laura@utcsstat.UUCP (06/16/83)
If you want to prove that 55 saves gas you are out of luck. You may be able to prove that it is possible to build an engine that is as efficient at 75 as current ones are at 55; I do not know. However, having built that engine you might discover that it too ran more efficiently at 55 than 75... if you want to prove that 55 doesnt save lives then you are in business. Take your statistics on the number of people killed the year before 55 became the official speed limit. Take the figures the year after 55 became the limit. Run a physics curve fit on the figures for various States. Do the same thing for several years within one state. You will notice that the number of people dying on the highways decreased when 55 became the limit. Before you jump to the conclusion that 55 saves lives, go back and do the same curve fitting using the number of vehicles on the highway and the number of people who died. Guess which one gives the better fit? Bingo. Now you see why 55 saves lives -- because gas was expensive, the government decreased the speed limit. Because gas was expensive, more people stayed home, or used the bus, or train. Less vehicles on the road mean less fatalities. The government is now patting itself on the back and people are believing them. Alas, we are not saving any more brothers. Now that people realise that there is going to be gas in 1985 (remember when we were told there wasnt?) and they have become used to the gas prices they are going back to the road. And they are getting killed at 55 miles per hour all the same. Now let us talk about saving people's brothers. First, let us not deny that if you drive there is a chance that you will be killed. No one wants it to happen to them but pretending that driving is perfectly safe, or perfectly safe as long as you drive well, isnt going to help anyone. There is always some drunken fool who can kill the perfect driver. Assume that we are not going to spare expense to save lives. This may be unrealistic, but I dont have any cheap solutions. If people want to make cars travel so slowly that they are likely to survive a head-on collision then the speed limit is going to have to be less than 30 miles an hour. Even then, there are people who manage to kill themselves, but at 30 there are a lot less of them. At 55, there is no appreciable difference than at 70 from the figures I have seen, so 55 isnt helping. Unfortunately, if 30 mph is the speed limit, noone can live out of town and commute to work. City congestion breeds crime including murder, not to mention that most cities could not accommodate such a large increase in people necesitated by such a speed limit change. Money would have to be spent on the housing industry, and in temporary housing solutions. The prices of houses in the cities would soar, making it hard for poorer people to live. They too might become dependant on government aid for low-quality, inexpensive housing. Have I made my point? Lowering the speed limit enough to limit fatalities is going to be expensive. This doesnt even touch matters of unemployment in the trucking industry when it becomes faster to use the train. For the time being, i will scratch this solution. It also doesnt save brothers on bicycles or walking, or young ones that run out in front of cars. Let us make driving an extreme luxury, not something that anyone wealthy enough to buy a car and over the driving age effectively can do. Make car drivers pass the same tests that the bus drivers do, and then the one that the large truck drivers do (we have separate tests in Ontario, your state/province of residence may be different). Prevent the reckless, stupid, and foolish from driving. If you are caught driving recklessly, or while drunk, or while your car was a menace to others on the road, revoke your licence permanently. This is not going to be one of the most popular laws of all time. the government had better provide a lot of public transport to and from work, including out of town. Getting people to like this is another matter. It also isnt cheap. I need not elabourate on the problems with this proposal. I have one more. Most fatalities occur on the highway. (as opposed to most accidents, which dont). Set up the highways so that you hook your car only a conveyor much as they have in some car washes. You dont drive on the highways, you get towed along at 70 mph. Traffic planning becomes simpler. In the city, you can drive your car, and there can be stretches of highway dedicated to people who like driving cars. If automobile driving was a recognised sport (like motocross or skidooing) then people who love to drive would be able to drive with other enthusiasts, and leave those who see cars as merely functional vehicles behind. best of all, people who have to drive a long way to work each morning could leave the driving hassles to the routing computer and spend the time reading or perhaps even sleeping. I dont think that AI is up to building a self-driving car. If I am wrong, correct me, in which case the self-driving cars could replace the car-wash mechanism I mentioned. I saved this one for last because I like the idea. It is also as expensive as h*ll. On the other hand, having had close friends killed in car accidents, I tend to think any cost is worth their lives. This may be idealistic but untrue, alas. What do you think of these ideas, folks? Any other ones to start *really* saving lives? Laura Creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura
woods@hao.UUCP (06/17/83)
Yes, no one would deny that people getting killed in car accidents is a
bummer and a serious problem. However, I'm firmly convinced from both past
experience and the present controversey that throwing laws at the problem isn't
going to do jack shit. People who disagree with the law will simply break it
anyway, and we simply don't have the money or manpower to spare enforcing
speed limits, moral arguments aside for the time being. What we have to do is
encourage people to drive more responsibly. No, I don't have any easy
solutions. I wish I did. I only know that more laws definitely cost more money,
and it is a matter of some debate whether or not they accomplish the intended
purpose (to make the highways safer).
GREG
{ucbvax!hplabs | allegra!nbires | decvax!brl-bmd | harpo!seismo | menlo70}
!hao!woodslaura@utcsstat.UUCP (06/19/83)
re "throwing laws at the problem isnt going to do jack shit" I am not entirely sure that you read my entire article -- yes I know it was very long -- because the only proposal which involved throwing more laws at the people was one whereby the speed limit was lowered to 30 mph. The other ones were more concerned with a change in attitude towards transportaion than "throwing laws at people". Remember me? Im the person who doesnt like the 55 mph speed limit because 55 doesnt save lives. 30 would save lives, but I think we need to get from place A to place B faster than that. The point is that if 55 doesnt save lives then I would like to get from place A to place B at 75mph (what I get to drive on freeways in Ontario). I have better things to do with my time than drive. If you want to change people's way of doing things there are other ways than throwing laws at them. Here's one: The US government decided to commision the US auto industry to build a car that uses hydrogen fuel as a power base. The car is designed so that it can withstand crashes at less than 40 mph, including head-on car crashes between 2 vehicles both doing 40mph. (the "Hindenburg Effect" is overrated, but it does exist. Gasoline cars "blow up real good" as well, you must remember...) Now the government agrees that if you buy one of these cars you get a government subsidy, or a tax write-off or something, and you never need to buy any gas, and you get a HUMUNGEOUS reduction in your car insurance. The only thing is, if you buy these cars, you have to use these lanes on all of the highways, which are connected to a huge routing computer which does all the driving for you at 80mph while all those suckers in the gas cars get to go at 50mph. (or the computer can be part of the car, the implementation details are not important at this level of discussion.). You need fences to keep the gas cars from smashing into the hydrogen ones. So far you havent thrown any laws forcing people to use the new cars, but you have made them look attractive to me. You even may have helped the US auto industry, which a lot of people think is a very good idea. Hydrogen buses are being used safely in California, last I heard, so the technology is up to it as well. Hydrogen driven cars produce water as waste, not smog, so I am sure that a lot of people will like them for that reason. Any Comments? Laura Creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura