Driving Anti-Patterns - Necro Edition
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That was @Frostcat IIRC.
Confused my mammals.
Yeah...I took Georgetown Pike yesterday just to avoid that mess.
Good call. Why in the name of Terry McAuliffe would they be this hostile to the Blue State?
Weird thing is, I can hear and feel these giant clunks and thunks, but I find no dings... even the crack in the windshield is perfectly smooth.
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Good call. Why in the name of Terry McAuliffe would they be this hostile to the Blue State?
I think they just got really unlucky with the weather and so haven't been able to get much done, so it's languished in a torn up state.
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So, pro-"fix-it" folks - why?
I know around here they urge you to fix it ASAP. A minor crack ('sterretje') can be fixed easily and reliably. Leaving it may lead to a completely cracked wind-shield which is much more expensive to fix, and I'm not sure if you're even allowed to drive with that.
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The Dangers of Driving With a Cracked Windshield
No matter how long you’ve been driving, seeing a piece of gravel fly at your windshield and leave a small knick is always cringe-inducing.
Also, apparently, cracked windshields are more likely to shatter in a collision, and may impede the proper functioning of the passenger side airbag.
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cracked windshields are more likely to shatter in a collision
+1 pro "fix", the others.... I'm not terribly persuaded.
A minor crack ('sterretje') can be fixed easily and reliably.
AFAIK... that's for surface dings, scratches, and cracks....
This stupid thing is 6-8" long and there's no surface damage somehow.
So the whole thing would have to be replaced... which can be fixed easily and reliably... they've got services that come to your work, pop out the old one and drop in a new one in, what, less than an hour?
It's pretty much 50/50 whether it's worth it, but at least I'm going to wait for the VDOT meteor storm to finish.
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You can always go visit the garbage dump* and complain...
*: The Northern Virginia DOT main offices are on the same campus as a solid waste transfer station, just across a highway from a Costco.
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complain
I could. But that would do even less good than complaining here.
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Also, survival probabilities in aircraft accidents are... Not high... And even if you do survive, you're probably injured badly enough that you can't fly any more. And even if you can, the FAA probably won't let you fly any more.
I personally find the survival rate of aircraft accidents pretty high, considering the speeds and altitudes associated with flight.-
Over 95% of people in U.S. plane crashes, between 1983 and 2000, survived.
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Type of Flight Fatalities per million flight hours:
Airliner (Scheduled and nonscheduled Part 121) 4.03
Commuter Airline (Scheduled Part 135) 10.74
Commuter Plane (Nonscheduled Part 135 - Air taxi on demand) 12.24
General Aviation (Private Part 91) 22.43
Source: NTSB Accidents and Accident Rates by NTSB Classification 1998-2007
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Interestingly enough, the table marked "Notable Accident Causes by Category" doesn't list the Tenerife disaster at all... probably because there were so many different factors that it would be impossible to categorize, or perhaps because it was technically still on the ground (the KLM flight had managed to take off, but were less than 10 meters up when the hit the Pan Am). Still, not including the single deadliest air-related accident of all time seems peculiar.
Note also the sudden jump in fatalities in the 1980s and 1990s, when then settled down in the 2000s. My impression - which could be wrong - is that this was due to the proliferation of low-cost airlines (not just in the US but world-wide), many of which had serious problems maintenance schedules (ValueJet being the worst offender). When a lot of those companies went under due to public pressure and legal action, or were absorbed by larger airlines, a lot of the problem decreased.
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Note also the sudden jump in fatalities in the 1980s and 1990s, when then settled down in the 2000s. My impression - which could be wrong - is that this was due to the proliferation of low-cost airlines (not just in the US but world-wide), many of which had serious problems maintenance schedules (ValueJet being the worst offender). When a lot of those companies went under due to public pressure and legal action, or were absorbed by larger airlines, a lot of the problem decreased.
It seems that the current worldwide locus of bad airlines is south-east asia. I think there's at least one airline there that is completely banned from flying anywhere in Europe (not a major operational problem for the airline concerned, but highly indicative). Not that the region's ferry operators seem better.
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Over 95% of people in U.S. plane crashes, between 1983 and 2000, survived.
That's some interesting bracketing.
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I think there's at least one airline there that is completely banned from flying anywhere in Europe (not a major operational problem for the airline concerned, but highly indicative).
It seems that the current worldwide locus of bad airlines is south-east asia. There's more than one, although most of them are not from se asia (Africa FTW).
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I take exception with that over generalization! There is surely a car or two in the group labelled "Idiotas" which is attempting to continue straight instead of exiting to the left. I contend that those few drivers are surely not "Idiotas".
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Slightly unrelated but I don't feel like it warrants its own topic...
Fuck car designers. Honestly, fuck them. Somehow they seem to be coming up with more and more ingenious ways to make a simple headlight bulb replacement the worst experience of one's life.
I guess I'm lucky because all I had to do was wrestle with some stupid spring I couldn't even look at properly for half an hour, I hear in some cars you have to remove the front wheel...
