I got another speeding ticket today. This is the second one I've gotten this year. It was on the highway, and written for 5 over, so (the officer tells me) there will be no points on my license for it. I can afford the fine, so there's really no damage to me from this. What bums me out about it is that for something like the first 8 or 9 years of my driving history, I cheerfully broke the speed limit all the time, even though a ticket at that time would have seriously inconvenienced me. A year or two ago, however, I sort of vaguely decided that I just didn't care about getting places quickly enough to warrant risking a speeding ticket, and I've made what I consider a reasonable attempt to obey speed limits since then. Predictably enough, the only two speeding tickets I've ever had have come in the last year, when I've been trying not to speed. Both times, I was not in a hurry, just driving along safely (if perhaps somewhat absently) on a route I drive often. The first was on west bound Fuller between north campus and downtown; the second was on eastbound M-14 before the Main street on-ramp. Both of these are areas where the speed limit suddenly lowers in preparation for an upcoming hazard while the road remains relatively straight and wide and safe. Both times I was aware of the hazard (the Fuller intersection and the Main street on ramp, respectively), and was quite prepared to navigate it safely. In both cases, I even knew perfectly well what the speed limit was there, and that it changed suddenly. I can't tell you how many times I've been driving past the main street on ramp, with the road perfectly clear, and suddenly realized that I was going 15 mph over the speed limit and slowed down, well past the point where they caught me today. What gets me about these tickets is that I don't think I could have avoided them. Oh, sure, I could have slowed down in each case, but there would have been some other situation where the same thing would have happened. Especially for M-14, they could probably catch me in that same spot at least half the time I go that way (which is my route to work, so it's at least five times a week, usually more). I don't think I'm an unsafe driver. I pay pretty close attention to the road and the other cars on it. I leave plenty of space between myself and cars around me. I use my turn signal, leave my headlights on in the daytime, and generally drive pretty carefully. But I don't think that I can prevent myself from getting this kind of ticket in the future. I don't think I'm capable of changing my driving patterns to conform to the speed limit 100% of the time even when exceeding it is clearly safe. I try, but as I've said, I often find that I'm exceeding the speed limit by a lot without even having noticed it. So, faced with the fact that I can't prevent myself from getting speeding tickets, I find myself strongly tempted to stop bothering to try. After all, what does it gain me? If I reduce my chances of getting a ticket from (say) 3% to 2%, is that really worth the effort? I say effort because it really is an effort to obey the speed limit sometimes. Sigh.111 responses total.
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There are certain kinds of places police like to hang out. One of the tricks to avoiding tickets is definitely to learn what those places are. Expressways where the limit "irrationally" drops are a favorite place. People in SE Michigan are not very good about driving right at the speed limit, but this is very much a regional thing. There are plenty of other places where people religiously follow speed limits. Also, in some places, cops also are rumoured to preferentially target out-of-towners.
I remember reading the report int he Ann Arbor News about the crackdown on speeding at the M-14 bridge; it alarmed me, because I typically don't make any significant effort to slow down at that area. I didn't, anyway, but I do cut speed now if I've been going a bit fast. It's not unsafe, but the speed limit is there for some cause. Fortunately, I didn't tear through there are 75 miles per hour when they were actually issuing tickets, so I got lucky. Highway and mid-to-big town speedtraps rotate on a basis of what area the local authorities want to concentrate on. A few years ago the State decided to put resources into controlling speeds on I-96 between US-23 and Lansing. During that time frame I was making a lot of trips to Lansing, and barely a trip went by in any direction that I did not see at least one or two pullovers--often of cars who passed me at speeds more than 15 mph in excess of the limit. The typical speed of traffic gradually decreased as regular travellers got the message. When the enforcement stopped, speeds crept back upwards.
Yes, I do think it worth the effort to try to obey the speed limits, Greg. If only to reduce the number of people who are trying to run _me_ down. M-14 was a regular part of my morning commute. I think the speed limit reduction at the Main Street on ramp (and Barton off-on ramp) quite reasonable*. Further, I think the right lane there to be particularly unsafe. So I would tap the brake, to disengage cruise control, just before the speed-limit sign, and then start watching my mirrors. If absolutely necessary to avoid a semi, I'd move into the right lane. Otherwise, I'd expect the folks behind me to slow down. * I think the reduction reasonable because the visibility from Main Street is extremely limited, as is the opportunity to get up to speed. Accelerating to 55 is easier and safer than trying to get to 70. While the visibility from Barton is better, the acceleration-lane is shorter AND *up* hill. Again, the merging cars are more likely to get to 55 than 70. So I slow down, so they have room to merge *IF* I have to be in that lane.
I would've asked what Todd asked, but Todd asked it first ...
"Absently" might be key here. How did you respond when first noticing the presense of the police?
s/presense/presence
Rumor among the cabbies I know is that the Ann Arbor police are increasing the number of tickets they write per month from around 20,000 to around 35,000.
Its a safe source of revenue like traffic light cameras and "privatizing" collects of ticket fines.
Re: #8 It's not rumor. It's a revenue generating mechanism that has been cheerfully reported in the Ann Arbor News at least twice.
Nice. Bastards.
You have to keep in mind that these days speeding tickets are basically another form of taxation. It's a sort of game -- you need to drive safely (and there are places where driving at the speed limit is *not* very safe) while avoiding speeding in places where enforcement is heavy.
As far as I can tell, there's no speed limit on US-23 through Ann Arbor in either direction. I've driven the road at 80 mph at times. I've been passed when doing so. In 7 or 8 years of driving that road almost daily, I'm sure I haven't seen as many as a couple of dozen cars pulled over, total.
I've heard that the place the A^2 police have staked out is actually reported in the papers (or some such). I don't know how much truth there is in that. To some extent, where police concentrate their attention is based on where people complain. For a number of years the residents along the southern end of Golfside must have been really complaining, because there were frequently cop cars lying in wait along that 25 mph section, and residents near there would warn visiting friends to be careful about that.
The AA News does print, in the local section every week, what areas the AAPD says they'll be concentrating on. To some extent, I wonder why people complain instead of just obeying the damn law, but then I don't drive.
It's pretty obvious you don't drive if you're saying that. Speed limits are set for a variety of reasons, and all too often they have little to do with safety. They're often too low for the road in question and its traffic density. Sometimes this is done specifically so the government can entrap drivers into speeding and thus get more money (there are some towns in Ohio that are notorious for this -- one was so bad that the Governor smacked them down, and I think the feds got involved to).
I don't mind when the speed posted is way below the safe speed for a given road. At best, it's inconvnient. However, when the posted speed is too high for the average driver to navigate through the normal traffic on a given stretch of road, that's when it's more than annoying, and could prove disastrous. Sure people should guage for themselves what speed works, but most people assume (and for good reason) that 5 or 10 above the speed limit is fine, and when the posted speed limit itself is a little too high for safety...
There are some times when I consider not speeding to be unsafe. A key example would be when you have to travel in the left lane to make one of the left exits that are unfortunately common around here. If you're going 65, you're a hazard to the rest of the traffic in that lane, which is often doing 80+.
Golfside was just a great speed trap. The road doesn't look like other
roads that are 25mph do, and it significantly lower than any other road in
the area, or the rest of Golfside.
Different states have different formulas for signs and speed limits. I've heard Ohio is pretty lax about warning you about road hazards, so you have to watch and take care. Michigan is pretty anal about putting up curve signs, lowering the speed limit for hazards, etc., so it's very rare to find a situation where the speed limit would not be safe. It's a bit more common to find situations where many cars won't be able to reach the speed limit (for instance, turning off E.bound Huron River Drive onto S.bound Hogback). And it's fairly common to find sections that you *could* travel at the speed limit, except the road has crumbled enough that the limiting factor is your comfort and concern for the longevity of your suspension. Main st. south of Stadium was once like this -- signs said 45, but most cars went 35. I've heard that one of the algorithms for setting speed limits is to measure the speed of traffic & pick the speed at which 80% of traffic is below that speed. They must have done this just before fixing up main street, because sure enough, now that the road is nice and smooth and you *could* go 45, the speed limit is now 35.
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SuuuuuEEEEEEEEEEE!
Golfside is 1/2 of a residential area, and I drive it regularly with no trouble. I just don't hurry when I take it. There are some roads where the speed limit appears artificially low, but there are other factors involved--Stadium Boulevard is nice and luxriously wide, but since most of it travels through residential areas, the limit is 35. Same with Platt road, among others. The one drive that annoys me is Huron Parkway, which is 35 north of Washtenaw despite being wide and lacking on-street housing. Theoretically, the limit is due to the curves, but they aren't bad at all.
(That stretch of Huron Parkway was 40 a few years back; I've not figured out why "they" lowered the speed limit there.)
You haven't seen the speed traps, then. Remember, the City of Ann Arbor has budget problems.
i've been recruited to drive to spain. is my US driver's liscence valid?
The speed limit there dropped a couple of years ago. I don't drive it often, so no, I've not noticed speed traps along Huron Parkway.
Re #10: Thanks. I had missed the articles in the AA News.
Re #26: I *think* it depends on what kind of visa you're on. My US driver's
license worked two weeks ago in England, but if you're some kind of
permanent resident or on a work visa it could be a problem.
Back before Nixon turned many of his fellow Americans into crooks by lowering the speed limit to 55, there was standards in place as to when a freeway would be 55 and when a higher limit could be used. One of these was freeways in urban areas, or possibly measured by distance between exits, where there would be the possibility of slower traffic, or exits/entrance ramps that could not be build for longer deceleration/acceleration.
I used to live on the stretch of Golfside previously mentioned. I was actually involved in posting signs on my front yard requesting reasonable speeds. Golfside in this section is very unique in the county. One side is densly residentualized, while the opposite side was a golf course and pretty much nothing else until about 12 years ago when a Jehovah's Witness hall was built, and later for the day care. Having a (short) driveway that was connected directly to Golfside was a terror at some points in the day. Frequently traffic would take advantage of the long sight lines to drive as fast as 60 mph. Let's not reflect on the fact that there are no sidewalks and numerous children in the area. My previous career required me to stop by my home multiple times a day. I nearly lost my life from a rocket (wo)man on two separate occasions. The neighbors lost cats to that strip due to the excessive speeds. Because of the constant battle with the State/County/Township Police on what to do about this peculiar situation, we were happy to move out at our earliest opportunity. Yet, my sympathies lie firmly in the camp of the residents along that strip. The authorities won't bend their rules to alleviate the hazard, and such a compromise would require several authorities to modify policy since it is a physical township border. My perception is that a single stop sign midway on the 1 mile strip would help immensely. Anyway, this topic was about getting caught safely speeding. I freely admit to the safely speeding, and have been fortunate to not have any current points on my record (from getting caught).
Re #20: It varies depending on what part of Michigan you're in, too. You're a lot less likely to be warned about road hazards in, say, Keweenaw County than you are in Washtenaw County. Up there they don't generally post "PAVEMENT ENDS" signs, for example. You're supposed to notice that there's gravel in front of you. ;> Re #31: One issue that traffic engineers are just starting to become aware of is the psychological aspect of speed control. It turns out that if you post a road at, say, 30 mph, but build it wide and straight so it looks like a faster road, people will drive faster. If you add stuff that makes the road look more city-like, or more difficult to navigate, like safety islands or protruding curb areas, people tend to drive slower. Happily, a lot of these features are also more friendly for pedestrians. A safety island in the center of a major road makes crossing it a lot safer, for instance, because it breaks it up into two crossings with a pause to look for traffic in between.
Most european countries accept US driver's licenses, but some require other stuff. Sweden & Denmark didn't require anything when I was there 15 years ago. I think Germany required an "international driver's license", which isn't good by itself but something you get and carry in addition to your regular national driver's license. I don't believe a visa changes this per se, but there's likely some sort of time limit that means if you're a long-term visitor or resident, you have to get the local license. This is all going to vary country by country - probably best to check with their embassy or DMV before actually visiting. Check about insurance too.
re: way back there: I drive a '96 Plymouth Grand Voyager, light blue. (It was cheap.) When stopped, I was polite and resigned, had my insurance and registration and stuff ready. As it turned out, I had forgotten to renew my license plates (the officer was nice about this; she wrote me a "waiveable ticket", which basically means taht I had to go out and renew my registration and present proof and the ticket would go away), so I think that even had the officer been inclined towards mercy (unlikely, given some of the above responses), she would have written me a ticket about that anyways. The ticket was written for the minimum possible (1-5 over), and the officer didn't give me any of that "why were you going so fast? where were you going? drive slower in the future" dialogue I usually get when pulled over. This morning, as I drove the same route again, I made some observations. The speed limit where I get on (maple) is either 65 or 70 (not sure which; there are no signs between the entrance and the next sign). There is a bridge over the highway a mile or so down the road; the sign there reads "Reduced speed ahead - 55". The next sign is the "Speed limit 55" sign, which is at the top of a downhill leftward curve, at the bottom of which (maybe 1/4 mile from the sign) is the Main street entrance ramp. The place where the speed trap was laid (and it was definitely a speed trap; there were several police cars waiting there) was about halfway down the curve at a point where the left shoulder is particularly broad, just barely out of sight of the sign around the curve, maybe 200 meters past it. In other words, it was a speed trap set up not only to catch people who ignored the sign, but also anyone who saw the sign and was in the process of decelerating slowly. Since it was close to the bottom of a downhill slope, they probably catch a lot more people than a disinterested observer might consider to be actually breaking the law. So, to review. The reasons as I see them to obey the speed limit go something like this: 1. To obey the law as a matter of principle. 2. To avoid getting an expensive ticket. 3. To drive safely. 4. To encourage other people to drive more slowly and therefore safely. Am I missing any? However... 2. I've made what I consider to be a reasonable effort (due diligence, if you will) to obey the speed limit this past year, and I've gotten two tickets for my trouble. Moreover, based on my own observations (above) and on what other people are saying (ticket quota increased, published speed traps, etc.), I'm becoming convinced that the Ann Arbor law enforcement establishment is using tactics that can result in my getting a speeding ticket even if I am making an active effort to drive with in the speed limit. 3. As has been said above, the speed limit is often not consistent with safety. Sometimes it's too slow for safety, sometimes too fast... At any rate, it's clear that every driver has the responsibility to drive safely to the best of his or her ability, taking into acount the circumstances, regardless of what the speed limit says. So, IMO, the speed limit is essentially irrelevant to safety concerns when driving. 4. Again, it's been observed many times that driving slower than the surrounding traffic is more dangerous than driving at the same speed. Obstinately refusing to drive faster than the posted limit is not likely (IMO) to get other people to slow down, it's more likely to irritate them and impair their judgement. This is akin to randomly tapping one's brakes when someone is tailgating you. Sure, it might be somewhat satisfying, but it's almost certainly safer to change lanes or pull over and let them pass you. So, basically, that leaves 1 as the only reason I consider valid for paying any attention whatsoever to the speed limit, and the more I hear about speeding tickets being used as a source of revenue rather than as an attempt to enforce the law, the less I care about this. After all, if this is a sort of backhanded taxation, and I'm paying the tax, why shouldn't I actually *do* the activity they're taxing me for? If they (the law enforcement/government community) are going to turn this into a game, why shouldn't I play the game in such a way as to benefit myself? Why should I hold myself to a higher standard of compliance to a set of essentially arbitrary rules than the bodies who make and enforce those rules?
