number of accidents from unsafe passing/overtaking.
> for not letting people pass who signal they intend to.
That's not what you get ticketed for. As long as you're overtaking the cars in the lane to your right at a reasonable speed, you can stay in your lane. If there is a gap between cars that you can safely enter, then you have to move to the right. There is a duty to let people pass if you're driving very slowly, but this is meant for a tractor driving 15 km/h, not for someone driving 5 under the speed limit.
Especially if there are two lanes, no speed limit, the right lane has heavy truck traffic going 80 and you're going 130, the Ferrari has to wait until you're done overtaking, even if that takes you until the end of the no-speedlimit section. And if the Ferrari gets pushy (e.g. honking/high-beams), they are risking not just a ticket but criminal prosecution (on top of any penalties for violating the minimum safe distance).
Good call, was way oversimplifying. Everyone needs to wait their turn and be courteous about it. Doesn’t always happen and results do get quite horrific.
Brit here who has driven a lot in both the US and DE, int al.
You are talking about "undertaking" - which needs two lanes. The P(GP?) is on about people driving slowly on a scenic route and I've had a look at the road in question and it has one lane for quite a lot of its length.
I'll asert: Accidents on an autobahn in DE do tend to be quite nasty when they happen.
(Observation: I lived in West Germany for about 10 years and my family name literally means "german")
The road is a single lane in each direction with fairly regularly spaced turn out lanes where the car could safely enter without slowing down a lot and let a few of the followers pass them. What happens in practice is that many professionals like truck drivers use them and most tourists do not, so you end up going with the speed of the largest RV.
I would argue that if "reasonably competent" means "gets in accidents less frequently and has fewer moving violations", the "idiot" in the minivan is very likely more competent than the joy rider. Also one person's scenic route is another person's shortest route, or maybe only route.
> The negative externality to mediocre drivers of not being able to drive on scenic routes occasionally isn't very large, but the benefit to good drivers would be huge!
This is literally 95%+ of people on those roads. It'd never happen.
Instead of spending millions to billions of dollars overhauling our traffic system to allow multi tiered licensing people can just cope with their commute occasionally being 8% slower.
> It's not ok to enjoy things that are dangerous to _other_ people.
Almost every activity you could possibly do, including being alive, has some negative risk externality to other people. E.g. if you are alive, you are more likely to spread a disease to someone else than if you are dead and buried in the ground. If you drive anywhere, you might possibly run into someone, but if you stayed at home they'd be safe.
If your philosophy is "you can never do anything that's dangerous to someone else", it's a hopelessly bad zeroth-order approximation that would completely cripple you if you actually followed it.
The risk of hurting someone in an accident due to a mistake is very different to the risk of hurting someone after you decided it's ok to race on public streets because you believe that you are such an awesome driver.
Everyone in the road has accepted a certain risk of accidents happening. If you increase everyone else's risk by racing, you are being a selfish prick.
There is no way to wave this away with "it's ok to take risk for fun" or "risk is inherent to live". You are talking about risking other people's lives for a thrill, that you could easily get differently, without risking the live of bystanders! You can literally race the lemons 500 with an investment of 500 bucks!
> The risk of hurting someone in an accident due to a mistake is very different to ...
Source? I really doubt this is true, due to selection effects.
In any case, my original proposal was to specifically allocate road usage to different license classes at different times, which would help address your concern.
> If you increase everyone else's risk by racing, you are being a selfish prick.
Replace "racing" with "driving" and the statement doesn't meaningfully change.
> You are talking about risking other people's lives for a thrill, that you could easily get differently
Every single thing you can possibly do imposes a negative externality on someone else.
"Don't do anything ever" is an idiotic approach to address this. A much more reasonable approach is to manage risk, e.g. by sectioning off road access sometimes like I proposed.
"driving 5 miles below the (already low) speed limit"
I've driven at insane speeds in the past, I've also driven in ways that can only be described as nearly insane. I can't say I'm proud of that but I've still survived to 50 (so far). Most of the time I would describe my driving style as safe with occasional relapses 8)
I'm a Brit so I'm not familiar with Highway 1 but a quick search seems to show it is a CA road. My first virtual run on it shows three lanes on both sides, so I'll head north to SF. OK one lane. It's a provincial coastal road with adjustments.
Either get a car with a massive acceleration and overtake or enjoy the view. The speed limits are there for a good reason and I've driven a fair bit in the US (mostly FL and NY) and I don't find your limits mad. You could also lobby whoever builds roads to add another lane where you want it. On that last: in the UK we are 50 years into debating adding another lane to the A303 at some points. For some reason people are a bit wound up about the bit that goes past Stonehenge. The A303 is the super fast (lol) upgrade for the A30 (which is still there) that links London to the south west of England. It stops rather oddly at Ilminster, where it becomes the A30 again.
A relative of mine did the "compulsory purchase" of land through Hampshire, Wiltshire and Somerset for the A303, back in the day.
I live in Yeovil, Somerset, UK. To go north to say Bristol, I have two options: A37 or A372 and M5. Parts of the A37 are virtually Roman road with tarmac slapped on top 8) the A372 goes through Ilchester (formally a Roman town). Both of those roads are a bit slow but with speed limits from 30 to 60 mph. They are both delightful to drive in 3D - I love getting gears right with just the right amount of power (we have gears in our cars here 8)
Anyway, why not calm down and enjoy the view. What I've virtually seen of Highway 1 tells me that it is a road to be enjoyed and cherished and loved.
> I'm a Brit so I'm not familiar with Highway 1 but a quick search seems to show it is a CA road. My first virtual run on it shows three lanes on both sides, so I'll head north to SF. OK one lane. It's a provincial coastal road with adjustments.
It is a CA road, and the section that the GP is talking about is specifically the coastal part between Santa Cruz and San Francisco, or south of Monterey. These areas are one lane in each direction.
> Either get a car with a massive acceleration and overtake or enjoy the view.
It is frequently impossible to overtake. Both directions of traffic tend to be fairly steady, and there's enough turns and blind spots that safely passing is not possible. The turnout sections are often too short for more than a single car to overtake the lead car, and only if its right behind the lead car -- if you're a couple cars back there's no chance.
We're not even talking about insane speeds here. Doing 50 or 55mph on the 1 in those scenic parts is wonderful. That happens to also be just about the speed limit. But far too often there will be someone either taking in the scenery a little too much, or too scared to go any faster. Then you end up in a caravan of cars all doing 35-40mph on the road, and little chance to pass.
At that point, it becomes hard to 'calm down and enjoy the view' -- you're no longer driving for pleasure, you're effectively stuck in heavy traffic.
Speed limits have no minimum because driving on a road is situational; bad weather, unfamiliarity with the road, new driver, bad driver, personal safety limits, discrepancy in speedometers, and etc.
How would you go about policing this? If there is traffic, everyone is driving under the minimum!
Most states have a blanket law that 10/15/20 below the speed limit constitutes obstructing traffic and is usually a ticketable offense.
In the digital age with sensors and data so cheap there's also no reason we can't set speed limits based on the Xth percentile everywhere with an automatic annual adjustment.
> In the digital age with sensors and data so cheap there's also no reason we can't set speed limits based on the Xth percentile everywhere with an automatic annual adjustment.
People tend to have an aversion to automation applied to law enforcement. See the criticism of red light cameras in the US.
I'm advocating for automating the rules, not the enforcement. In most places speed limits would probably rise. My understanding is that some traffic light timings are already automated in this manner.
> The 85th percentile speed is the single most influential indicator of what is safe and reasonable, and it is used to determine the speed limit by rounding to the nearest 5 mph increment, and posting the speed limit at that speed. If there are sufficient conditions not readily apparent to the driver, as determined by a registered engineer, the posted speed limit can be lowered by 5 mph, and such a decision must be clearly documented in the E&TS.
