Speaking of death traps, the infamous Chunnel (only a matter of time before terrorists strike that high-profile target), you'll not get me to regualarly rely on high-speed trains, I'd rather fly and take my chances there.
Terrorists won't be hitting the Chunnel or any other high-speed train anytime soon. They just don't make good targets. Put a bomb on a train and at best you'll kill a few dozen people in whatever car the bomb is in. You won't derail the train or cause a major accident because the car body will contain the explosion of any bomb small enough to pass security. You can't use the train to knock down a skyscraper. You can't even really hijack one in the strict sense. Try to take control of one, and the system operators will just cut the track power so you're going nowhere. Try to pass a red signal to cause a collision and the emergency brake trips. Not a very attractive target to cause havoc, movies likes
The Taking of Pelham 123 notwithstanding. Planes still make much more attractive targets. It doesn't take a very powerful bomb to bring down a plane. Someone getting a few stinger missiles can have a lot of fun near a major airport, with often five or six easy targets in the air at a time.
1.6 Bil $$$ restoration, well that did not cost much did it, and not a single mile/kilo of extra capacity or rail routes was added for all that money? Public Trans must Suxx in Europe, almost as much as it does in lala land.
Blame the politicians for that. It's high-profile spending no different than what Donald Trump does. If I were in charge the stations would barely be kept in repair to safely move passenger while most of the money would go into improvements to get people from point A to point B faster. They wouldn't care about the relative disrepair of the station as they wouldn't be there very long.
Less populated rural areas/western states have 70-75mph limits on similar roads. But I think dd will only be driving at those slightly higher than posted limits for passing, when he's in his 60's or 70's...assuming he doesn't die 1st. Until then, the added 'safety' capability of acceleration will more than likely be abused by constant 100mph trips w/120-150mph passing, just like so many others do.
I've never ridden with dd so I can't make the blanket assumption like you that what he's doing is unsafe. Remember that most speed limits these days are
legislated, not set at the 95th percentile rounded up to the nearest 5 mph as in the old days, so you can't automatically assume that anyone driving over the limit is doing something dangerous. Using the old method of setting limits, when someone was breaking the limit by even 1 mph, that meant they were going faster than at least 95% of the other drivers. In all likelihood they probably were statistically less safe. At 10 mph over they certainly were.
Anyway, I'll be more than happy to give up my fantasies about public transit once I can legally travel in a car at the same 200 mph speed as the fastest trains now do, and at the same level of safety. When will that happen? Given the "speed kills" attitude of the legislators plus the resistance to automate cars, can we say never? So we're stuck with cars artificially limited to maybe 70 mph because of "safe think". To me that makes them just about useless. Sheesh, steam trains were going that speed around
1880. With a bit more research, we'll have human-powered vehicles which can cruise at close to those speeds. Even though those cost $$$$ compared to a regular bike, they still cost less than a car, don't require a license or insurance, don't need gas, and give you exercise to boot. Since in all likelihood I'd just be interested in moving myself on a long trip, plus not more than 20 or so pounds of luggage, they're all I need, and they wouldn't have much speed penalty over a car. Yeah, I'll still take high-speed trains over HPVs because of the added comfort/speed, but we'll probably never have those in the US, either, for reasons I mentioned a few times.
ddrueding said:
used the cruise control at 10+ for the entire drive home last night (11PM). And my 45-50 minute commute took nearly 90 minutes. Madness.
So that's 40 minutes added each way to your commute, about 6.5 hours for a regular 5-day work week. At a conservative $40/hour based on what you bill customers at these inane speed laws are costing you about $13.5K per year. Maybe you should bill whoever sets these rules for your time. I remember reading that the national 55 mph limit cost hundreds of billions in lost productivity before it was lifted. It didn't even save energy or lives, either. The police chases to pull over "speeders" cost more lives than were saved by the slightly greater survivability of crashes (limited-access highway crashes are exceedingly rare anyway, not a major cause of death compared to crashes on two-lane roads). Because the lower speeds used somewhat less gas, at least the rare times they could actually be enforced, inefficient cars continued to used. Had we just let speed limits evolve with autos, we would have had cars which were much more efficient at 100 mph, and also at lower speeds as a consequence. And I doubt the SUV craze would have ever happened. Those things would just burn too much gas to make sense at 100 mph, even when it only cost $1 a gallon. Their stability at those speeds leaves something to be desired as well.
)-I wonder if I'm capable of actually feeling cold any more. I just came back from a 45 minute ride wearing just a sweater and windbreaker. It was 40°F. Normally I'd come home at least a little chilly. I was actually sweating like a pig. I think there's still some residual heat in my body both from summer and the record hot October.
