Re: Cars, speed and entitlement

In article <1194579062.430020.150930@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, PaulB wrote:
On Nov 8, 10:03 pm, tetraethylleadREMOVET...@xxxxxxxxx (Brent P)
wrote:


And yet you appear to propose driving a 55mph speed limit in a
75-85mph
flow?

No, i am for photo radar and criminalizing multiple or excessive
speeding regardless of crash or not It is a public health/safety
issue.

Clearly you don't understand the issue and just want to force people to
drive a speed you like. Setting speed limits below the 85th percentile
method is safety negative. The more standard devations one drives below
the flow speed the more at risk of a crash he is at. The speed limit has
little effect on the 85th percentile speed of a road.

The world is full of dangerous drivers. They should all have their
licenses suspended for life.

And they are dangerous for everything *BUT* speed. If they just drove
fast, then they would never be a danger. The stupidity comes from things
they can do at any speed that are dangerous at any speed.

This is true, but would you rather have a guy talking on a cellphone
hit you at 30mph or 100 ?

I'd rather have him not hit me. Your speed limit sign will not change his
speed and set the way you propose, a number pulled out of your ass,
actually INCREASES the chance he will hit me.

congestion taxes,

Demonstrated failure where it has been tried from what I've read.

One man's failure is another man's utopia.

Well for someone who just wants to punish people for driving. But those
people are control freaks IMO.

higher gas taxes,

Why? Roads are being paid for in tolls. You're sounding like an
anti-driving advocate.

No, i am someone who wishes for true cost pricing of economic
externalities. I recognize global warming, and especially coming peak
oil.

Peak oil is a fraud. The amount of oil available on the market is
directly related to the bandwidth of production. The world is awash in
oil, just that the greatest amounts of it require more infastructure to
use. Yet, even in these days of high oil prices when it would be vastly
profitable, there is little investment in it. This tells me that there
isn't even an issue with the jed-shotgun crude. It tells me that people
are affraid the moment they were about to turn on the equipment to use
the heavier oil, those with the jed-shotgun-crude like the saudi's would
open the valves driving down the price of oil and put them out of
business.

If we were really running out of oil the investment would be there. Plus
look at oil company annual reports. While they push 'peak oil' to the
people to get us to accept higher prices (really it's the falling dollar
as of late) their annual reports show they are more than replacing the
reserves they use.

lower speed limits,

Safety negative. See 85th percentile method.

Not if strictly enforced, which was really the main point of the
article. The article was about selfishness and entitlement over public
good, not about speeding. Speeding and this crash was used as one
example of society's car dependent ills.

The premise is false. Low speed limits do not create safety. Police state
enforcement does not create safety. Proper engineering creates safety.
Proper driving not related to speed creates safety. Ever drive the
Autobahn in Germany? Safest driving I ever did.... all of it in excess of
90mph.

massive reinvestment in public transit,

Government is poor at allocation of resources. This would be no
different. Bridge to nowhere. More transit few if any will be able to
use.

Total ideological generalization. Studies show that cities with better
public transit attract more investment, and get a better return on
spending on public transit than they do on widening roads for ever
increasing automobiles.

The government doesn't know how to decide what transit to build. there
are many failures of the build-transit-and-investment-will come model.
Trains to nowhere.

dedicated cyclist lanes,

Bad idea. I've been over it many times. And yes, I am bicyclist.
Vehicular bicyclists do not particularly like being stuck in bicycle
ghettos.

The way people drive around here in the exurbs, i would kill for wide
bicycle lanes. Now, have to ride on sidewalks, which are for
pedestrians. Damned if you do, etc...

Sidewalk riding is very dangerous. Bike lanes address hit-from-behind
which is rare compared to ride outs and intersection related crashes.
Bike lanes complicate intersections and make them less safe.

land value taxes to replace
property taxes on buildings,

Same THING! Both are property taxes.

LVT land value taxes tax the land at a given value, giving incentive
to developer to build more units of residential or commercial or
industrial space on the land, thus increasing density
thus increasing density,

The developer doesn't give a shit about property taxes after he's done.
It's not his problem, it's the buyers'. Property tax is one of the most
absurd forms of taxation. It effectively means the government owns all
property so taxed.

Ahh now your true motives are clear. You're just anti-car and want to
push a social agenda.

How is wanting to push a social agenda being anti-car. I have been
driving for 25 years, and happily so, but i have my preferences as you
do. We all have agendas in the larger sense don't we ?

I don't try to engineer society. I'm not a control freak. I want a live
and let live government out of our lives policy. You like many others
want to use the government as a weapon to force people to live in a
manner you approve of.

photo radar on all roads, stopping sprawl, etc...
I have a dream !!!!

A control freak's dream.

I don't see how that is more control than what we have now,

The status-quo isn't good either. We got here due to control freaks. But
your incrementalism is noted.

we have
property developers and zoning and road construction lobbying being
pursued for car dependence and dominance. That is a car lover's
control wet dream now.

Car lover's dream? Hardly. Everything is so highly regulated I can't even
park a car in my driveway without the government's thugs inserting
themselves into my life. How a perfectly normal looking car that doesn't
leave my driveway is a problem to anyone I don't know, but because it's a
car somehow the government feels the need to insert themselves. I have a
couple garbage cans that stay out there too and never make it to the curb
but the government doesn't bother me about them.

All I advocate is a more balance, social
equity, less pollution, less congestion, and more public safety, and
especially more personal responsibility to be safe on the roads.

In other words control and theft. You will tell people how to live and
take from some to give to others.

Next time a vote comes up on photo radar on roads and highways, or on
widening roads vs better public transit, ask yourself isn't it just a
societal choice of individuals ?

I don't think you understand. It's a scam. Another statist scam played on
a weak minded and ignorant population.
http://www.thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/2007/road-eyes.asp

Car companies bought out electric rail lines in cities in early 20th
century. Created a near monopoly on transportation. Highways were
massively subsidized and paid for by government (you know, the ones
who are so bad at allocating resources ? LOL

What about the street car lines that died because their agreements with
the government required them to maintain the roads? The real history
doesn't fit entirely in the Rodger Rabbit model.

Wars have been fought throughout the 20th century over a finite
resource, and now the Middle East is coming back to bite us in the
ass. You know CIA coups, covert actions, backing oppressive royal
families, dictators, establishing artificial borders and countries,
etc...

That was for the profit of insiders. The government does it with
everything. But what is your statist solution? more government control
over the economy and our lives. Yet we are supposed to believe this time
they won't do evil things to line their pockets and the pockets of their
friends.... sure not in your control freakism... no, not this time,
right? Problem is this time won't be any different than last time.

You're right, government has been horrible at allocating
resources to car dominance.

And yet you're too affraid to embrace the real solution which is that of
an actual free market. (what the TV tells you is a free market isn't,
what history class told you was the evils of a free market wasn't a free
market either)


.

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