
Why 12-Foot Traffic Lanes Are Disastrous for Safety - mortenjorck
http://www.citylab.com/design/2014/10/why-12-foot-traffic-lanes-are-disastrous-for-safety-and-must-be-replaced-now/381117/
======
chetanahuja
I'm seeing a lot of resistance to the idea of narrower city streets on this
thread. The advantages of narrower city streets (and hence, crossings) goes
far beyond safety. It actually enhances quality of life in a significant way.
A wide, four lane highway running across your town basically says humans must
come encased inside an automobile. Pedestrians and cyclists become second
class citizens. It's a design driven for the convenience of cars and to the
detriment of humans.

Here's a far more engaging critique of car-first design by James Kunstler:
[http://youtu.be/Q1ZeXnmDZMQ](http://youtu.be/Q1ZeXnmDZMQ)

~~~
cordite
The university I went to invested in skywalks to replace many if almost all
cross walks within and on the edges of campus. It does require more energy to
go up and down sometimes, but it means everyone is safer and everything still
flows.

~~~
arthurdenture
The big problem with skywalks is that they result in the streets underneath
them being empty (of pedestrians). This has downsides:

    
    
      - Empty streets feel less safe
      - Stores get less foot traffic
      - Cars are more likely to speed when there's no one walking about
    

So they really can suck the life out of the street.

~~~
eqdw
They also, y'know, cost a ton.

You're not going to put them at every crosswalk

~~~
Retric
I doubt they actually cost all that much relative to the cost of a 40+ story
buildings.

------
lorddoig
The standard of the average academic/research paper is low enough that very
few stand on their own. This, of course, is the reason why certain media
outlets are able to make lots of money with bi-weekly, likely untrue claims
that _< insert thing here>_ "causes cancer".

This article repeats some conclusions from various research efforts of unknown
(to me) quality, most of which carry caveats, and none of which were titled
"Effects of Lane Width on Pedestrian Safety: A Quantitative View". These
_weak_ (not pejorative, just opposed to _strong_ ) statements are then used as
the base assumptions atop which a _logical_ argument is constructed - an
argument that is incomplete. The relationship between speed and mortality is
only attacked from the perspective of what happens once a collision has taken
place, for instance, but there will likely also be a relationship between
speed and the level of caution exercised by pedestrians, but no _evidence_
about this is presented.

This is a question in need of comprehensive study; the tidbits presented here
are neither strong nor complete enough to say anything absolute, much less
accuse anyone of having blood on their hands.

Personally, I think such a study would validate much of what the author feels.
But it is only my gut that says that, I'd need a study to _" know"_. As such
this comment is not meant as a criticism of the author or the thoughts in the
article, but more as a sort-of defensive reminder of what the scientific
method means.

~~~
kentonv
Another thing missing: What is the economic cost of slowing everyone down?
Clearly if people spend 50% longer commuting because they're driving 20mph
instead of 30mph, that has real consequences for both their economic output
and quality of life (commute time has a surprisingly large impact on a
person's overall happiness!). The author disregards this factor entirely.

I've seen this pattern in a number of "unintuitive and seemingly clever"
traffic engineering tricks proposed in recent years. For example, it has been
shown that removing all traffic signs can in fact improve safety -- again by
slowing everyone down.

Another similar point (mentioned in the article) is that expanding freeways
doesn't reduce congestion, because the new lanes are filled quickly. The
argument is, apparently, that we therefore should not bother expanding
freeways. The argument ignores the fact that the expanded freeway is serving
many more people, creating immense value even if the speed of traffic hasn't
improved.

(For the trolls: I personally take the train rather than drive whenever
possible.)

~~~
Ma8ee
The problem with the expanded freeways is that they create traffic. People
that previously used public transportation now take the car because it's just
faster. Then other people take that job on the other side of the city, or buy
the house further out in the suburbs because the new lanes makes driving
faster (for a while).

Of course it is good for the economy that people can commute effectively. But
by building more lanes we are choosing spread out cities dominated by highways
where no one wants to live and instead drive to work from the suburbs.

And there are alternatives. We can choose more densely populated cities where
the streets are dominated by pedestrians and people commute shorter distances
mostly by public transport. Much better for the environment, and most
importantly, better for people.

And we are making that choice whenever we chose between using the land for new
roads or using the land for new pedestrian buildings and railways.

~~~
burntsushi
> Much better for the environment, and most importantly, better for people.

Please don't put out blanket claims like this and pretend they're _obviously_
true, and then use them as justification for your particular view of how
society should structure its geography. Some people _hate_ densely populated
areas. It would be utterly detrimental to my mental health to live in one. So
if I have the choice to not live in an urban area, I'm going to take it.

I have a 45 minute commute each way every day to work. Long commutes _suck_.
Living in the city sucks _way more_.

~~~
pixl97
My friend who lives in the downtown area sent me a picture today. Someone
busted out the elevator button to the top floor (where they live of course).
In densely packed areas the ill behavior of just a few bad actors affects many
more people. Having nice things close is great, though also having more bad
thing close would take a toll on my mental health too.

------
swartkrans
This article makes me genuinely angry for burying the explanation for why 12
foot traffic lanes are dangerous beneath many paragraphs of what the author
clearly thought must have been clever banter, wasting my time. Note to
authors: put the claim and the gist at the top, then defend it with more
details. Don't burry the gist of the article with shitty and annoying writing,
making the reader scan paragraph after paragraph of bullshit to establish if
the article is worth reading in the first place. In this case, it wasn't.

~~~
dalke
Your anger should be directed to the person who linked to the site, and not to
the author.

The information you want is available at
[http://nacto.org/docs/usdg/lane_widths_on_safety_and_capacit...](http://nacto.org/docs/usdg/lane_widths_on_safety_and_capacity_petritsch.pdf)
and in exactly the format that you want. Indeed, this is the source material
for the article that you are angry about, as was cited in the text.

The author wrote the article for people who _want_ to read "shitty and
annoying writing". There's enough of that writing in the world to know that
those readers are in the majority. Those people also need convincing, don't
they?

------
capcah
I see a huge number of comments on this thread implying that carefulness is
related to the road danger. It's the perceived danger that matters. You don't
need to make the roads more dangerous, just need to make them look so.

I'm not from USA, and on the last time I visited it, I noticed how recklessly
people drive on the highways, most of them were on the phone, eating, or doing
something else(there was even a lady fixing her hair with her right hand,
talking on the cellphone with her left hand and holding the steering wheel
with her elbow, that freaked me out).

If those people behave the same driving on a street, I can see that being the
cause of the majority of accidents, since the reaction time for events will be
smaller, since most occurrences happen within a few meters of the car.

Finally, I know that this is not the focus of the article, but the USA cities
need to focus more on the people that either cannot or will not(like me)
drive. LA, LV and Miami, for instance, were pretty hellish until I finally
gave in and rented a car, with poor public transportation and pedestrian
access.

~~~
click170
I'm frequently surprised by the lack of sidewalks everywhere outside of the
downtown core of many cities. Perhaps its different in cities I haven't been
to, but compared to where I grew up in, it does seem like everywhere else is
car-first. Its not just the states or even big cities, I've lived in a small
town in Ontario that was similar.

It makes me wonder if its related to the age of the area. Newer areas seem to
have more sidewalks.

~~~
marcus_holmes
I visited San Diego (I was living in the UK at the time, and found it
impossible to get anywhere. I was routinely told that only poor people caught
the bus (and it could be dangerous), and there were no pavements anywhere to
walk on. I walked to the nearest burger place for lunch every day, a hellish
1-mile jaunt through rubbish-strewn wasteland getting beeped at every time I
tried to cross a road.

In contrast, every European and Australian city I've lived in has catered for
pedestrians and cyclists to the extent that it's at least possible to walk or
bike anywhere you need to go (even if it would take hours in these huge Aussie
cities).

I still wonder at it. How do Americans feel about living in such a shitty
environment?

~~~
praneshp
Where in San Diego were you? I am wondering if there is a place in that
beautiful city that is rubbish strewn. It's got horrible public transport
though, agreed.

~~~
marcus_holmes
It was a few years ago, so things may have changed. I was out in the suburbs a
bit, staying with a friend (who worked and therefore couldn't give me lifts
everywhere). The wasteland looked like it was eventually going to be more
suburb, but wasn't actually a building site.

I did find it weird that there were these patches of the city where just
nothing was built. British cities are incredibly compact - if it's not built
on or being built on then it's a manicured public park, usually fenced. But
Aussie cities have odd areas that are just empty, too... must be the relative
age of the cities that causes this.

------
AnthonyMouse
> as state DOTs widen highways to reduce congestion, in complete ignorance of
> all the data proving that new lanes will be clogged by the new drivers that
> they invite.

Let's see a cite to that data, because it seems ridiculous. Obviously if you
make a road less congested people may start preferring it to other, more
congested roads, but that just means the reduction in congestion is
distributed rather than concentrated, and how is that a bad thing?

The entire premise of this article is questionable. The theory is that people
will drive more carefully when the roads are more dangerous. From this the
argument is that we should make the roads more dangerous in order to make them
safer. This is obviously completely counterintuitive so they point to some
evidence that it could be true (which itself seems to imply that its veracity
lies near the statistical margin of error). The real problem is that it's a
false dichotomy. Making the roads more dangerous is not the _only_ way to make
people drive more carefully. And alternative ways of encouraging people to
drive more carefully are obviously preferable to a method that, at a given
speed and level of care, is more dangerous according to the laws of physics.

More than that, this “make the roads dangerous to make them safe” is
completely backwards when we're on the verge of commercially available self-
driving cars. A self-driving car is obviously not bound by human psychology,
so for all of those vehicles, making the roads more dangerous will only make
the roads more dangerous.

~~~
to3m
There was an article about people's tendency to soak up additional road space
posted on HN fairly recently: [http://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-
induced-demand/](http://www.wired.com/2014/06/wuwt-traffic-induced-demand/)

(You can also see something similar with internet bandwidth. Same principle, I
think.)

There's a Wikipedia article about the theory that narrower, signage-free roads
are safer on aggregate:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_space](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_space)

(I don't know/care if these are useful to you - simply a brain dump, as you
asked)

~~~
im3w1l
Imagine if you have an IT company with a server. Your server can handle 1000
concurrent users. It is running slowly because a lot of people try to access
it.

So you buy another server. Now you have 2000 users, but once again it is
starting to run slowly.

You decide to stop there. Clearly, more servers wont help. You'd just get more
and more users.

~~~
slyall
Imagine I get a grant from the local government to open a stall in the middle
of town giving away free high-quality coffees. But it has long lines.

So I open another stall next to it but the lines don't seem to get much
shorter even though I'm making twice as much coffee.

~~~
nitrogen
We all know that roads aren't free. If they weren't worth building in terms of
increased economic output, however, then city planners would stop building
them.

~~~
tadfisher
That seems reasonable on its face. The reality is that state and federal
funding hinges on city planners padding budgets and increasing capacity to
meet future growth. Meanwhile, cities and towns put themselves in hock to meet
the servicing demands of their infrastructure, requiring more state and
federal funding, requiring new projects with padded budgets and increased
capacity.

Notice that nowhere in there was a requirement that said infrastructure pays
for itself. More often than not, and especially in small towns, it doesn't.

But don't believe me, take it from a civil engineer and urban planner who has
done a lot of real research into this phenomenon:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn7aJ_Ti-
co](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn7aJ_Ti-co)

------
kenjackson
How does traffic speed increase with wider lanes, but capacity doesn't?

How many lives are saved by fire trucks, police, etc... being able to get
to/from emergencies more quickly? I feel like experimental data will be much
more useful than models to measure the impact of 10' to 12' lanes.

~~~
julespitt
When speed increases, the safe distance between cars increases as well,
therefore reducing overall throughput.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Actually, more speed also means cars spend less time on the road, so
throughput increases still. Bumper to bumper Traffic jams don't mean high
throughput. What is most important is smoothness in flow.

------
gohrt
The article has 1.2 the amount of words it needs, at least. Apropos.

Strange to use Florida as an example, with an 8-lane local road! Suburban
Florida is empty and flat very spread out and every road is basically a
highway. People need to go fast because everything is far away. Not like urban
environments where most time is spent stopped at corners, not moving.

~~~
vonmoltke
Your statement is not applicable to West Palm Beach or any other locale along
the Gold Coast. That area has some of the densest population in the US.

~~~
JoshTheGeek
Agreed. Tampa, Orlando, and the other big cities are like any others. In the
middle of the state or the Everglades, though, you can go miles without even a
turnoff.

------
nashashmi
This article completely misses the point of having wider lane path ways. Wider
lanes help increase the speeds of vehicles and studies have shown that high
speed traffic works far better than slow traffic. Just look up ramp metering
where they deliberately keep too much traffic off of highways to maintain
speed and maintain safety and maintain efficiency of roads.

The cases where narrow street widths work better are places where there is
more stop and go traffic like downtown areas where majority of the residences
are crowded with store-front development. There instead of insisting on narrow
lanes, you should insist on complete street designs that appropriately designs
for all kinds of traffic.

New urbanist movements seem to be behind this kind of lunacy of trying to
create traffic conditions more difficult for cars. In New York, this trend has
been set of by the Bloomberg administration and is labeled/marketed as traffic
calming. It is really traffic impeding and is the center piece design of urban
environments. I admit there are various benefits to it, but the underlying
motivations are to be anti-gas guzzling vehicles.

~~~
ploxiln
Your comment makes me think about this a bit differently. I live in NYC, and
end up driving through it once every couple of months. While I'm normally
sympathetic to people who hate anything that makes things easier for drivers
and worse for pedestrians, if NYC is a model for "traffic calming", it's
terrible, because I'm very angry and aggressive after 15 minutes of trying to
drive in this place. I don't want to drive often, and I don't want to
encourage more driving, but I want driving to be less difficult. Maybe make
street parking 2-hour-max everywhere so there's room for cars and trucks to
stop so they don't stop in the middle of the road, and they're forced to pay
for off-road parking overnight, etc. Or something else, I don't know. That
sounds severe, but the situation is already ridiculous.

~~~
random28345
> if NYC is a model for "traffic calming", it's terrible, because I'm very
> angry and aggressive after 15 minutes of trying to drive in this place.

"Traffic calming" is a euphemism for telling drivers to go fuck themselves. If
traffic increases to meet capacity, traffic calming is trying to reverse that.
By punishing drivers, and making it incredibly shitty to drive, traffic is
reduced.

It's a feature, not a bug.

~~~
ploxiln
I thought "traffic calming" was to reduce speed and increase safety. My point
was that, if you reduce speed all the way to zero, safety is not increased,
due to frustration. "Traffic is reduced" is not an accurate way to describe
the situation.

~~~
astral303
I'm not a traffic engineer, but if "traffic calming" is to reduce speed and
increase safety, then I have very rarely seen it work or be used that way.

Instead, it strikes me as both a tool for non-drivers that are "driver
hating", as well as those local NIMBYs/etc that don't want those "crazy
speeders" through the town ("think of the children").

Next time that folks discuss putting traffic calming bumps in your community,
ask whether you want the emergency vehicles to be slowed down when you or your
loved ones are waiting for an ambulance. Consider the extra pollution created
by all the slowing down and speeding up.

I have spoken to folks familiar with Cambridge, MA government structures,
where they have told me that it has been actively refused to re-
time/synchronize stop lights to have a green wave because they want the
traffic slowed down. New York City has real green waves (e.g. going up 1st
ave). So next time you are driving down Massachusetts Ave in the evening and
you hit random red lights for no reason, know that someone has explicitly
decided to do this to you.

~~~
Roboprog
I green wave that goes 30 MPH, instead of 45, sounds like a good idea if you
want traffic flow to be pedestrian friendly, though. Race car drivers have to
stop, until they learn to just cruise.

------
jchrisa
This article just came out last night, suggesting that road diets are great
bang for the buck when it comes to decreasing crashes.
[http://bikeportland.org/2014/10/10/less-500000-three-road-
di...](http://bikeportland.org/2014/10/10/less-500000-three-road-diets-
preventing-37-crashes-every-year-112049)

~~~
CamperBob2
At some point, people forget what the roads are for in the first place. You
can also decrease crashes by enforcing a 5 MPH speed limit, right?

------
tdurden
Seinfeld warned us of the danger of wide lanes quite a while ago :
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwinnODU0yo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwinnODU0yo)

------
phkahler
Even if I agree with most of that, I don't think keeping the road wide and
using the outside area a bike lanes will work. People are going to see a wide
road and drive fast anyway. I suspect you'd have to actually narrow the road,
not just reallocate the concrete. But TD;DR maybe that was covered and I'm
wrong.

~~~
raquo
Anecdotally, in Vancouver we have narrow lanes in the city, with many streets
having all kinds of bike lanes along their sides – both shared and separated.
It works quite well, especially the separated ones.

Narrow lanes surely do decrease average driving speed, it's damn uncomfortable
to drive fast in traffic, and staying in the lane requires more concentration.
I do miss wide Russian lanes sometimes, but the narrow ones are undeniably
safer.

~~~
mytochar
Separated bike lanes are absolutely wonderful. More of those and I would
probably ride my bike more places.

------
CodeWriter23
About 8 or 9 months ago, they reduced the 3-lane thoroughfare through my part
of town to 2-lanes with a bike lane, and narrowed the lanes to about 10 feet.
People slowed down at first, but now people go just as fast as they used to,
typically 5-10MPH over the speed limit, and some 15 MPH over (that's 50MPH).
The radar signs installed as part of the project always read 40, 42, 45 and
not just for my car.

As a cyclist, the bike lanes don't really make me feel safer. There is a good
margin of space between the bike lane and the car lane, but the bike lanes are
really only in effect for half of any given block. The second half of the
block, the line between the car/bike lanes is dotted, and cars can legally
enter the bike lane, to make right turns. And then of course, anyone parallel
parking on the street has to cross the bike lane to do so.

Making the lanes narrower did not make pedestrian crossings any safer, as the
road is actually the same width, and you still have to travel the same
distance to cross the street. What did make it safer for pedestrians, the
installation of flashing yellow warning lights at certain crosswalks, that
pedestrians can turn on before crossing the street. Motorists see them and
stop for people crossing, and that is a new and welcome effect.

The bike lanes would have been much MUCH better implemented one block south of
the main drag on a residential street that runs parallel. Much safer for
cyclists. Healthier too, not having to breath as much vehicle exhaust. And
probably a more optimal allocation of resources for the citizens. As much as
everyone wants to be PC and become friendly advocates of human-powered
transport, it really doesn't make sense in this part of town, to increase trip
times and emissions for thousands of motorists daily, so the 50 people who
choose to ride their bike can have a marginally safer lane to ride in. In
Downtown L.A., it is completely different. Downtown, the bike lanes make sense
because hundreds if not thousands of people use them. You always see a bike in
the bike lane over there. But outside of the heart of the city, many people
commute to work and carpool their kids to school and ballet and such. They're
not going to ride bikes 5 hours a day to make that kind of commute.

Oh, and where the traffic engineers failed to account for, and accommodate
heavy traffic on a couple of heavily-traveled segments of the road, motorists
now drive their cars illegally in the bike lanes during periods of congestion.

IMO the project is mostly a failure. The safer pedestrian crossings are a
great improvement. But the bike lanes such as they are, and the narrower
lanes, just a waste of money. Putting the bike lanes on a side street would
have been really great, a win-win for both cyclists and motorists.

~~~
oftenwrong
>People slowed down at first, but now people go just as fast as they used to,
typically 5-10MPH over the speed limit, and some 15 MPH over (that's 50MPH).
The radar signs installed as part of the project always read 40, 42, 45 and
not just for my car.

Radar signs that basically just say "shame on you" are worthless. Traffic
enforcement cameras ("speed cameras") that actually hand out fines would have
an actual impact. Those speeders would change their ways if they had to pay a
fine every time they drove over the limit. Preferably the fine would be scaled
based on the driver's income.

~~~
theworst
In my baseless opinion, the "shame on you" radar signs are probably pretty
effective. And definitely preferable to robot overlords handing out tickets.
And doubly less offensive than charging people more based on income. At least
here in the US, we have the concept that all citizens are treated equally in
the eyes of the law. I don't want a system that intentionally punishes
rich|poor|black|white|smart|dumb people more than any other.

~~~
oftenwrong
Charging based on the infraction _does_ punish poor people more than rich
people if you look at how significant the fine is to the person.

Person A makes $10 * 40 hours / week -> $400 / week -> $100 ticket == 25% of
weekly gross income

Person B make $100 * 40 hours / week -> $4000 / week -> $100 ticket == 2.5% of
weekly gross income

Who is being hit harder? Who will be more deterred from future speeding?

Furthermore, the "robot overlords" won't care if someone is
"rich|poor|black|white|smart|dumb". Can you say the same for a police officer?

~~~
theworst
Also, what if someone's wealth changes between the ticket and the penalty? If
they are rich when given the ticket, but lose it all, is it still fair to
charge them the higher rate?

My point is: changing from an absolute value to a relative one introduces
complexities in the system. Philosophically, the law needs to treat everyone
the same, which to me, means the penalties are the same for everyone
regardless of sex, race, income, height, weight, or any other characteristic.
This is encoded in the Constitution. I do not see how two different people,
convicted of the same crime in the same contexts, should have different
punishments. (Yes, I know it happens, but I think that's a bug, not a feature,
and wish it would be cleaned up.)

------
jff
Ah, the old "If I don't wear a helmet, I'll ride more cautiously and never get
into a wreck" argument.

~~~
megablast
There is an argument that car drivers are more careful when they see cyclists
not wearing helmets.

And also the overall health benefits are better, when you consider that more
people will ride without helmet rules.

Only Australia has this requirement.

~~~
jff
Crap, I was talking about motorcyclists, but didn't specify it in my post.
This is literally an argument I have heard from other riders.

------
slashnull
Please god of good urban planning give the force to Street Art the tagline
"BUILD NARROW STREETS" everywhere

------
zenciadam
If you're really interested in the subject and want to read more without
dealing with the wanky blogger writing style check out "Traffic: Why We Drive
the Way We Do" ([http://www.amazon.com/Traffic-Drive-What-Says-
About/dp/03072...](http://www.amazon.com/Traffic-Drive-What-Says-
About/dp/0307277194/)).

------
jdipierro
I just rolled out a measuring tape to 12 feet and I'm quite certain my local
traffic lanes are nowhere near there..

~~~
Zigurd
Did you know that two basketballs fit, side by side, through a basketball
hoop? Eyeballing things like this is almost never close to right.

~~~
SkyAtWork
You can probably cram them through since they are flexible, but they wouldn't
fit without some force; a regulation rim is 18 inches inside diameter and a
basketball 9.5 inches diameter.

~~~
Zigurd
Good catch. I saw this demonstrated in grade school, where they were probably
using size 6 balls. Nevertheless, most people think it's not even close.

------
robomartin
Blah.

I remember when the speed limit was raised from 55 to 65. Politicians paraded
all kinds of studies from engineers, PhD's and mothers crying on TV. The claim
was that blood would run down our streets and highways. The effects of making
this change, the "experts" and politicians said, would be cataclysmic.

What happened in reality?

Nothing of the sort. Actually, some of the opposite. Accident and fatality
rates went down.

So I call hogwash. Maybe this guy has some sort of bias, financial or
political interest in this idea. Maybe it is about hiring a million new union
workers across the nation to repaint all of our streets and buy votes for the
democratic party in 2016. Maybe it is about giving a few huge corporations
juicy contracts to try to buy financial support and votes for republicans.

I don't know. My life is about science and data. So, yes, I do value honest
studies with solid data and conclusions. I also know that you can't take a
sentence or two our of a study and quote it completely out of context to
support your case. When put into context the reality of the study could be
very different and the conclusions could be really flawed.

Ask almost anyone who drove pre-65mph how they feel about the change to 65. I
would be surprised if anyone said it got worst. It's a lot more relaxed. You
don't have to be constantly focused on the darn speedometer or become a human
highway patrol detector.

In fact, I think the speed limit ought to be raised to 80mph. People are not
suicidal. They'll drive at whatever speed is safe and comfortable for them. On
average, today, that seems to be somewhere around 75 to 80mph, except when CHP
gets on the road and everything slows down causing traffic backups, etc.

If we are really that concerned that blood will run down streets it is a
relatively simple technological matter to legislate that no automobile sold in
the US can go faster than, say, 70mph. An automatic speed limiting system
could also be put into place to limit speeds everywhere in real time. A low
power emitter in every traffic signal in the nation could tell cars what the
max speed limit might be and the software in the car keeps you from exceeding
it. Done deal.

If the issue is so serious let's just do that. I'd rather have cops devote
their time to chasing bad guys than hiding behind a fence to give dumb traffic
tickets to all the mommies taking their kids to school during the first week
of class (happens almost every year here).

~~~
robomartin
I love how HN continues to prove to be a place where only cargo cult mentality
is rewarded. Anything outside of that is mercilessly down-voted by the 22 year
olds that permeate this mono-cultural society.

It's OK, it's just funny. You still have a few years of reality before you
actually get out of the cave and stop seeing the world through shadows on the
walls, some of which were painted by your professors in college.

Tolerance is something most people love to talk about just to sound "right"
and fit in. In practice intolerance and prejudice are far more common with
people who preach it --and behave otherwise-- than in those who do not but
rather choose to simply practice it.

Just the way it is.

On HN you can't have a viewpoint significantly opposite that of the underlying
HN culture. You just can't.

~~~
UrMomReadsHN
HN is generally more pro automobile so your stance is not "controversial" by
the ethos here. I believe posts are getting downvoted because they are
needlessly attacking. Your logical flaws don't help either.

~~~
robomartin
Well, let's just say I disagree with you. There are no logical issues with my
original comment about how a lot of these "the sky is falling" articles are
nonsense supported nonsense often in support of underlying political motives.
Can't say that's never happened before.

On the attack aspect. Look, HN is characterized by some really dumb back and
forth discussions full of senseless nit-picking. I call these "programmer
arguments" because it is often impossible to argue with some programmers
because they are really good about arguing endlessly about utterly irrelevant
minutiae. Like the comments in this thread that got into the idea that there's
an argument to be made about drivers being more careful when they see bikers
not wearing helmets. And the nonsense back and forth continues.

So yeah, I have grown quite intolerant to nonsense over the last five years or
so. I've been really busy and have not read HN in a while. I just came back
and see a bunch of the same thing and this intolerant cargo cult.

HN is at it's best when the discussions are contained to technology, startups,
software or hardware development and related topics. There's a lot of
expertise and value here when it comes to these topics.

The minute HN discussions deviate from that world it all derails. I have this
vision -right or wrong- of a bunch of real-life ignorant 22 year olds
brainwashed by their college professors desperately trying to play adult with
their comments here. I'd be funny if it wasn't so stupid. They have little
life experience yet have categorical opinions about everything and are
incredibly intolerant of anything outside this cargo cult mentality.

Progress isn't made by those who swim with the current. You have to be willing
to swim hard against it if you want to change the world, or at least your
little corner of it. Going against the flow is not easy, as evidenced here. It
would be called bullying in the real world. Or at least bigoted intolerant
behavior.

Here's the good part: Despite what is said or done here, reality is as it is.
And this they will eventually learn the hard way on the street, not here. I
remember having a conversation about taxation with a 22 year old engineer who
worked for me at one of my companies 15 years ago. He had swallowed-up the
liberal coolaid whole. Nothing I could say could convince him he was wrong.
Ten years later he called me up one day to thank me for what he learned from
me (mostly in terms of engineering). He also mentioned he now understood the
issues I used to point out regarding taxation. Why? Because he launched his
own business and got the experience of now having to hold that cat by the
tail.

HN is broken. Keep it to science, tech and startups and all is well.
Everything else derails into nonsense kiddie bickering almost instantly.

~~~
DanBC
"My life is about science" \- but you refuse to post a link to any science.

That, and weirdly aggressive tone, is why you're being downvoted.

Just asking but do you _honestly_ not know that?

~~~
robomartin
Honestly know what?

I am not refusing to post anything. I plant a seed. I know the answer. Anyone
can google it just as well as I might be able to. Why does everything have to
be spoon fed?

So someone finally was interested enough to research my claims and post a
link. Here it is:

[http://www.motorists.org/speed-limits/55-mph-
study.pdf](http://www.motorists.org/speed-limits/55-mph-study.pdf)

The article starts with this:

"In 1995 the Republican Congress repealed the 55-mile-per-hour federal speed
limit law. At the time, the highway safety lobby and consumer advocacy groups
made apocalyptic pre- dictions about 6,400 increased deaths and a million
additional injuries if posted speed limits were raised. Ralph Nader even said
that “history will never forgive Congress for this assault on the sanctity of
human life.”

"...a million additional injuries..."

All bullshit as 20 years of history has proven.

So why the tone? Because this HN trait infuriates me.

Someone posts a factually accurate viewpoint that goes against the "HN
culture" and they are mercilessly attacked here. It's bullying at it's best.
The difference is that while most people just crumble and leave, I don't. And
I am not shy about calling bullshit when I see it.

As to my choice to be short and to the point and even use colorful language.
Well, I'd much rather listen to a man who presents facts with straight, even
sometimes abrasive, speech out of the need to make an impression than waste
any time listening to well-crafted, intellectually brilliant sounding, well
articulated, refined, non-colorful, non-offensive language that is full of
lies and manipulations...you know, like politicians or those on HN who take
the time to write great sounding posts with lot's of links and research that,
when you get right down to it, are hardly worth a handful of manure.

So there, someone, not me, was smart and inquisitive enough to ask: I wonder
if this guy might have a point? And he or she posted a link to a pretty good
PDF.

It echos exactly what I said: politicians, misinformed activists and even
government agencies painted apocalyptic i ages of what would happen if the
speed limit was raised. It was all nonsense. The exact opposite happened. And
that is likely the case with this dumb 12 foot vs. 10 foot lane issue.

Of course, none of the HN down-vote kiddies are going to read this and say
"Wow, this guy was right!", apologize and learn something.

No, instead they'll find some other justification for their hatred-driven down
vote assault and move on to he next guy who dares to stand up for a truth that
happens to go counter tho what makes HN kiddies feel good about themselves.

People, grow up.

------
wozniacki
Apples to apples, this does not really apply to SF or even most of the Bay
Area.

Perhaps all of Texas, Arizona or NM.

Not here.

I hope some smart Alec SF supe does not get any ideas, reading this.

The bulb-outs at the intersections [1], the rules-dont-apply-to-us cyclists
[2], the abundance of parklets and dedicated Muni lanes are already making
driving in SF a hugely cumbersome affair. If it isn't already, with its 20%+
grade roads [3].

From my experience living in SF, drivers here are not the most skilled as it
is. This will only worsen things.

If Mr. Wiener catches wind of this, I'm certain he will call for miniature
lanes, like when he called for miniature firetrucks, when firefighters
expressed concern over the width of streets. [4]

[1] [http://sf.streetsblog.org/2014/07/03/bulb-outs-noe-
valleys-g...](http://sf.streetsblog.org/2014/07/03/bulb-outs-noe-valleys-
getting-them-outer-balboas-got-them/)

[2] [http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Bicyclist-sentenced-
for-...](http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Bicyclist-sentenced-for-fatal-S-
F-crash-4736312.php)

[3] [http://www.datapointed.net/2009/11/the-steeps-of-san-
francis...](http://www.datapointed.net/2009/11/the-steeps-of-san-francisco/)

[4] [http://sf.streetsblog.org/2014/05/09/monday-speak-out-on-
sff...](http://sf.streetsblog.org/2014/05/09/monday-speak-out-on-sffds-push-
for-wider-streets-at-city-hall/)

~~~
to3m
I've already read that story about that cyclist who killed a man. Do you have
2 different ones?

~~~
wozniacki
Here's a TV news report on the incident:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EQA_Cm8SKw](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EQA_Cm8SKw)

~~~
to3m
Thanks! This appears to be the same guy though.

~~~
wozniacki
_Geez! Have you noticed the downvote parade? Have I said something mildly
offensive to the sensibilities of the Critical Mass militia?_

