What is the fastest you've been on a motorcycle or car?

Riding a bike in today's traffic sure takes effort.

It also takes a large percentage of the fun away, but there's still enough left for me.

What it also does, is make you extremely "situationally aware" which benefits not only riding, but driving in general, and even transcends to other areas of life.
 
krautmaster said:
Since NM made smoking pot legal the traffic has gotten way worse, especially not stopping, just blatantly ignoring stop signs and running red lights. It is common for 4-5 cars cruising right on through on a red light (mainly left turn arrows), but I've seen 10-12 running the light at certain busy intersections on Coors Blvd...seems as they are all just blindly following the car in front of them.
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Several years back our small town City Management hired a consulting firm to review traffic flow and recommend a plan to "improve traffic safety". Bear in mind we're talking ~3200 population.

To make a long story short, the output was the City went nuts installing stop signs all around town. I don't mean a few more here and there, I mean like a stop sign at nearly every other corner on the side streets. For example, the route I normally take to work previously had 5 stops but went to 12 before I got to the highway.

What happened? Not better traffic (not like anyone but the City/consultant thought there was problem in the first place) but worse with the uncertainty introduced because lots of people just started ignoring the signs.

The City finally came to their senses and many of the new signs ultimately were removed, but blowing stop signs behavior largely still remains.

Far as running red lights re. turn lane, frankly, I can see why people do it without reason of drugs. In some places the traffic light patterns are such that you wait "forever" to turn and the light is so short people are just fed up with the long waiting for another round. Maybe more frequent reassessment of light timing would help some, or not.
 
Getting traffic stuff done seems like an exercise in frustration. Near me there is a very goofy intersection of 4 roads. One is a short dead end and it has a stop, thats easy. The other 3 have no stops, and only one has a yield sign. Its not real clear who has right of way for any given direction of travel. This was brought up at a town meeting, basically asking if we could get a stop or a yield or something planted there so people didn't just stop and look at each other waiting for someone to make a move.

The process they explained involved a very expensive traffic study, and input from the county since two of the roads are theirs and two are township. The whole thing ended in a collective "nevermind" so it sits there un-marked basically waiting for someone to have an accident because nobody knows who is meant to yield to who. Mind you this is in a town of about 1000, and the road in question is a 35 mph 2 lane. There isn't all that much traffic to study.
 
Part of the problem in NYC is that some of those people who run the red lights (and even yellow ones) inevitably end up getting stuck—blocking the box and traffic. This starts the horns blowing. The HORNS. Endless horns at rush hour. Ever since the onslaught of smartphones (and distracted drivers looking down at their phones long after the light has turned green), the horns have increased considerably. Funny. NYC used to be relatively quiet.
 
gadget73 said:
...so people didn't just stop and look at each other waiting for someone to make a move.
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Gettin off track now, but...

This branches off into the pet peeve category for me. IMO, if people could just follow the generally established rules of the road like for Right of Way, rather than trying to be Mr./Mrs. Nice, I think it would go smoother over all.
 
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enricosonic said:
Tailgating is possibly my biggest pet peeve when driving. (Not turning right on red is close). I understand that some tailgaters are mindlessly doing so… others not so much. I’ve seen innocuous women (maybe men too, though I’ve not seen this) be less than a car length behind the car in front of them, on the highway, no less.

Then, that car in front changes lanes/exits and the tailgater speeds up and tailgates the next vehicle they encounter. It’s almost as if they need to be governed by the vehicle in front of them or they’d just peg the speedo.

We’ve all been in the left “passing” lane behind someone going 55 or less, even then I can’t tailgate. I may pass in anger though.
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You're not the guy who starts to come unhinged, starts honking even though there is a big sign between the overhead red arrows pointing right that says "NO RIGHT ON RED" are you? THAT really grinds my gears!
 
As a passenger, 140mph in a Ford Scorpio Ultima Cosworth. Night time on straight, empty road.

Many years ago my father 'upgraded' from a little 1.3 Honda to the (at the time) brand new Ford Mondeo. We were driving at night down country roads and I noticed the speedo was hitting 100mph. I'd never know my father drive faster than 85mph so I mentioned to him that he was doing a ton up. He right away slowed right down and confessed he hadn't noticed. He thought he was doing about 60.
 
YY1 said:
Riding a bike in today's traffic sure takes effort.

It also takes a large percentage of the fun away, but there's still enough left for me.

What it also does, is make you extremely "situationally aware" which benefits not only riding, but driving in general, and even transcends to other areas of life.
Click to expand...

Years ago a guy I knew explained that his personal philosophy while riding his motorcycle in traffic was to ride as if he were invisible and had no brakes. I liked it when I heard it and adopted that approach.
 
whoaru99 said:
Several years back our small town City Management hired a consulting firm to review traffic flow and recommend a plan to "improve traffic safety". Bear in mind we're talking ~3200 population.

To make a long story short, the output was the City went nuts installing stop signs all around town. I don't mean a few more here and there, I mean like a stop sign at nearly every other corner on the side streets. For example, the route I normally take to work previously had 5 stops but went to 12 before I got to the highway.

What happened? Not better traffic (not like anyone but the City/consultant thought there was problem in the first place) but worse with the uncertainty introduced because lots of people just started ignoring the signs.

The City finally came to their senses and many of the new signs ultimately were removed, but blowing stop signs behavior largely still remains.

Far as running red lights re. turn lane, frankly, I can see why people do it without reason of drugs. In some places the traffic light patterns are such that you wait "forever" to turn and the light is so short people are just fed up with the long waiting for another round. Maybe more frequent reassessment of light timing would help some, or not.
Click to expand...

In my old area the powers that be decided to put roundabouts a.k.a. traffic circles all over in an attempt to alleviate traffic.

Those things work fine when traffic is light but are absolute nightmares when traffic gets heavy. It is particularly bad at rush hour when the traffic is predominantly from one direction and no one is letting anyone enter the roundabout. Traffic lights actually work better in these situations.
 
krautmaster said:
San Diego was a real wakeup...those bastages are insane behind the wheel... next time I have to go I'll fly in and take ubers everywhere, I'm not going to try to drive there again.
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San Diego is tame compared to the infamous South Bay Curve of the 405 freeway. I commuted from north Orange county to El Segundo (LAX) for way too many years on that stretch of road.
 
whoaru99 said:
Several years back our small town City Management hired a consulting firm to review traffic flow and recommend a plan to "improve traffic safety". Bear in mind we're talking ~3200 population.
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My high school had a population of 3200, and that was over 50 years ago.
 
krautmaster said:
I drive in what I call my "Box" and no one is allowed in my box: I speed up/slow down/or change lanes, whatever it takes to get them out of my box, which is generally four car lengths in front, four behind behind, and nobody to my left or right.
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EXACTLY!!!
 
enricosonic said:
Tailgating is possibly my biggest pet peeve when driving. (Not turning right on red is close). I understand that some tailgaters are mindlessly doing so… others not so much. I’ve seen innocuous women (maybe men too, though I’ve not seen this) be less than a car length behind the car in front of them, on the highway, no less.

Then, that car in front changes lanes/exits and the tailgater speeds up and tailgates the next vehicle they encounter. It’s almost as if they need to be governed by the vehicle in front of them or they’d just peg the speedo.

We’ve all been in the left “passing” lane behind someone going 55 or less, even then I can’t tailgate. I may pass in anger though.
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I put on my hazard lights, and let up on my accelerator. That works nearly 99% of the time.
 
RVT1K said:
In my old area the powers that be decided to put roundabouts a.k.a. traffic circles all over in an attempt to alleviate traffic.

Those things work fine when traffic is light but are absolute nightmares when traffic gets heavy. It is particularly bad at rush hour when the traffic is predominantly from one direction and no one is letting anyone enter the roundabout. Traffic lights actually work better in these situations.
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Here we have roundabouts with traffic lights.

There is the 'Magic Roundabout' in Swindon (yes, that is it's official name):

en.wikipedia.org

Magic Roundabout (Swindon) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

''In 2009, it was voted the fourth-scariest junction in Britain''

However,

''...the roundabout provides a better throughput of traffic than other designs and has an excellent safety record, since traffic moves too slowly to do serious damage in the event of a collision''



There are also 'Magic Roundabouts' in Colchester and Hemel.
 
Mart Mccall said:
Here we have roundabouts with traffic lights.

There is the 'Magic Roundabout' in Swindon (yes, that is it's official name):

en.wikipedia.org

Magic Roundabout (Swindon) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

''In 2009, it was voted the fourth-scariest junction in Britain''

However,

''...the roundabout provides a better throughput of traffic than other designs and has an excellent safety record, since traffic moves too slowly to do serious damage in the event of a collision''



There are also 'Magic Roundabouts' in Colchester and Hemel.
Click to expand...
That magic thing looks like it obstructs the flow of the 'larger' roundabout at five points.
 
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