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Honestly, fuck them. Somehow they seem to be coming up with more and more ingenious ways to make a simple headlight bulb replacement the worst experience of one's life.
They've also replaced $4 halogen bulbs with $700 "Illumination Modules". I had an accident a few years ago and had front end damage. The most expensive part of the repair was the headlights - it was over $3000 to replace them.
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But, but the new LED headlights are sooo much brighter! Blinding every driver coming in the other direction, that's a good thing, right? SAFETY!!!
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They're so safe that it's mandatory that they come with a leveling system since these lights, when aimed a little too high, are a serious hazard, even when on low beam.
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Yep. And they still end up shining right into your eyes with enough intensity to caused retinal bleaching when coming down the road in the other direction. Brillant.
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Which would make sense in a world where all roads were perfectly level.
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There is surely a car or two in the group labelled "Idiotas" which is attempting to continue straight instead of exiting to the left.
I am typically the green car in the leftmost lane in the circled portion. You know. Doing it right.
Also there's a red car on the right that should be circled, where the fuck is he going?
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Also there's a red car on the right that should be circled, where the fuck is he going?
Around the idiota in the red car directly to his front-left, I believe.
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I take issue with the diagram for one reason though...
There are always idiotas in the left lanes intending to go right.
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Also the idiots leaving no room for merging.
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They've also replaced $4 halogen bulbs with $700 "Illumination Modules".
$4 halogen bulb? Not if they could help it!
I looked into the manual in hopes of finding the bulb type since I wanted to pick up the replacement on the way back from work and all it has to say is to "contact your authorized Mazda dealer".
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@Steve_The_Cynic said:
@boomzilla said:
They aren't entitled assholes, however, and mainly ride on the sidewalks, so everyone gets along.
That makes them assholes who think they are entitled to endanger the lives of pedestrians.
That's a stretch, but even if I accept this for the sake of argument, there are far fewer pedestrians than cars. It's an excellent trade off. Bikes and pedestrians play together so much better than bikes and cars.This is sooo not true in NYC. Bicycles over ~13 are not allowed on sidewalks by law.
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@HardwareGeek said:
He was keeping up with traffic, or even passing cars that were slowing for a light, at 30 – 35 MPH, too.
Damn. Was he going downhill?I've biked down a hill we nicknamed 50 mile hill. And another curvey single lane on each side with zero shoulder that was told beforehand if i need to take the lane. It was simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying. I said to my husband, who sometimes worries about me, "I can't believe you let me do that!"
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I see this everyday: on the left Hwy 35E N.... On the right Hwy 94E:
However the word I use for those people is not idiotas.
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I don't see the problem...looks perfectly normal to me even on Google. Even if you do happen to be driving northeast at the time.
It would bother me more that it's 34E/north and 10/west and 94/east and 10/east. That is, if I didn't live in the Orlando area, where I-4 is clearly north/south but is labeled east/west.
There's a place in Boston, or used to be, where you can be going east and west on the same highway at the same time. And even that isn't as bad as this:
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I don't see the problem...looks perfectly normal to me even on Google. Even if you do happen to be driving northeast at the time.
The road isn't the problem, it's the fucking drivers... instead of taking the proper ramps to line themselves up for the route they want, they do this:
(and ditto from the left to the right) every single day during rush hour, the fuckers!11 @Lorne_Kates did I use "fuck" enough?
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The road isn't the problem, it's
Oh. Gotcha. I saw that but didn't make the connection.
Yeah, people will do that, trying to get ahead of just one more car; and basically all they accomplish is to make everyone stop at the junction...amiright? See the same nonsense here, too...very annoying.
One of my favorite places is this little gem in purple (I-4 here in Orlando)
The purple is exit for two streets; it's also an on-ramp for the first street, Ivanhoe. The lane is clearly marked "Exit Only" but during rush-hour, people will pull off into the exit lanes, race down to the south end, and then bring everyone to a halt while they force their way back into traffic. All to get ahead maybe 20 cars.
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There isn't anywhere in civilization where driving is actually nice it seems.
I can't believe that "road rage" isn't sooo much more common, and doesn't result in burned out automotive husks smoking on the road side.
I want my rocket launchers.
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There isn't anywhere in civilization where driving is actually nice it seems.
Ohio isn't too bad. There are a few minor annoying intersections, and the bigger cities (Columbus and Cincinnati namely) are a pain, but other than that it's pretty good...
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That is, if I didn't live in the Orlando area, where I-4 is [clearly north/south][2] but is labeled east/west.
My roommate when I was at university was from Orlando, and he explained that one. Look at the larger map, and you see that I-4, in general, runs, like (in the original numbering schema) all 1 or 2 digit interstates with even numbers(1), east-west across Florida, but for whatever reason has a couple of bends in that makes it pass Orlando N/S.(1) Even: East/West, odd: North/South. "Hundreds" digit: even: extension around a city, odd: spur into a city. As I heard it. Probably abandoned decades ago. The person who told me might have been wrong. That was Before The Internet. (Sort of. The ARPANET had already made the transition to TCP/IP by the time I heard about it.)
