[developer1]

It's absurd that 24 mph in a 35 zone is considered "too slow". This is nearly equivalent to driving 40 km/h in a 60 km/h zone, and there is not a single traffic court in any Canadian city that would uphold a ticket being served for that difference. How is this even a thing down there? In a 60 km/h zone here, you'd have to be going 25 km/h to even warrant being pulled over at all (ie: doing 15 mph in 37 mph zone).

If 24 mph is too slow for that particular road or neighbourhood, then the speed limit should be 45+ mph, not 35. Clearly the average citizen is already driving 45+, or the "slow" wouldn't even be noticeable.

Edit: wait, this is even more absurd. The traffic violation quoted is https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/pubs/vctop/vc/d11/c... which mentions "highway". 35 mph or 56 km/h is residential street speed, not highway speed. This whole thing makes no sense to me.

[threeseed]

> It's absurd that 24 mph in a 35 zone is considered "too slow"

It's absolutely too slow.

Majority of people drive at or slightly below the speed limit. Driving that far under causes people to start behaving irrationally resulting in lots of lane changes/tailgaiting etc. This can be dangerous when lots of cars are doing it.

[tetrep]

> Majority of people drive at or slightly below the speed limit.

For my entire driving experience, from the North East of the US to Northern California, to specificially the portion of the road this car was driving on, this is false. People drive, very reliably, ~5mph over the speed limit. When you get to 35/40+ mph speed limits, ~10 over isn't uncommon, ~15 for people going uncommonly fast. I can't recall the last time I drove under a speed limit (minus exceptional road/traffic/weather conditions) and I'm slower than most drivers I encounter.

[jacobolus]

If whoever wrote the California traffic laws didn’t want neighborhood electric vehicles to drive on 35 mph streets, they shouldn’t have written the law that way. Such vehicles are legally restricted to a top speed of 25 mph, and by law they are allowed on roads with posted speed limits of up to 35 mph, unless restricted by local ordinance. cf. https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/?1dmy&urile=wcm:path:/dmv_...

More generally, urban streets, even arterial streets like El Camino, would really benefit from more strictly enforced speed limits, and lower limits wherever possible. A pedestrian or cyclist hit by a car going 20–25 mph is likely to sustain only minor injuries. A pedestrian or cyclist hit by a car going 35+ mph will probably die. Drivers also have dramatically less reaction time and much worse road awareness at 35mph compared to 20–25 mph (and realistically the speed of traffic is probably 40–45 mph on a road with 35 as the posted limit).

Cars are scary killing machines, one of the leading causes of death, and drivers are often poorly trained, distracted, or just idiots. The slower and more carefully they drive in urban environments, the better.

I’d love it if armies of 25 mph self-driving cars were constantly cruising around town, restricting other drivers to a safer speed. If they could supplant the taxi/uber/lyft industry whose drivers speed along my residential street at 55+ mph every night from 12–6 AM, that would also be dandy.

[kybernetikos]

> Driving that far under causes people to start behaving irrationally resulting in lots of lane changes/tailgaiting etc. This can be dangerous when lots of cars are doing it.

This is one of those examples of an explanation rather than a justification.

If someone else is going slow, that's no excuse to start acting like an idiot, and if you do and you get in an accident, that's on you, not the slow driver.

[coderdude]

I get this a lot. Sometimes there's a car in the far left lane (the legally unofficial "fast lane") driving much slower than the social norm expects. It causes issues. People need to move when someone is in their way. It's instinct. It screws up the flow.

[thrownaway2424]

Having a speed gradient across the lanes is for limited-access divided highways only. Left lane / right lane == fast lane / slow lane is not applicable to ordinary streets.

[coldpie]

Under free-flowing traffic conditions, there is no such thing as the "fast lane." What you're thinking of is called the "passing lane." If you are not actively passing someone in the cruising lane, then you need to get out of the passing lane, right now. If someone in the cruising lane is next to you and going the same speed as you, then you need to slow down or speed up, move over, and resume your cruising speed. There is no excuse for cruising in the passing lane.

[aianus]

Why would you think that?

"(b) If a vehicle is being driven at a speed less than the normal speed of traffic moving in the same direction at such time, and is not being driven in the right-hand lane for traffic or as close as practicable to the right-hand edge or curb, it shall constitute prima facie evidence that the driver is operating the vehicle in violation of subdivision (a) of this section."

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=veh&gr...

Says nothing about limited-access divided highways.

[thrownaway2424]

That section has numerous exceptions, as does the referenced "subdivision (a)." The point is there are many valid reasons why someone would come to a dead stop in the left lane of a multilane 2-way road.

On a limited-access divided highway there are far fewer reasons, limited only to emergencies, and the left lane can be legitimately considered to be the fast lane.

[coderdude]

I'm California USA, driving too slow is considered a hazard. It's kinda fuzzy to be honest. They can still pop you for speeding whenever they want but they're really looking for the person who stands out.

[fletchowns]

In California, if you aren't driving 5 mph over the speed limit, the car behind you is going to tailgate the hell out of you. It's ridiculous, I know.

[joedavison]

I'd like to see police start giving tickets for tailgating instead of speeding. Speeding alone is rarely very dangerous, especially on roads with few other cars.

On the other hand, tailgating is always extremely dangerous, even when the speeds involved are relatively low.

[threeseed]

Tailgaiting is a vague concept though. One person's idea of tailgaiting is another person's idea of maintaining a safe braking distance.

If you tried to for example leave a car's body length distance in most busy cities you would have car after car aggressively cutting in front of you. This is even more dangerous than the original tailgaiting.

[brazzledazzle]

Now, I'm not saying a car's length is an appropriate distance. Generally speaking it should be 2-3 seconds. But I see this idea a lot on the internet, particularly on reddit: I should be unsafe because other people will get mad at me for being safe which will make them do wildly unsafe things.

I'm sorry, but I can't accept that. Police need to start focusing on safety instead of revenue generation. I don't care what some idiot is doing, if you're tailgating them at highway speeds in the lane next to me you're putting us all at risk just so you can get somewhere 3 minutes faster. I don't care if you're upset about the length between the car ahead of you and the one ahead of it. Cutting them off in the lane next to me and nearly causing a reck is insane. We have to stop just accepting that being an asshole is okay and start holding people accountable.

[Terretta]

On the contrary, its unsafe to not tailgate close enough. Speed and tailgating don't kill, differences in speed kills.

If you are two seconds behind, they could come to a near stop and you can crash into them at full speed.

If you drove with zero distance between the your bumper and the car in front of you, if they brake hard you will have no impact at all.

This is why it's safe for train cars to tailgate.

In my view, autonomous cars will likely one day form trains for higher traffic density and throughput while remaining safe.

[polymatter]

If you drove with zero distance between your bumper and the car in front of you, they will be unable to brake hard, because its trying to stop an extra ton of mass. you're fine sure, but they just ran over that kid crossing the road without looking. or just t-boned someone. and heaven forbid someone was tailgating you too.

autonomous cars can form trains because they can react orders of magnitude faster than a human can to suddenly changing driving conditions.

[brazzledazzle]

You seem to have taken the concept that the larger the differences in velocity the greater the damage and extrapolated more from it than you ought to have.

[pluma]

It's not, though.

In Germany the minimum safety distance is taught in driving classes and severe violations of it will be fined like any other reckless behaviour.

The rule of thumb is "as much of a distance as you pass within two seconds". This scales wonderfully with speed and easily covers the reaction time and breaking duration.

Sure, in urban traffic the typical safety distance is usually less than a vehicle length, but with both tailgating and cutting in on someone constituting reckless driving offences, that's not a huge problem.

[ollie87]

It's the same in the UK.

You can also be fined for hogging lanes on a motorway, thankfully.

[pluma]

We also have a concept called "Richtgeschwindigkeit", a recommended maximum speed. For the Autobahn (German motorways) it's 130 km/h unless there is a speed limit lower than that. This is the speed you're expected to drive under "normal" circumstances (i.e. good weather, low to medium traffic, clear sight).

Part of driver's education is being able to adjust your speed to the conditions and safely maintain the recommended speed on the Autobahn when possible. If you are too scared to drive at such speeds or unable to do so safely, you won't pass.

Of course we still have plenty of drivers who are afraid of driving on the Autobahn (often because they don't do it regularly enough once they have the driver's license) and especially the elderly can be in denial about the limits of their actual abilities and make up for their inability to drive safely by driving more slowly (which isn't necessarily any safer).

[georgerobinson]

In the UK it's not uncommon to see chevrons painted along each lane where in you're meant to keep a minimum of two chevrons from the car in front (http://www.roberthempsall.co.uk/blogimages/keep-apart-2-chev...).

[tajen]

Talgetting is measured in seconds as reaction time + braking distance = ~2s, whether you are on a highway or in a city. There is nothing sujective about it. Most drivers keep just enough room for the reaction time, and it works ok as long a the car ahead doesn't hit an immobile object (e.g. a log, a car, a kangaroo, a wild boar).

[05]

Fixed 1 second of braking time won't save you if the front car hits an immobile object. The correct formula would be (1 + .046 mph) seconds [0], where mph is speed in miles per hour. It evaluates to 3.76s at 60mph and at 4.9s 85. Note that 1 second of reaction time is not exactly generous: http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/niatt_labmanual/chapters/geom... - cites times 'less than 2.5 seconds' to actual brake application.

[0] 1mph/(9.8m/s2) in seconds, according to Google, assuming friction coefficient of 1

[judk]

If tailgating is dangerous, in the sense that it is involved in a collision, the law finds the tailgater responsible 99% of cases. It just isn't applied predictively.

[ggreer]

To be fair, many of the speed limits are low. Look at street view where the car was pulled over.[1] El Camino Real is a divided boulevard with three lanes in each direction. There are stoplights and dedicated turning lanes. I'm not an aggressive driver, but I've caught myself speeding on that road before. Everything about it makes my mind think, "It's safe to go faster."

1. https://goo.gl/maps/WdfhEAGBsDP2

[ilyanep]

El Camino always seemed to me like it has an absurdly low speed limit, then a friend reminded me that there are unsignaled pedestrian crosswalks along it in Mountain View. It's true that it feels like it ought to be a 45 road, though.

[dickdastardly]

Here in Britain, it's entirely lawful and very common to cross 40-60MPH roads without signals. Often the roads don't even have a marked crossing, since you can legally cross wherever you want.

It's also not too uncommon to cross a non-motorway 70MPH dual carriageway, when walking outside a city.

I don't know if our roads are safer for pedestrians than the USA. They're considerably safer in total, but it seems difficult to compare the US and UK for pedestrians in particular because of the differing laws and distribution of methods of travel. However, they're probably at least in the same ball park, despite our more laissez faire attitude toward pedestrian-road interaction.

[DanBC]

As one example of a crossing which does have warnings:

The A417 between Cirencester and Cheltenham is a dual carriageway that has pedestrian footpaths across it.

Imagine driving at 70mph toward this:

350 yard warning: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.8078399,-2.0618748,3a,75y,...

actual crossing: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.8051623,-2.0595278,3a,75y,...

350 yards at 70 MPH is, I think, 10 seconds.

[kwhitefoot]

That's about twice the stopping distance for a wet road so plenty of time to stop except that you can't tell until a lot later that someone might be about to cross because you can't see the pedestrian approach. I come from Swindon and drive that road quite often when I go back to visit family and I have never seen a pedestrian cross it. I certainly wouldn't like to do it except on a bright clear and dry day but I dare say that the locals might have a better idea of the risks.

[brazzledazzle]

A lot of drivers in the US are hostile towards anything that's not a vehicle. Heck, they're often hostile towards anything that's not a car or a truck like motorcycles. I see more hate for those riding bicycles but pedestrians get a fair amount too.

[DrScump]

I don't know of any on El Camino in Mountain View not at a controlled intersection. There are some on ECR in Sunnyvale (e.g. just W of Halford) and two notorious ones in Santa Clara, though.

Of course, the County wants to reserve a lane for bus use only now...

[judk]

It is a stupid road. Built for speed, legistlated for slow. The road should be modified to make traffic calmer.

[jacobolus]

With three lanes in each direction, there should be plenty of room for other cars to safely pass a Google car, no?

[agumonkey]

I think it's universal behavior. Driving at speed limits gets you angry looks, below speed limit and people wanna hurt you. All that so they can reach the red light earlier.

[clort]

> angry looks

I wonder how well the self driving car copes with these.

In fact, I wonder how well the self driving car copes with an overly aggressive driver cutting in front and slamming on their brakes just to piss you off. I guess it would handle that better than my mothers elderly neighbour who recently didn't manage to brake in time and hit the twerp, writing off her vehicle in the process. Of course, it was counted as her fault since she struck the car in front..

[DrScump]

I wonder how well the self driving car copes with an overly aggressive driver cutting in front and slamming on their brakes just to piss you off.

You really think Google can't afford a Death Ray in each car?

[TeMPOraL]

Death Ray or a dash cam and sensor logs. Let the insurer handle rest.

[judk]

Sad and interesting. I rear ended a vehicle who turned into my lane, and the officer cited the other driver for an unsafe turn.

I guess it depends on officer mood and how long the car was safely in your lane before the breaking. Mostly officer mood.

Still, there are lots of completely legal sudden braking activities that would cause a collision over 10% of the time. People don't actually drive totally defensively all the time.

[agumonkey]

I'd love to see fringe behavior, I couldn't find anything like these, how their system react to limit cases. I'm sure they're overly conservative and always overstimate margins so they can handle crazy drivers, but surely there's a limit.

[lsaferite]

I find myself hitting red lights by those precious few seconds the slow driver stole form me more often than not. I just want to get from A to B with as few interruptions as possible. A self-driving car would be... amazing and calm my stress levels greatly.

[tajen]

Speed limits are systematically set 20km/h lower than reasonable.

[developer1]

That is normal here too, and it's more like 7-8 mph. So you can receive a ticket for impeding traffic even if the people you are supposedly obstructing would be exceeding the speed limit? Instead of ticketing the slow guy, set up a sting and ticket every person exceeding the limit by more than 6 mph. This whole thing sounds backwards.

[mmmBacon]

Driving substantially slower than the speed of traffic is extremely dangerous because of the potential speed differential. Relative velocity matters.

Also Regensdorf is really pretty busy and all you're doing by going slow is pissing people off. If you want to go that slow, that's what side streets are for.

[clort]

An alternative viewpoint is that attempting to drive substantially faster than the slowest vehicle is extremely dangerous because of the potential speed differential. Relative velocity matters, as you know!

[twblalock]

It's a matter of public safety. Holding up a line of cars is likely to result in road rage, or an accident.

It's also very rare for slow drivers to get ticketed.

[clort]

Incitement to riot is no excuse for rioting, surely?

Holding up a line of cars that would otherwise be driving too fast is not going to be the cause of an accident. The cause of the accident would be the driver who was driving too fast!

[nitrogen]

The point of traffic is to run an economy, not to parade at a precise speed for the amusement of deontologically obsessed nannies. If a line of traffic wants to go at speed+5, then the proper speed of traffic is speed+5, and going speed-5 is causing economic harm.

[TeMPOraL]

You need to balance it against the amount of disutility from deaths caused by the line going at speed+5 on a road where they were supposed to be going at speed. You need to also add the disutility generated by that line fucking up traffic flow in the nearby area.

Seriously, this stuff is to be determined from top down, not from perspective of individual self-interested drivers with zero context, little responsiblity and no interest of ensuring optimum flow.

Also, the general culture of aggression and disregard for law is something that is not healthy for neither society, nor economy.

[Piskvorrr]

By inductive reasoning, the proper speed of traffic is equal to the maximum speed of the car, and anything less is causing economic harm. (#cc: That was sarcasm)

In other words, that would only work for a traffic system which only moves one way, linearly, and has zero branches. Out there in meatspace, things are...a little bit more complex. Intersections and buses and trucks and pedestrians, oh my.

[talmand]

Take humans out of that equation and I would agree. Otherwise, that kind of thinking gets people killed. Which, I suppose, you don't care about since you are more concerned over the minute details of the economy.

[DrScump]

Except that driving artificially slowly correlates well with being intoxicated... so being slow can call attention to oneself.

[CamperBob2]

Yeah, it's almost as if the speed limits are unreasonably low, or something. Someone should look into that.

[twblalock]

In Mountain View, 24 in a 35 zone will cause traffic jams and road rage. It's a busy place.

[judk]

And a large part of this is Mountain View's refusal to allow housing and deploy public transit, pushing people into becoming traffic.