Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition
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@boomzilla I fail to understand what is supposed to be wrong with this. There are no trees or other obstacles to visibility. For people who know how to drive on sand, why limit speeds?
Speaking of which, foreigners still don't know how to drive on snow. Came across this today:
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@acrow said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
Speaking of which, foreigners still don't know how to drive on snow.
In post-grad, I had a friend who was on the ski team (either high school or undergrad, can't remember now). At the end of the day, they would sit on their porch at Mammoth Mtn in CA (drinking!) and watch cars fail to negotiate a stop sign at the bottom of the hill. Pretty sure he said they made a few bucks helping people out of the ditch.
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@izzion said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@hungrier said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@Carnage There's a road near where I used to live that has a speed limit of 80 km/h, but it was so riddled with potholes that there was no way you could ever get that high without completely trashing your suspension and maybe your tires and wheels. A couple weeks ago I drove by there, and sure enough, although they had put in a new traffic light most of the road was still in the same state
Saves on inserting speed bumps or paying for the donuts required to speed trap the road.
Donuts? What donuts?
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@PleegWat Ugh, we have those all over the city now.
"Here's a road that's 80 most of the way but there's one section that's 60 with a speed camera. Happy motoring!"
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@hungrier Luckily, we do not get random bits of 60 on an 80 road without good reason.
For some reason, we also don't get speed cameras in roadworks. Frances loves putting speed cameras next to road works, and they really should start doing that here too.
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@PleegWat said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@hungrier Luckily, we do not get random bits of 60 on an 80 road without good reason.
For some reason, we also don't get speed cameras in roadworks. Frances loves putting speed cameras next to road works, and they really should start doing that here too.
Those are sensible, especially if they do the average-speed-over-section type. After all, the point is to reduce speeds so that it is safe enough for people to be working in the roadworks.
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@PleegWat said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@hungrier Luckily, we do not get random bits of 60 on an 80 road without good reason.
For some reason, we also don't get speed cameras in roadworks. Frances loves putting speed cameras next to road works, and they really should start doing that here too.
As long as the cameras are only in place while there are people working. Over here, we can have the roadworks signs and lower speed limits in place for weeks without any work actually being performed. You can guess what the effects are toward motorists respecting those speed limits.
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@acrow said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
we can have the roadworks signs and lower speed limits in place for weeks without any work actually being performed.
"WARNING: AHEAD"
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@acrow said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@PleegWat said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@hungrier Luckily, we do not get random bits of 60 on an 80 road without good reason.
For some reason, we also don't get speed cameras in roadworks. Frances loves putting speed cameras next to road works, and they really should start doing that here too.
As long as the cameras are only in place while there are people working. Over here, we can have the roadworks signs and lower speed limits in place for weeks without any work actually being performed. You can guess what the effects are toward motorists respecting those speed limits.
There's that. They're also fond of forgetting to put in part of the signs. Specifically the 'end of road works' signs.
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@PleegWat At least you have a sign for that.
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@acrow said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@PleegWat At least you have a sign for that.
You can have ours:
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No lies detected.
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@blek it looks like the aeronautic version of those toy cars that people buy for their little kids, the ones with electric motors (no, not Teslas ).
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@blek Eeek, he wrapped his fingers around the prop blades when he started it. Great way to lose fingers.
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Now that we are discussing speed limits... A pidgeon flew into a speed trap at 40 km/h where the limit was 30 km/h!
Photo:
Source:
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@hungrier said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
but it was so riddled with potholes
I was under the impression that you lived in Ontario, but now I think you're in Quebec
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@BernieTheBernie I've heard of this happening with ducks too.
And then of course there is the old Kawasaki commercial.
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@hungrier crossing over from Ontario to Quebec on Highway 20
Ontario
Quebec
That sign is useless, you know just by the bumps
Maybe it's a security feature. You have less chances of falling asleep while driving
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@TimeBandit They do occasionally maintain the roads in Ontario, but we've got plenty of roads that look like a warzone. I looked up a random provincial crossing (Hawkesbury ON):
The actual bridge to Quebec just down the street seems to be a lot better maintained, however
And even on the Quebec side
It isn't until you try to get poutine that you see some road damage
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@TimeBandit
A bit like the Dutch / Belgian border is visible because the separated bike lane ends
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I'm surprised they didn't just put up "deer cross here" signs somewhere they already had an overpass.
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Some modified police chase video from Sweden is apparently making the rounds in an edited and sped up version with extra sound effects.
The driver, who is touted as the "world's best", in reality is driving a stolen station wagon with a flat tire and is high on tramadol.
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@Atazhaia said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
high on tramadol.
Do not want! I like breathing, and tramadol (and other opiates) tend to make me not do that.
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@HardwareGeek OK, George.
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MOST BRUTAL CAR CRASHES OF THE YEAR – 23:30
— Dashcam LessonsI think there should be a new word instead of miraculously to describe how people came out uninjured from some of these. Something like engineeriously, because damn that is some mighty fine engineering behind that.
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@Carnage looks like at least half of them are running a red light or a stop sign (hint: don't do that...). And almost all of them would have been avoided by not going way too fast (sometimes that applies to the victims as well as the driver who caused the accident!).
Loss of control of vehicle (skidding in the rain etc.) and other things seem a distant 3rd to those two.
Dunno if that's a bias of the video (and on relying on dashcams).
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@remi said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@Carnage looks like at least half of them are running a red light or a stop sign (hint: don't do that...). And almost all of them would have been avoided by not going way too fast (sometimes that applies to the victims as well as the driver who caused the accident!).
Loss of control of vehicle (skidding in the rain etc.) and other things seem a distant 3rd to those two.
Dunno if that's a bias of the video (and on relying on dashcams).
I think that there is a bit of selection bias, since it's a collection of most brutal crashes of a year (or whatever) and intersection crashes usually look dramatic, as does speeding and head on crashes.
But yeah, stop driving like a fuckwit and most accidents will not happen.
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@remi Distracted driving plays a big role, too. Many are due to lack of situational awareness. Just [censored] pay attention to what's going on around you (on the road, not what's going on on your phone). If you run into a car in front of you, that's 100% your fault. (Usually. There are exceptions, like suddenly switching into your lane, or intentionally brake-checking you, but even those situations can sometimes be avoided if you're driving defensively.)
Of course, alcohol or other intoxicants are often involved, too.
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@HardwareGeek true, of course.
But distractions will always happen even to the most careful of driver. OTOH, "don't run a red light" or even "don't go crazy fast" are not things that a driver should do, ever, and even more so, they're systematically punished even if no accident happens!
So I would still put those two as the top items to hammer into drivers' minds. Because as this video shows, otherwise it is a ton of metal that risks being hammered into their heads.
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@DogsB Looks like that person's an upstanding driver.
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@blek The impressive thing is that there's enough information in the photo to determine exactly where it is, to high precision.
It's a very Texas image...
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@dkf said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
It's a very Texas image...
Indeed, League City, Texas, about halfway between Houston and Galveston.
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Moron of the day:
2-lanes highway, congested as usual. I'm on the right lane, I tend to drive smoothly in this kind of situation, letting gaps (of, say, 2-3 car lengths) appear in front of me then drive slowly to fill it, rather than accelerating and braking a lot to stay glued to the car in front of me.
Moron behind me doesn't like this and tailgates me, swerving to the right and left as if to spot a gap to pass me. Then suddenly decides he has enough, and swerves onto the hard shoulder to pass me!
Now that's a right here (and illegal). But it's not the first time I've seen people decide that the hard shoulder was a lane specially for them, so that doesn't make this moron a very original moron.
But then! After having passed me, he decides to go back in lane, just in front of me. And stays there for the rest of the congestion. So apparently I was somehow driving in such an insufferable manner that he had to break the law just for me.
Not quite sure if I should be flattered, or annoyed, or anything else. Though for sure I was impressed by such a display of... I don't even know what?!?
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@remi said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
Moron of the day:
2-lanes highway, congested as usual. I'm on the right lane, I tend to drive smoothly in this kind of situation, letting gaps (of, say, 2-3 car lengths) appear in front of me then drive slowly to fill it, rather than accelerating and braking a lot to stay glued to the car in front of me.
Moron behind me doesn't like this and tailgates me, swerving to the right and left as if to spot a gap to pass me. Then suddenly decides he has enough, and swerves onto the hard shoulder to pass me!
Now that's a right here (and illegal). But it's not the first time I've seen people decide that the hard shoulder was a lane specially for them, so that doesn't make this moron a very original moron.
But then! After having passed me, he decides to go back in lane, just in front of me. And stays there for the rest of the congestion. So apparently I was somehow driving in such an insufferable manner that he had to break the law just for me.
Not quite sure if I should be flattered, or annoyed, or anything else. Though for sure I was impressed by such a display of... I don't even know what?!?
Yeah, I've noticed similar behavior as well on occasion. Fun bit is, keeping space to the cars in front actually helps solve congestion since you dissipate shockwave congestion that way so if more people kept a bit of space to the car in front, traffic flow would be greatly improved.
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@Carnage said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
Fun bit is, keeping space to the cars in front actually helps solve congestion since you dissipate shockwave congestion that way so if more people kept a bit of space to the car in front, traffic flow would be greatly improved.
Exactly! Which is part of why I'm doing it, and also why I tend to prefer staying on the "slow" lane in this setup, because that's where trucks are, and trucks tend to also do this. As a result, the whole lane tends to actually move a bit faster than the "fast" lane (though in practice that depends on a lot of other things such as the layout of the intersection a couple of miles ahead (!) that causes the congestion in the first place...).
Though now that I have a car with start/stop, I'm also wondering about how to optimise that (filed under: engineers keeping themselves busy...), because this slow-but-continuous mode means I'm never stopped and thus stop & start never gets an opportunity to kick in. Then again, unless the traffic is so slow that I stay stopped for at least 10s or so, stop & start is counter-productive (of course I can always manually turn it off but where's the fun in replacing some complicated algorithm that only works half of the time, and we're not even sure of that, by a simple user-action!?? ). Then again again, maybe the slow first gear driving is actually worse (depending on the flow of traffic, again). Then again again again, there is an argument to be made that stop & start is actually useless overall. Then again...
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@remi said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
the intersection a couple of miles ahead (!) that causes the congestion in the first place
Or behind you. Shockwave propagation is fun.
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@remi said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
But then! After having passed me, he decides to go back in lane, just in front of me. And stays there for the rest of the congestion. So apparently I was somehow driving in such an insufferable manner that he had to break the law just for me.
Of course, he's got places to be! You think he should be 7/10 of a second late?
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@remi said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
I'm also wondering about how to optimise that (filed under: engineers keeping themselves busy...), because this slow-but-continuous mode means I'm never stopped and thus stop & start never gets an opportunity to kick in.
You've found the optimal way already
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@remi said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
letting gaps (of, say, 2-3 car lengths) appear in front of me then drive slowly to fill it, rather than accelerating and braking a lot to stay glued to the car in front of me
Aha: your car lacks an adaptive cruise control, and thus your enforces that constant speed.
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@remi said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
As a result, the whole lane tends to actually move a bit faster than the "fast" lane
Since I stay in that lane when towing, I've also noticed that it usually tends to be the most efficient lane.
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@remi stop & start is mainly a regulations optimisation and doesn't do much in normal driving.
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@Carnage it makes noise. Ergo, it does something. Ergo, that something can be optimised, once an objective function has been defined.
I'm an engineer with nothing to keep my mind busy. Of course I am pondering about optimising stuff, which means pondering various possible objective functions, their relative fitness-for-purpose, which means pondering purposes and getting into weird mental tangents.
Such as whether an helicopter (generating its own noise) would be able to detect by flying above a congested highway which proportion of cars have their engine stopped. And that's probably the saner of those tangents.
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@remi said in Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition:
@Carnage it makes noise. Ergo, it does something. Ergo, that something can be optimised, once an objective function has been defined.
I'm an engineer with nothing to keep my mind busy. Of course I am pondering about optimising stuff, which means pondering various possible objective functions, their relative fitness-for-purpose, which means pondering purposes and getting into weird mental tangents.
Such as whether an helicopter (generating its own noise) would be able to detect by flying above a congested highway which proportion of cars have their engine stopped. And that's probably the saner of those tangents.
I am one of those people that spent time optimizing the eating of pizza, and coming up with several algorithms to do so depending on wanted outcome., among other things So I can easily get behind optimizing things for no other reason than that it's there.