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There isn't anywhere in civilization where driving is actually nice it seems.
There are plenty of places that are nice, but those don't include the
motorwaysinterstates in sections where the junctions are too close together. A gently curving country road in moderate hill country with little traffic is huge fun to drive.
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The lane is clearly marked "Exit Only" but during rush-hour, people will pull off into the exit lanes, race down to the south end, and then bring everyone to a halt while they force their way back into traffic. All to get ahead maybe 20 cars.
The problem is that people let them back in. Assholes rely on the common courtesy of the general public to get a tiny bit ahead and they succeed every time. If people simply let them wait out the entire rush hour in their cars in the wrong lane, it would stop.
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No, the problem is that those 2 lanes go the same place as the rest of the lanes, and they get there quicker.
Most of the time, exits that run directly into entrances have a traffic signal in between them, and it takes care of that problem quite nicely.
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You need to go and drive in Asia. India, perhaps, or Indonesia (the places I've driven)
There's plenty of aggressive driving but bizarrely it all works out with minimal road rage. It is bizarre, you can be in the middle of a 4 hour traffic jam in Djakarta, and you are fighting for your right to close into a 20cm space which will ensure your car is next in the merge.... which may happen in 20 minutes..... but there really is no "road rage". No one is going to jump out and try to beat you up.
In fact the worst case of "road rage" I experienced in Indonesia was travelling down the back alleys in Djakarta on a tuk-tuk, and my driver swore at another who was heading down the same alley at a decent speed. Granted, swearing in Indonesia is quite a serious issue, but there was no burned out automotive husks. We just drove on.
India was pretty similar, aside from the fact that traffic jams typically do not last for hours, even in Delhi and Mumbai.
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In fact the worst case of "road rage" I experienced in Indonesia was travelling down the back alleys in Djakarta on a tuk-tuk, and my driver swore at another who was heading down the same alley at a decent speed.
That's pretty much what road rage entails. Often in my case I'll be having a chat and then break off to suddenly yell, "WHAT THE FUCK, LEARN HOW TO FUCKING DRIVE!" as some asshole cuts me off.
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That's pretty much what road rage entails
Not in this gun-slinging country. Road rage here usually involves assault and/or gunshot wounds. GOD BLESS SOUTH AFRICA
If not it doesn't really make the grade...
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Probably abandoned decades ago. The person who told me might have been wrong. That was Before The Internet. (Sort of. The ARPANET had already made the transition to TCP/IP by the time I heard about it.)
No, your friend had it exactly and they still use the system in the continental US.
US Highways have a similar numbering system except evens start on the north with US Route 2, where the interstate system starts in the south with I-10; and odds start in the east with US Route 1 and interstates start on the west with I-5. If I recollect, that was deliberate to minimize confusion.
There's an oddity re US Route 1 here in Florida. The highway is on the mainland proper, but eastward are the Indian and Banana Rivers (intracoastal waterways) and heavily populated coastal islands. There's another parallel US Route out there, weirdly designated A1A.
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Did you know 40/85 together for 32 miles in NC?
Plus, I only really see 4 highways there. Business 85 and 29/70 are the same route. It's still better that I-85 bypasses that now. I wasn't old enough to drive when I-85 and I-40 both ran on that same stretch of road, but it must have been insane.
However, it is called Death Valley for a reason. The main problem is if you are on I-40 and want
to stay on I-40exit to Elm st you merge in from the left and have to get to the right lanes. Plus, it slows down to 55. Enjoy the Google Maps view
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Looks to me like they still run together, well, 85 and 40, and for a longer distance now. At least they got it out of downtown. And 40 and 73 now run together for a ways.
Greensboro must be the interstate capital of the world. 40, 85, 73, and pretty soon loop 840. I wonder how many capita per mile.
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All I know is they renamed High Point Rd. to Gate City Boulevard after I left, and that is a stupid name for a road.
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Greensboro must be the interstate capital of the world.
Negative. Cleveland is worse.
All I know is they renamed High Point Rd. to Gate City Boulevard after I left, and that is a stupid name for a road.
I used to live near an apartment complex named Friendly Plantation. Greensboro sucks at naming.
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I have to guess that was because it was near Friendly Center.
Also, at least that map of Cleveland looks organized, but maybe the scale is throwing me off.
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Well, sure. But as a black couple, we didn't feel quite right moving into that place XD
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@Yamikuronue said:
That's pretty much what road rage entails
Not in this gun-slinging country. Road rage here usually involves assault and/or gunshot wounds. GOD BLESS SOUTH AFRICA
If not it doesn't really make the grade...
In Jolly Old Blighty in the 1990s there was a decade-long spate of savage beatings and people beating on windscreens with baseball bats in the name of road rage. It kinda spilled over into the 2000s as well. So guns aren't a necessary ingredient in that particular madness.
List of airlines banned in the European Union - Wikipedia