(my $.02: part of the problem is that you're playing along and paying the tickets upfront instead of fighting them. an informal hearing on the ticket costs nothing but time (yours and the officer's) and might result in a dismissed ticket. even if it doesn't, you're still making the ticket less cost-effective by making the officer show up in court to back it, which takes them off the road.)
For what it's worth, the point of the "reduced speed ahead" signs is that you're supposed to reduce your speed before you reach the sign. Parking tickets have been used as a revenue source for years by A^2.
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(That sure got flem's goat. But I have no sympathy for him: he was speeding, by admission, and got a ticket. His anguish ia irrelevant. I suspect, though, there is more to it: I *don't* make a "reasonable effort (due diligence, if you will) to obey the speed limit", though I note and act upon it automatically if not exactly accurately - and very rarely get speeding tickets (and then only on open empty roads in broad daylight when I'm going 5 over and there is not a cop or even another driver in sight. I don't know how they do this....)
Re #34: It's worth it to try to avoid tickets as much as possible, though, because the insurance companies are in on this too. They'll raise your rates if you accumulate a lot of speeding tickets. Re #36: Yeah...and as annoying as it is, sometimes you do have to put some wear on your brakes to get under the limit in time. ;)
It's got more to do with what you drive, than how you drive, unless
you're driving like a complete nut. I've had flashy or sketchy looking cars
before, and they consistently got attention, and I consistently got tickets.
Ordinary looking cars in good repair don't get as much attemtion, and have
lead to me being more-or-less ticket free.
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You hafta ask?
jazz has got tickets? /gasp
No moving violations.
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I'm not sure what rane seems to think gets my goat, other than rane himself. Of course my anguish is irrelevant, as is rane's opinion of it. Yes, I was technically speeding, that's what the laser said and I believe it. I've no interest in contesting the ticket. That's not the point. What is relevant (and, I think, interesting enough to spend time discussing) are the reasons for my "anguish", which rane seems to have missed. Briefly, since I'm at work... With regards to speeding, I don't believe it's possible to obey the law without what I consider an excessive effort. The reason for this is not that the law is unreasonable, but that, as is the situation for parking tickets, aggressive enforcement is *profitable* for the people who enforce the law. Can you say "conflict of interest"? There's more to it than that, but I don't seem to be able to articulate it briefly right now.
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I think flem just had some bad luck. I generally drive the speed limit but there are plenty of times when I dont. I could easily get a ticket.
I've successfully avoided parking tickets everywhere except St. Paul, Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. (One of those was due to unfamiliarity with the local laws, the other was due to oversleeping.) I've so far avoided speeding tickets, too, but not because I haven't richly deserved one on many occasions.
You've avoided parking tickets while living in Ann Arbor? That's unusuall, assuming you own a car and work in town.
One of the most notorious speed traps in the history of Michigan was in Webberville, on what was then US-16 between Detroit and Lansing (this was before I-96 was built). I don't have any statistics, but my understanding is that if you drove through Webberville, there was a good chance of getting a ticket there. What made this all so bad, in the eyes of the public and ultimately of the state government, was that the fine money went into the pockets of the Leroy Township (Webberville) justices of the peace. You see, their compensation consisted of the fines they imposed. The Michigan Constitution of 1963 abolished the office of Justice of the Peace, AND prohibited a public officer from profiting from the penal fines, specifically in response to the Leroy Township situation.
