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I've actually been thinking about this a lot (recently started commuting from the East Bay to San Mateo). So it's awesome that others are too. Personally, I did
by tmsh 16y ago
I've actually been thinking about this a lot (recently started commuting from the East Bay to San Mateo). So it's awesome that others are too. Personally, I did a back of the envelope calculation for speeds. Was trying to estimate the time improvements of 65mph over 55mph v. the likelihood of accident. Suffice it to say, you all can do the math.
But that's not why I comment. I was actually thinking of a startup idea re: driving and accidents. Specifically, a site attached to Google Maps, etc., where people can register comments about where and how they got involved in an accident. If there were a way to feed in police report data, that would be awesome too.
But like the San Mateo bridge. I can see it from my desk. And I can see when it gets slow, and sometimes I'll check sigalert and note that there's been an accident (it seems to me usually at the top of the bridge where it's kind of windy and the furthest left lane has like no shoulder). Or otherwise I've gotten to know where accidents occur on my commute.
So my point is that all the information should be readily available so that people can figure out what are the high risk locations of their commute or trip. I think if you had a simple enough interface that integrated with Google Maps, people would voluntarily start using it. To my knowledge, there doesn't exist such a service. Perhaps I'm overly cautious, but I'd use it.
- JeffL 16y agoWould also be useful for people to register where they get their speeding and traffic tickets. As a long time Bay Area resident, I know what stretch of 280 the smokies like to hang out at a lot, and I bet that could be useful information to others, or even others with a satellite navigation program. Would be awesome if your GPS always had a threat level indicator based on accident and ticket likelihoods.
- tmsh 16y agoThat would be awesome. You could even go the next step and include a HUD projected on a portion of your windshield...
- firebones 16y agoIntegrate it with your speedometer, look ahead on your GPS route, factor in time of day vs. likelihood of presence of law enforcement, take into account accident data and risk based on location and time of day, and rather than a HUD, simply have an ambient dash light that boils it all down and glows related to your risk. Integrate GPS+radar detector+Whispernet (real-time wardriving for speed traps). I'm sure with the radar detector this would already break laws in about 30 states, but the core idea still would be viable if all you did was integrate crash data to alert people to risks in areas where their perception of risk was off. If they remake the movie "The Gumball Rally" again in a few years, I'd expect to see this device featured by one of the teams.
- nitrogen 16y agoI believe there are radar detectors with a database of speed traps tied to a GPS receiver, but I'm not sure how they are updated. I agree that integration into a navigation system would be very useful, and technologically straightforward.