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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   19557 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025

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A friend of mine, who is a retired engineer from PennDOT, said of speed limits that "they aren't suggestions; they're requirements".

As a civil engineer: LOL.

  • If a road has a posted speed of X mi/h (Y km/h), its actual design speed on which the civil engineers base all their designs is (X + 5) mi/h ((Y + 10) km/h).

  • When a civil engineer designs a curve, he can't make the curve too tight, because the "side friction factor" between the pavement and a car's tires will be too small to provide the required centripetal force, resulting in skidding and loss of control. But the side friction factor that's used in design is based on poor weather conditions—ice, rain, et cetera. I don't have the AASHTO Policy on Design in front of me at the moment for the exact numbers, but friction obviously is a lot higher on a dry road than on a wet road, and therefore you can go a lot faster quite safely.

  • A hill, or a roadside forest on a curve, may block your view of an upcoming intersection or crosswalk. You probably learned in your high-school driving class that your "stopping sight distance" increases with the square of speed, so you do want to slow down at these locations. But these claustrophobia-inducing segments don't really have anything to do with your speed on segments of the road that have good visibility.

  • Obviously, at high speeds it's harder to keep your car going where you want it to go. I personally don't feel comfortable driving faster than 75 mi/h (120 km/h), or 80 mi/h (130 km/h) if I'm in the left lane of a three-lane freeway and there's somebody right behind me. But I don't bear much ill will toward people who flash past me at 90 mi/h (145 km/h) in the left lane when I'm in the middle lane (of three).

And if you can tell me where exactly in the Pennsylvania Vehicle Code it says that the posted limits are only suggestions and motorists are free to drive whatever speed they want provided it lies within the engineering design speed then I'd say you have a point. But you seem to have missed mine. I'm not arguing that we should ticket everyone who takes five or ten miles per hour, just that those people can't turn around and complain when a cyclist does something that's technically illegal but otherwise makes sense and isn't particularly unsafe.

I mean it's worth considering that there are times and places where going the speed limit is just unsafe. In much of the NE (so Philly more than Pittsburgh) you see highway speeds that are set at 50 or 55 but are "safe" at 70+. This means the average person (traffic permitting) is going 65-75. If you try and go the speed limit you are at high risk of causing an accident by causing too much delta.

Most people will choose safety and convenience (especially when they go together) over abstractly following the law.

I'm arguing not that we should ticket everyone who takes five or ten miles per hour, but just that those people can't turn around and complain when a cyclist does something that's technically illegal but otherwise makes sense and isn't particularly unsafe.

I think the commenters in this thread generally are complaining about cyclist behavior that doesn't make sense and is particularly unsafe. Most pertinently, the comment to which you replied stated:

There is an obvious problem with some bicyclists thinking that stop signs, red lights, and all other forms of traffic control don't apply to them [presumably even when the street is carrying non-negligible motorized traffic].

This morning I [presumably a motorist on a street with non-negligible motorized traffic] saw a bicyclist veer into the street even though there was a dedicated empty bike lane and an empty sidewalk.

(I personally do 95 percent of my driving on the freeway, so I almost never encounter bicyclists, and I don't have an opinion on whether the other commenters' observations are valid.)

For the red lights and stop signs the argument is that these are not unsafe behaviors for the most part, on par with going 20km/hr over. It's explicitly legal in some jurisdictions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idaho_stop

And a cyclist taking the lane isn't even illegal! (In most places) He probably did that because it was safer at the time.

And a cyclist taking the lane isn't even illegal! (In most places)

In most cases, the law requires the cyclist ride as far to the right as practicable. I realize that there's a twisted cyclist-advocate logic that claims this allows taking the lane in pretty much any circumstance (e.g. if the cyclist feels it would be unsafe to pass them), but I don't buy it. I ride somewhat to the left of any debris and only take the lane in rare circumstance. Most often when traffic has slowed to the point that I'm keeping up, to avoid a car riding alongside. And I move back over when traffic speeds up again.

I think my caveat of "most places" was probably not strong enough. I'm many places you're correct, especially in bike-unfriendly areas.

But where I am at least the combination of "where practicable", minimum 1m passing distance, and lane widths means that it's virtually always legal to take the lane, as it's too narrow for a car to safely pass within it.

Drivers... Hate this, and tend to show little respect to cyclists asserting their right to the space, completely legally in the right.

I also try to avoid routes that require it, but unashamedly do so on sections where when the risk of a car clipping me in a narrow lane is too great.

But where I am at least the combination of "where practicable", minimum 1m passing distance, and lane widths means that it's virtually always legal to take the lane, as it's too narrow for a car to safely pass within it.

The ability of cars to pass legally does not affect the practicability of riding to the right. That's the cyclist-advocate logic I'm referring to.

This isn't "twisted" logic. If the lane is too narrow to pass legally in, then cars have to merge to the other lane (or wait) anyways. Riding in the centre makes the cyclist more visible, and ends up being safer, while not disrupting traffic more than they otherwise would by being on the right. My region has official safe riding guides explicitly endorsing this.

If there is a large shoulder or bike lane, then yes, they should ride there. But drivers often are unaware, or uncaring of hazards that may not be visible to them on the far right. Debris, potholes, door zone of parked cars, trucks, etc are all situations that occur frequently, and nessitate a move to the left.

Obviously this should be done by signalling and moving over during a gap, waiting if necessary, and this isn't always done. It's nothing drivers don't do on the regular either though. (It is more dangerous for the cyclist in question if they do it unsafely, but that's a risk he's taking on, the actual risk to you in a car is minor).

This isn't "twisted" logic. If the lane is too narrow to pass legally in, then cars have to merge to the other lane (or wait) anyways. Riding in the centre makes the cyclist more visible, and ends up being safer, while not disrupting traffic more than they otherwise would by being on the right.

None of that changes the meaning of "as far to the right as practicable".

As I understand it, AASHTO rules set design speeds based on worn-out 1950s bias ply tires in the rain, and assumes your sight distance is limited by pretty much the lowest driver position in the lowest sedan ever made (which means design speeds have been going DOWN as cars have been getting more capable). It's crazy conservative, which is why I once saw a curve speed I used to joke was appropriate for a dump truck in a blizzard greatly exceeded without any drama by a literal dump truck in a blizzard.

To be fair, a large part of stopping sight distance is the built-in full second of driver reaction time, which is independent of car technology.

Not anymore, emergency auto braking is becoming pretty common.

Yeah, if that was at all real the roads I've traveled on doing 65mph or more with sub-second following distances would have been demolition derbies instead of merely ridiculously stressful. (As you would expect, traffic goes from that unstable state to zero with not much warning). Designing based on my father's Oldsmobile with his late father driving doesn't result in reasonable speeds.

Well, as long as you can see multiple cars ahead it's a little safer.

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