I have no problem with semi trucks, overloaded scrap haulers, genuine shitboxes that can't floor it without something slipping and whatnot merging at low speeds. Everyone else has no excuse.
While as a reckless fast driver I totally understand where this is coming from let me also tell you the other side of it.
Road system is as socialist system as it can get. The road that you think is paid for is being used by different people for different reasons. Highway 1 in particular is very dangerous if you drive recklessly. I would rather prefer that minivan with 5 kids to home reach safely than to let me pass. The first time I drove it in my 20 year old Camry, I was scared less. Today I cross it with breeze in my jeep.
> You could have further refinements along the lines of once a month the road is restricted to people with "very competent" licenses, indicating that they intend to drive high-performance vehicles at high speed.
None of your ideas are bad, USA is a very large country and I think it should be possible to build private roads with the kind of system you discuss. Since the heart of innovation has not done so, something tells me that the economics will not work out.
* I am an off roader and the kind of market you describe exists for off roaders. Instead of "competence" it is about vehicle's capability. Entire USA is full of back country and off roads which are open to different kind of vehicles and there is a super large community of people driving on them all the time. I think such a market for high performance fast cars does not exist.
Driving slower on a scenic road that has no traffic is great -- you can take in more of the view, enjoy the 'scenic' part of scenic road. But when you get stuck in a caravan of cars behind someone driving well below the speed limit, you end up having to pay more attention to the driving. As soon as there are other cars around you, you need to be paying attention to them. If the road isn't flat and straight, you have to deal with speeding up and slowing down. You gotta keep an eye out for someone coming up behind you not paying attention, or the guy in front of you maybe not braking in time..etc.
Once the density of traffic is high enough, you no longer have the luxury of 'observing the scene' -- you need to be paying attention to the driving and the other drivers. This is the situation that tends to happen on Hwy 1. People bunch up, and so everyone is just driving in these clumps of 10-20 cars doing 5-10 below the speed limit.
Well one might say that is true about the people who are insisting that driving slowly to enjoy the scenery is the better way to enjoy a scenic highway than driving spiritedly and enjoying the drive.
I think it's pretty easy for anyone who isn't highly biased to see that both approaches are enjoyable.
But if you don't care about the scenery, you could always do your spirited driving on a different freeway with more lanes, while the drivers who are there for the scenery don't really have that option.
Life is risky. In my (likely unpopular) opinion, things like this are what make it worth the risk, at least for some people, and I'm willing to give them the space they need to make it happen.
From a risk perspective, I do prefer things like the Broadway Bomb[1]. Sure, pedestrians are maybe at a bit of risk of collision, but at least they are mostly gambling with their own lives.
Ignorant comment of the day. Racing at high speeds though public spaces is incredibly irresponsible and highly dangerous to both you and, more importantly, the people around you.
You don’t own the road, you share it. You don’t get to put others lives at risk because you feel like it. If you decide it’s a risk worth taking, do it in a safe place, like a race track, so you don’t kill anyone else when you make a mistake.
Murder is defined as including premeditation or criminal intent in most jurisdictions so unless you go out intending to kill people pretty much nothing you do in a car qualifies.
That would be first degree murder. Many jurisdictions have the concept of second degree murder, often including an element of "disregard of human life", and that is being charged in some street racing (and DUI) cases: http://lapdracing.com/StreetRacingcanbeMurder.html
Then go to a track day? Or are you saying that the risk you enjoy feeling is that of whether or not you'll kill an innocent bystander and go to jail for vehicular homicide?
Or if you want to take even more risk, do some rally and go full speed through a forest. That way you can also get your car destroyed if you make a mistake.
The Porsche Taycan looks worse than the high performance Tesla's based on published EPA numbers but it has some advantages the EPA numbers do not show. The Taycan can maintain high power output for longer before overheating.
This makes it good for racing, probably better than the Teslas, but please do your racing on proper race tracks.