I've only ever gotten one speeding ticket, and it was in Michigan. I was pulled over for doing 19 over the limit, ticketed for five over, and given a lecture on how I shouldn't expect to get away with things that older people could get away with (I was 17 at the time). I noticed at that point that out of the $60 ticket, only $20 was the fine. The other $40 was split among various fees. Was this to get around the rules Larry talked about? Doing my Ann Arbor to Detroit suburbs commute almost every day for several years, I got in the habit of driving at least 80 (generally 85 or so through the Washtenaw County section of M-14 where I never saw anybody getting pulled over, and slowing down to 80, which was considered a safe speed, in Wayne County). I left Michigan doing 85-90 for most of the trip, once I got past Minnesota, and didn't see a cop until just West of Salt Lake City. He pulled me over for 84 in a 75 zone, and in true Utah style gave me a lecture saying "you need to learn that the speed limit in this state is 75, not 84," while I tried to decide whether to respond, "you pulled me over for nine over?" or "I was only doing 84?" I also got a written warning there, but no ticket. The written warning is still up on my fridge. It says, "this is not a summons to appear in court. It is a friendly contact by the Highway Patrol regarding improper driving." Utah is a strange place. But now I live somewhere where almost nobody drives 80+ mph, and 75 is considered quite fast. From time to time I still drive in places where 80 seems to be considered the accepted speed, and it now feels incredibly fast and uncomfortable to me. For a different approach to such things, I spent five days in Montana a couple months ago. Just about everywhere I've done significant amounts of driving, the speed limit has been treated as a guideline for the speed everybody should go 5-10 mph faster than. Montana, being a fairly liberatarian state, has taken a different aproach, with the speed limits instead being set higher than they expect anybody to drive. That took some getting used to.
Re #50: I both live and work in Pittsfield Township. When I visit downtown I tend to park in one of the parking garages, though I occasionally park in metered spaces. Re #52: You're in California, right? Your comment about people driving 75 or less surprises me. One of my memories from visiting California with a friend of mine, about five years ago, is of going 85 mph in the center lane of a freeway near San Jose, while a steady stream of people in SUVs flipped us off as they passed in the left lane and gestured for us to move over to the right lane, where the trucks were doing 65. When I was living in St. Paul, on the other hand, I was surprised by how carefully people followed the speed limits on the freeways.
Last time I drove on the LA freeways, the speed fluctuated between 30mph and 80mph - speed up, slow down, speed up again - like compression waves. I was constantly speeding up or slowing down, never cruising. I remember San Francisco area freeways as being substantially tamer though.
We recently had guests from Madison who commented on the "awful drive" between Madison and Ann Arbor. We assumed they were talking about passing through Chicago. Actually, they were talking about I-94 in Michigan. They thought it was too big, too crowded, and _far_ too fast. I understood the first two complaints, but I had to remind myself that not everyone drives like Michigan.
Tell them that interstates are about getting from point A to point B as fast as possible, and if they want the slow, scenic route they should take US-12.
53:
By the time I moved here, the average speed on San Jose area freeways
was probably somewhere around 5 mph. With hundreds of thousands of people
out of work (and thus not commuting), traffic now occasionally moves as fast
as 70 or 75. I-80 in San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley still tops out
around 30 for much of the day.
I watch the locals for cues on what the "actual" speed limit is. I drove through Arkansas on my way to Texas with 70 mph speed limits and signs saying something to the effect of "speed limits strictly enforced." My usual policy is to do a speed closely approximating the speed limit until I see a healthy sampling of local vehicles doing otherwise. I didn't see any local vehicles doing anything other than speeds very close to 70, so I kept it down close to 70 myself and drove very comfortably. Perhaps two hours into Arkansas I noted with considerable relief that there was finally a faster moving vehicle, a Durango, preparing to pass me in the left lane. It looked to be doing about 80 as it went by, and I prepared to hit the accel button on my cruise control, until I looked at the plate... Naturally, the first car I saw doing anything close to 80 in the state was from Michigan.
Not so very long ago, the one thing that everybody complained about on the drive between Detroit and Chicago was Indiana 39. Indiana 39 was a twelve mile stretch of extremely crowded 2-lane road which ran from the end of I-94 at the Michigan/Indiana boundary, south to the Indiana Turnpike. So the immense volume of traffic pouring west on I-94 was funneled onto a dozen miles of Indiana 39 to get to the nearest Indiana expressway. And the Detroit-bound traffic, just as heavy, would take Indiana 39 in the other direction to get to the west end of I-94. In essence, Michigan built I-94 right up to the state line, and Indiana refused for years to extend it any further. After all, (1) all that Detroit/Chicago traffic had little to do with Indiana, and (2) if I-94 were extended all the way to Chicago, it would dramatically reduce the toll revenue on the Indiana Turnpike. Eventually, the logic of traffic volumes won out, and now you can drive all the way to Chicago on I-94. The fascinating thing about I-94 today is the extremely heavy volume of trucks. It was while commuting on I-94 (sometimes I-96) that I learned to recognize a Kenworth, a Freightliner, a Western Star, a Peterbilt, and so on.
We've discussed the speed limit on M-14 at Main before. The police have been patrolling it in packs for about a year now. What some see as a a "speed trap" I see as a reasonable attempt to enforce a safety-related speed limit that is routinely and reckless ignored. My habit was to disengage the cruise control as I passed the 55-MPH sign. I very seldom had to use my brakes to decellerate. I was never stopped for speeding, although I'd see others who had been stopped. I got the impression that if you were making a reasonable effort to slow down, you were fine.
With that much truck traffic, something is wrong. Rail should be a viable solution. But trucking is probably a lazy solution.
Re: #61 With trucking, all the trucking companies can be worthless idiots (in terms of getting your freight to where you need it on time & in good shape at a reasonable rate), but if one lone owner-operator does a good job for you, you're covered. (If you've got more freight than one guy can haul, don't worry - he'll talk about you keeping him busy, and more capacity will quickly appear.) In any case, swarms of trucks can move pseudo-randomly around the very extensive public road network without much problem, planning, lead time, or capital investment beyond the trucks themselves (for the truckers, that is). Railroads are a totally different beast. They don't go most places - compare the number of businesses that can ship & receive by truck with the number that can ship & receive by train. Where there *is* service, it's almost certainly monopolized by one railroad - if they can't or don't feel like meeting your needs, then forget it. Train logistics are vastly slower & more ponderous then truck logistics - think of 'em as landgoing container ships. Substantial capacity upgrades generally involve the railroad spending a *lot* of money, often with long lead times. There has been talk about "railroading" some of America's major long- haul trucking routes. Truckers would drive their rigs onto rail flat cars at one end, then board a "rolling truck stop" passenger car (with showers, restaurant, sleeping rooms, etc.) for the trip to the other end. Drive off, drive the trucks waiting there on, & repeat. I have not heard that any railroad has risked the money to try it, though.
Re #61: The two days of freight snarls around Chicago probably keeps a lot of stuff on the freeways. It takes as long to get across Chicago as it does to get to Chicago from the west coast, and there are some 3500 truck trips per day between railyards in Chicago just to transfer between east and west lines. Makes you wonder what it would cost to condemn some new rights of way 100 miles south to get away from the current development, and what the obsolete yards and RsOW could fetch as real estate today...
Actually, the whole point of containers is to get rid of a lot of that "ponderousness". It's not so easy to spot out east, where railroad traffic is pretty thoroughly hidden by everything else, but if you go out west, it becomes more obvious. There are lots of trains that consist of almost nothing but containers, and the box cars are in fact fast disappearing because of this. Those containers in turn go on ships, or in many cases trucks. Containers going by truck aren't obvious, but if you look careful, you can spot them; they're the ones with the funny mismatched frames under the box (typically a slightly different color). An older scheme was to just ship truck trailers. This was done with "piggy-back" flat car beds, which went through several different iterations of design. I think these are fast being replaced by containers, which work world-wide not just here, also containers can be stacked 2 high on railcars, so are doubly efficient. Trains and trucks have an additional difference: trucks are essentially in part subsidized by public monies. The road beds they run on etc. are generally funded by the public, and taxes on fuel etc don't generally the full expenses. The usual rational is because "all" of us benefit, part should be covered by the public sector. Railroads, by contrast, are usually funded privately. The roadbeds, etc., are private property, and acquiring new roadbed, especially anywhere where people already live, is nearly impossible. As a general rule, railroads, as private businesses, are expected to fund the gov't, and not the other way around. Additionally, in many areas, railroads have all sorts of complicated and bizarre rules and laws, both in relation to government, and also with unions and other interested parties. The rules and laws can make it hard for railroads to change the way they do business. For instance, many railroads would like to eliminate the fireman and just have an engineer in the cab of most locomotives -- unions especially hate this move. Sometime in the near future it ought to be possible to have fully automated freight trains, but I don't think many people are prepared to argue this would actually be safer.
Monday's All Things Considered included a story on the rail situation in Chicago. Apparently, the rail companies are willing to put up some of the money to connect the two terminuses (yeah, in Latin it would be "termini"), but the project is so expensive they want the government to put up the rest on the ground of "we all benefit."
Re #58: I tend to strictly observe the speed limits everywhere except Michigan. I know how much cops love to ticket people with out-of-state plates. Re #59: I-80 is the same way. I-75 has a mix of traffic until about 10 pm, at which point the cars disappear and the semis take over. I kind of prefer it that way. Semi drivers are, on the whole, much more predictable. Re #62: They tried it, and it's still done in some places, but it's not too common. It didn't work well because of the inefficiencies of loading trucks on rail cars -- with highway weight limits what they are, and the dimensions of semi trailers, you end up with substantially less tonnage than you'd normally put on a rail car. What's mostly replaced piggybacking is intermodal containers. The big advantage is they can be double-stacked on lines where the clearance permits it, getting a more reasonable amount of tonnage per car. (I realize as I read on through the item that this is basically what's pointed out in #64.) Another interesting application of container freight is "land bridge" operations. Containers are unloaded from a ship on one coast, put on an express freight train, then unloaded onto another ship on the other coast. The shipping company can turn around their ships faster and avoid a long, slow, expensive trip through the Panama Canal.
(Re #65: And in Italian too. The central train station in Rome is called "Termini." After a few days constantly asking strangers how to get there, the name got lodged in my head, and apparently it's still there.)
Hmmm. I've never thought of myself as "lucky" to be living in the Bosotn er, Boston area. It has, however, made me a much better driver, if only to deal with all the other assholes around here. Anyhoo, I routinely drive 10-15 mph over the speed limit, in all states. I have never been stopped, much less gotten a ticket. I do make an effort to find a "bunny" to follow--someone who's going about as fast as I want to go, who will presumably draw off a single police car that's looking to ticket. The first and only time my bunny got pulled over was outside Buffalo a few months back. California's an interesting state. I understand that the law there is such that you can get a ticket for doing anything that they deem to be interfering with the flow of traffic. Thus, you can get a ticket for going only 70 mph in a 65 zone if everyone else is trying to go 75-80. Are radar detectors legal or illegal in Michigan? Don has a Valentine One radar detector (they're legal in CA) and it's pretty impressive. Were I more worried about getting speeding tickets, I would certainly get one. It tells you what radar band it's detecting, where the signal is coming from (ahead, behind, right or left) and how many signals it's picking up. The only problem is that it also picks up some burglar alarms that use radar, so you get occasional false alarms.
Radar detectors are not illegal in michigan.
California has a pretty precise impeding traffic law -- if six or more cars are stacked up behind you, you have to pull over and let them pass. Speeding up to the point where they weren't stacked up behind you would mean you weren't impeding traffic anymore, but I've never heard of that being an excuse to get out of a speeding ticket.
Isn't Virginia the only state that bans radar detectors?
According to http://www.afn.org/~afn09444/scanlaws/radar4.html only DC and Virginia currently have laws against radar detectors. However, there are also different kinds of radar detectors, and the laser-based systems are much harder to detect in time to actually do something about your speed.
Whoops, forgot about DC, which doesn't get to make its own laws.
With modern "instant on" radar, you're hoping someone in front of you will get clocked before you do so you'll know to slow down. With laser this doesn't work, because the beam is too narrow. By the time your detector goes off, you're already in trouble.
Check out this article: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=33569
Mike, World Net Daily is hardly accurate or well-balanced, and I speak as someone who sympathizes with some of their goals.
I think I must have posted that in the wrong item, sorry folks. Re: 76 - and your standard for accurate, well-balanced reporting is what, the New York Times, maybe? :-D Re: 17 - this is precisely the result of ignoring the 85th percentile speed as the standard for setting speed limits. If you set the limit at that rate, the vast majority of people driving on the road will be comfortable with the speed. The 55mph speed limit, by cementing it in the minds of motorists that speed limits have nothing to do with reasonable, safe speeds under normal road conditions, has arguably done more to damage highway safety than to support it.
The 55 limit was implemented to save fuel. Of course, saving fuel wasn't a primary concern of most of the public.
It was kept for as long as it was because of "safety" concerns.
That came after. But it was safer - except when people disobeyed it, which became more and more frequent. I agree it wasn't enforceable once fuel became more abundant and people became richer and when laws are not enforceable it is time to consider changing them. After all, laws are made by people.
Re #77: Accurate, yes. Well-balanced, no; I have serious issues with the editorial positions and the obvious omissions in many of the stories. But that doesn't mean WND is better just because they're opposed. Re #78: Raising fuel taxes would have; people care when it hits them in the wallet. Look what cigarette taxes have done for smoking. Unfortunately pols tried to do this "painlessly", and pain (or necessity in some other form) is the only thing that gets many people to change their habits. "First you gotta get his attention."
heh. fuel economy? i realize that the 55 mph fuel-economy argument is from a previous generation, so to speak, but the idea of fuel economy being a concern in today's SUV-happy climate...well. Until I noticed it was rane posting in #78, I thought that was tongue in cheek.
Sorry - I didn't think that some would not be able to translate the expression "fuel economy".
Re #82: It may be a joke to today's average driver, but it's not a joke to most environmentalists; the president of the American Solar Energy Society has words about the subject in the latest issue of _Solar Today_. Some people are trying to do something about it; today I discovered calcars.org, which I hope to be able to peruse more thoroughly to find more food for thought.
<for the record, I am not among the SUV-happy hordes. I drive a stick shift station wagon--uncoolest of the uncool, but with great gas mileage and an amazing amount of interior space.>
(That describes my car too.)
I drive a 97 Geo Metro... i can still speed in my wonderful hawaiian themed death mobile. ./
Alas, stick-shifts are getting hard to find. Especially in wagons.
I love stick-shifts and I want my next car to be a wagon. I will find a wagon with a stick shift!
That was sort of a nice side effect of only being able to afford a fairly old car--made it easier to find a stick shift.
We have a Saturn wagon with a stick shift.
Subarus can be obtained with stick shift. I drive a Subaru Legacy wagon with stick. (Our daughter, who is at college with another Subaru wagon with stick shift found it helped in politely turning down requests to borrow her car: Q: "May I borrow your car?" A: "Sure - but it has a stick shift." R: "Oh - well, thanks anyway.....")
My parents have a Subaru manual wagon precisely because it was about all they could find with a stick shift. I think it's ridiculously uncomfortable to drive; my mother hates driving it and riding in it, and my brother agrees with both of us. Luckily we all have our own (non-Subaru) cars. Mine is a '91 Corolla wagon, which is perfect for me. I think I'm going to take it with me when I move to California--although it's likely that I will use one of my boyfriend's (stick shift but non-wagon) cars on a daily basis, it'll be useful for transporting large objects and taking the as-yet hypothetical puppy places.
Part of the reason I don't have a licence yet is because my father wanted to teach me to drive a stick, and give me his previous car, an '88 Honda Civic. But the Civic hasn't been driven in two years, since he got the car he has now, and nobody really knows if it works. Nor does anyone have time to find out, apparently.
I prefer driving sticks over automatics, but I'm just as glad to have learned to drive on an automatic first. Finguring out the mechanics of a stick shift at the same time as figuring out how not to run into things strikes me as a lot to keep track of. What part of California are you moving to, Carolyn?
re 95: Malibu. :) re 94: A car that hasn't been driven in two years will have a dead battery at the very least.
Yeah, well, as I've just received the bill for school for next year --- $4800, or about ten times what the gov't said we could be reasonably expected to pay--- it's going to be a while before it's really much of a concern :-\
also there is a good chance the breakes are shot, the calipers rusted together, and the rotore seriously rusted.
If you like driving a stick shift, you would like living / driving in the Philippines, where most of the vehicles are stick shift (standard, i.e. not automatic, transmission), and most of them use diesel fuel.
Diesel? Yuck. Might as well go live in Europe. Oh wait--I already did.
Both of my current cars are stick shifts. I do find driving a stick fun, and the simplicity and lower maintenance is good, but it's not so much of an issue that I wouldn't buy an automatic transmission car. I do think it's good to learn how to drive a stick, so you aren't limited in what you can drive later.
Oh, I forgot one benefit of owning a stick shift car: Friends never ask to borrow it.
Actually, a friend has expressed interest in the '88 Civic in my parents' garage (originally they were going to give it to me when i got a licence, but that hasn't happened yet); she refuses to even consider getting an automatic.
Re #101: I've got one automatic transmission car with over 160,000 miles on it, and I've never had to do anything to it. I've never had a manual go over 100,000 without needing a clutch.
My Honda hasn't gone that far yet, and my Vanagon's probably already had a clutch job (though I don't know for sure), so I can't comment for sure on that. But my dad put 114,000 miles on a Ford Fairmont and it still didn't need a clutch when he sold it. On the other hand, our Ford Crown Victoria's automatic transmission blew up at 90,000 miles, requiring a rebuilt transmission that was a lot more expensive than a clutch job would have been. Our Ford Club Wagon needed a similarly expensive transmission rebuild at about 100,000 miles, and it never was quite right again after that.
re 104: What do you *do* to your manual cars? We had an Aerostar minivan that took all kinds of abuse (including two kids learning stick on it) and didn't ever require a new clutch. It had 160K on it when everything else went and my parents gave up. My Corolla has 106K and no sign of trouble yet. I'm a bit prejudiced, though--I've always figured that simpler is better because there are less things that can break on you, and more to be done about it if they do.
Cars are so reliable these days that usually the body rusts out before the transmission or even the engine can wear out. At least that's the way it works here in the Midwest... in California I've seen all sorts of seemingly antique cars, some even with bare metal, and very little rust.
We had a stick-shift Aerostar as well. It was the van I learned to drive stick on, in fact. We never had to put a clutch in it, but I don't know how many miles were on it when we sold it. Driving technique can make a big difference in how long a clutch lasts. So can the type of driving you do. Stop-and-go driving, especially in hilly areas, wears out a clutch much faster. So does slipping the clutch excessively during gear changes, using the clutch to hold the car on hills, or driving with your foot resting on the clutch pedal.
Hmm, my '96 Ford Contour has its original clutch, at 145,000 miles. A heck of a lot else has been replaced, and replaced again (notably, 4 waterpumps in a one-year period). My mechanics say Contours are a pain in the ass to fix, and they insist on breaking a lot. And they don't make them anymore... But I do hope to find another manual transmission car when I'm ready to replace my poor old gal.
(Looks like I missed a response...) Come to think of it, my experience is somewhat limited. I replaced the clutch in the light-second Dodge twice, IIRC. (Never because it really needed it, but because something else was being done and it made sense.) Then again, it *was* a sports car, and turbocharged (think serious slip to take off fast, because torque didn't really start to appear until 2500+ RPM; building boost fast for a launch needed about 3000 RPM). My first VW died due to lingering mechanical damage from its first owner's abuse, and never made it to 100K miles (never needed a clutch). My Jetta is still short by over 19,000 miles, though it's still going nicely (save for a fuel pump going flaky right now). I guess I still have to see about clutch lifespans.
There *are* cars where the automatic transmission happens to be more durable, due to flaws in the design of the manual transmission, but they're relatively uncommon. One example is the VW Vanagon. The automatic is robust and can be rebuilt by almost anyone with no special tools. The manual transmission has a design flaw that causes the 3/4 slider hub to crack and break after about 100,000 miles, and requires special tools to rebuild.
You have several choices: