7 ms·

Alot about our system of roads and cars strikes me as crazy. Most of the vehicles on the road have only one person in them, yet weigh as much as an elephant. No

Alot about our system of roads and cars strikes me as crazy. Most of the vehicles on the road have only one person in them, yet weigh as much as an elephant. Nobody drives under the speed limit, which is typically fast enough to result in hundreds of thousands of fatalities every year anyways. Every neighborhood designed primarily for these idiotically heavy vehicles, that occasionally drive over pets and children who made the mistake of wandering off a footpath. Then there’s the pollution, of course. I can’t imagine many people would accept the way we do things today, if we started from zero and someone proposed it, instead of the situation slow-boiling us over a period of a half century.

agumonkey 7y ago
The worst part about it IMO is traffic light and stops. In a city, if you can drive around 20mph (25 maybe) uninterrupted, you get in most places very fast, very pleasantly and with fuel savings since you never slow down. Instead of a smooth flow, you get drivers that do: - high accelerations - nervous braking - idle engine running between 30 - 60 seconds (120 max?) Pure waste. Maybe I'm asking for a problem too complex to solve, but a smooth oriented traffic organization would help. Well, that is until fossil fuels are removed from the market.
- joking 7y ago
  Difficult for big vehicles, but changing the landscape and focusing more on personal mobility vehicles and a lot can be done (like the elevated roundabouts for bikes on Netherlands)
  - agumonkey 7y ago
    this is insane.. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=elevated+roundabouts+for+bikes+on+Netherlands&t=ffcm&iax=images&ia=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fphotorator.com%2Fphotos%2Fimages%2Fthe-hovenring-cable-stayed-aerial-bicycle-roundabout-in-the-netherlands-near-eindhoven--52980.jpg https://duckduckgo.com/?q=elevated+roundabouts+for+bikes+on+... I've read tons of articles about bikes in netherlands and how they design roundabouts. But never this. It's a bit too much in terms of landscaping impact but it must be sooo lovely to bike..
- nikconwell 7y ago
  Has anyone ever seen calculations of whether leveling out the roads would save significantly in energy? We are slowly getting regenerative technology into cars so we can at least recapture some energy on the way down, but avoiding the use of energy for going up would seem like an even better win. The bonus is the level roads would also benefit older vehicles not equipped to recapture energy.
  - pixl97 7y ago
    Most modern roads are far more level than ones made in the past. Though that is because we can easily expend huge amounts of energy in heavy equipment to move said rock and dirt. In general more level roads have a much higher safety factor. Hills and curves tend to increase the accident rate because they require the driver to slow down and re-accelerate more often.
- wffurr 7y ago
  That's annoying and wasteful but hardly the worst part. Murdering children (the rallying cry of Dutch cycle infrastructure was Stop de Kindermoord) and the massive CO2 emissions destroying our climate are the worst part.
- srfilipek 7y ago
  > high accelerations Acceleration does not waste energy (other than speed related things like wind resistance). This is a myth that is perpetuated without merit, but probably because it's typically associated with overall aggressive driving, which implies bad braking habits. Max efficiency is typically near peak torque for internal combustion engines [0]. For EV's, electric motors are actually most efficient at higher RPMs [1]. Fuel efficiency can be measured by breaking habits alone. Edit: sources: [0] https://i.stack.imgur.com/RE4SM.png https://i.stack.imgur.com/RE4SM.png [1] https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-fcf541de83bd871b9ba92ddf643fb09c https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-fcf541de83bd871b9ba92d...
  - agumonkey 7y ago
    true, but I'd bet a 100$ that people accelerating too fast do speed too long and brake too much..
    - JeffL 7y ago
      I gun the shit out of my Tesla at a green light, but look far ahead and slowly ease to a stop using regen braking only. Regen braking and one pedal driving is a nice incentive to not waste energy with brakes, and as EV's become more popular, I bet driving habits will become more efficient generally across the board.
      - srfilipek 7y ago
        Just curious, do you have stats on your watts per mile efficiency you can share? How it compares to the EPA estimates?
        JeffL 7y ago
        244 Wh/mi over 17,000 miles in a Model 3 LR. That's really close to the rated 310 miles for the 75 kw battery. The vast majority of my miles are driving 72 mph on the freeway.
      - agumonkey 7y ago
- buboard 7y ago
  Try roundabouts. In certain cities, they work really great.
  - agumonkey 7y ago
    I'm all for them
- alexis_read 7y ago
  Not too complex really. The #1 thing is to encourage flexible working so we can work locally more often - shared office spaces (if required) can be a great resource eg. You get to know people who can provide a great painting service etc. After that, encouraging building energy efficiency so aircon is not needed so often would be beneficial - well designed buildings that promote airflow without heat exchange for instance. Extra insulation and so on. Promoting more localised towns and cities, with shared waste/water facilities is good - that datacenter heat can drive aircon or hot water for the town. Lastly, electric cars as you've said, have many problems - care to see how 2 different companies' cars handle parking in a busy car park? ;) The best transport option might be smartrail (similar to https://openprtspecs.blogspot.com/?m=1 https://openprtspecs.blogspot.com/?m=1 but steel wheel/LIM and faster). Smartrail and PRT are designed as a point to point separated-grade network carrying on av. 1 person or a pallette of goods. With a hanging rail you don't need heavy batteries, parking for the vehicles, you can run a pod straight into the factory to pickup goods, and large/rich places can pay to have track straight to their door. You can prefab the rail and as land usage is just poles in the ground it can be rolled out over fields etc quickly. Track is one-way to eliminate junctions. Pods are on-demand ie. No waiting. Accessibility improves, you can use the top of the rail to generate (solar) power, run highspeed internet cables in the rail to improve comms across a country, and save on distribution center logistics as you're going point to point. The last mile may possibly be an issue, but forklift drones and bicycles can take most of the load I feel. Drivers for this are that it would go fast (200mph+ as light pods so little wear), can go overnight (sleeper pods), you could buy track to your door, personal transport (like a cinema room if you want). The main real issue with cars is that there's a large lobby behind what is a legacy transport solution... By way of example, UltraPRT has been running flawlessly at Heathrow airport for 10 years, was built on time, on budget, and performs exactly as predicted/modelled. For more info checkout http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/ http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/ in particular Swedetrack The last thing to mention, and the elephant in the room, is overpopulation. Looking at the stats it seems that birthrates for developed countries is in decline, so the obvious solution is to give everyone a good quality of life. The issue here is actually at the heart of economics - how do we run an economy with an ageing demographic? Japan is the leader here and they are placing a bet on robotics. What happens though when robots consume 80% of jobs? That may be the issue we need to solve, and as you can effectively tie energy to economic prosperity on a macro scale, a solution presents itself - create more (environmentally friendly) energy sources to raise global wealth.
- megablast 7y ago
  The worst part about it is accepting the 40,000 deaths a year just because people are selfish and feel they need a car to get anywhere.
WhompingWindows 7y ago
Mr. Money Mustache is a financial blogger, he emphasizes minimal living and reducing environmental footprint. He calls cars 2 ton wheelchairs and advocates MUCH more bicycle use. I have to say I agree, we need to cure our ridiculous car habits, especially 1) buying ridiculously huge vehicles with terrible MPG; 2) taking short trips everywhere in the car, when walking or biking would do. https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/04/22/curing-your-clown-like-car-habit/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/04/22/curing-your-clown...
- ilaksh 7y ago
  Bicycles are great, but there is no reason all cars need to weigh two tons or have room for 5-7 passengers.
  - magduf 7y ago
    Actually, there is: if you get in a collision with a large vehicle in a really tiny one, you're going to die. So you need a larger vehicle that can make a crash survivable. Basically, it's an arms race.
    - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
      Clearly fewer folks are buying into that. The day of the 1970's 25-foot land cruiser are waning. The Ford Focus is now king.
      - magduf 7y ago
        The Ford Focus is still a 3000-pound car these days. Even "economy" cars these days are rather heavy, and you'd be surprised how little those 70s cars weighed. Old Mustangs are positively lightweight. While the land boats are mostly gone, cars in general have gotten larger and especially heavier, even with lightweight technologies and materials used to offset the increase. The way I read it, the OP was talking about people needing to drive micro-cars (e.g., ones that can only hold 2 people, like the micro-cars that are only sold in Japan). Those cars would fare very poorly in a crash against just about any typical car (let alone SUV) on an American road.

agumonkey 7y ago

The worst part about it IMO is traffic light and stops. In a city, if you can drive around 20mph (25 maybe) uninterrupted, you get in most places very fast, very pleasantly and with fuel savings since you never slow down. Instead of a smooth flow, you get drivers that do: - high accelerations - nervous braking - idle engine running between 30 - 60 seconds (120 max?) Pure waste. Maybe I'm asking for a problem too complex to solve, but a smooth oriented traffic organization would help. Well, that is until fossil fuels are removed from the market.

joking 7y ago
Difficult for big vehicles, but changing the landscape and focusing more on personal mobility vehicles and a lot can be done (like the elevated roundabouts for bikes on Netherlands)
- agumonkey 7y ago
  this is insane.. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=elevated+roundabouts+for+bikes+on+Netherlands&t=ffcm&iax=images&ia=images&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fphotorator.com%2Fphotos%2Fimages%2Fthe-hovenring-cable-stayed-aerial-bicycle-roundabout-in-the-netherlands-near-eindhoven--52980.jpg https://duckduckgo.com/?q=elevated+roundabouts+for+bikes+on+... I've read tons of articles about bikes in netherlands and how they design roundabouts. But never this. It's a bit too much in terms of landscaping impact but it must be sooo lovely to bike..
nikconwell 7y ago
Has anyone ever seen calculations of whether leveling out the roads would save significantly in energy? We are slowly getting regenerative technology into cars so we can at least recapture some energy on the way down, but avoiding the use of energy for going up would seem like an even better win. The bonus is the level roads would also benefit older vehicles not equipped to recapture energy.
- pixl97 7y ago
  Most modern roads are far more level than ones made in the past. Though that is because we can easily expend huge amounts of energy in heavy equipment to move said rock and dirt. In general more level roads have a much higher safety factor. Hills and curves tend to increase the accident rate because they require the driver to slow down and re-accelerate more often.
wffurr 7y ago
That's annoying and wasteful but hardly the worst part. Murdering children (the rallying cry of Dutch cycle infrastructure was Stop de Kindermoord) and the massive CO2 emissions destroying our climate are the worst part.
srfilipek 7y ago
> high accelerations Acceleration does not waste energy (other than speed related things like wind resistance). This is a myth that is perpetuated without merit, but probably because it's typically associated with overall aggressive driving, which implies bad braking habits. Max efficiency is typically near peak torque for internal combustion engines [0]. For EV's, electric motors are actually most efficient at higher RPMs [1]. Fuel efficiency can be measured by breaking habits alone. Edit: sources: [0] https://i.stack.imgur.com/RE4SM.png https://i.stack.imgur.com/RE4SM.png [1] https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-fcf541de83bd871b9ba92ddf643fb09c https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-fcf541de83bd871b9ba92d...
- agumonkey 7y ago
  true, but I'd bet a 100$ that people accelerating too fast do speed too long and brake too much..
  - JeffL 7y ago
    I gun the shit out of my Tesla at a green light, but look far ahead and slowly ease to a stop using regen braking only. Regen braking and one pedal driving is a nice incentive to not waste energy with brakes, and as EV's become more popular, I bet driving habits will become more efficient generally across the board.
    - srfilipek 7y ago
      Just curious, do you have stats on your watts per mile efficiency you can share? How it compares to the EPA estimates?
      - JeffL 7y ago
        244 Wh/mi over 17,000 miles in a Model 3 LR. That's really close to the rated 310 miles for the 75 kw battery. The vast majority of my miles are driving 72 mph on the freeway.
    - agumonkey 7y ago
buboard 7y ago
Try roundabouts. In certain cities, they work really great.
- agumonkey 7y ago
  I'm all for them
alexis_read 7y ago
Not too complex really. The #1 thing is to encourage flexible working so we can work locally more often - shared office spaces (if required) can be a great resource eg. You get to know people who can provide a great painting service etc. After that, encouraging building energy efficiency so aircon is not needed so often would be beneficial - well designed buildings that promote airflow without heat exchange for instance. Extra insulation and so on. Promoting more localised towns and cities, with shared waste/water facilities is good - that datacenter heat can drive aircon or hot water for the town. Lastly, electric cars as you've said, have many problems - care to see how 2 different companies' cars handle parking in a busy car park? ;) The best transport option might be smartrail (similar to https://openprtspecs.blogspot.com/?m=1 https://openprtspecs.blogspot.com/?m=1 but steel wheel/LIM and faster). Smartrail and PRT are designed as a point to point separated-grade network carrying on av. 1 person or a pallette of goods. With a hanging rail you don't need heavy batteries, parking for the vehicles, you can run a pod straight into the factory to pickup goods, and large/rich places can pay to have track straight to their door. You can prefab the rail and as land usage is just poles in the ground it can be rolled out over fields etc quickly. Track is one-way to eliminate junctions. Pods are on-demand ie. No waiting. Accessibility improves, you can use the top of the rail to generate (solar) power, run highspeed internet cables in the rail to improve comms across a country, and save on distribution center logistics as you're going point to point. The last mile may possibly be an issue, but forklift drones and bicycles can take most of the load I feel. Drivers for this are that it would go fast (200mph+ as light pods so little wear), can go overnight (sleeper pods), you could buy track to your door, personal transport (like a cinema room if you want). The main real issue with cars is that there's a large lobby behind what is a legacy transport solution... By way of example, UltraPRT has been running flawlessly at Heathrow airport for 10 years, was built on time, on budget, and performs exactly as predicted/modelled. For more info checkout http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/ http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/ in particular Swedetrack The last thing to mention, and the elephant in the room, is overpopulation. Looking at the stats it seems that birthrates for developed countries is in decline, so the obvious solution is to give everyone a good quality of life. The issue here is actually at the heart of economics - how do we run an economy with an ageing demographic? Japan is the leader here and they are placing a bet on robotics. What happens though when robots consume 80% of jobs? That may be the issue we need to solve, and as you can effectively tie energy to economic prosperity on a macro scale, a solution presents itself - create more (environmentally friendly) energy sources to raise global wealth.
megablast 7y ago
The worst part about it is accepting the 40,000 deaths a year just because people are selfish and feel they need a car to get anywhere.

WhompingWindows 7y ago

Mr. Money Mustache is a financial blogger, he emphasizes minimal living and reducing environmental footprint. He calls cars 2 ton wheelchairs and advocates MUCH more bicycle use. I have to say I agree, we need to cure our ridiculous car habits, especially 1) buying ridiculously huge vehicles with terrible MPG; 2) taking short trips everywhere in the car, when walking or biking would do. https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/04/22/curing-your-clown-like-car-habit/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/04/22/curing-your-clown...

ilaksh 7y ago
Bicycles are great, but there is no reason all cars need to weigh two tons or have room for 5-7 passengers.
- magduf 7y ago
  Actually, there is: if you get in a collision with a large vehicle in a really tiny one, you're going to die. So you need a larger vehicle that can make a crash survivable. Basically, it's an arms race.
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    Clearly fewer folks are buying into that. The day of the 1970's 25-foot land cruiser are waning. The Ford Focus is now king.
    - magduf 7y ago
      The Ford Focus is still a 3000-pound car these days. Even "economy" cars these days are rather heavy, and you'd be surprised how little those 70s cars weighed. Old Mustangs are positively lightweight. While the land boats are mostly gone, cars in general have gotten larger and especially heavier, even with lightweight technologies and materials used to offset the increase. The way I read it, the OP was talking about people needing to drive micro-cars (e.g., ones that can only hold 2 people, like the micro-cars that are only sold in Japan). Those cars would fare very poorly in a crash against just about any typical car (let alone SUV) on an American road.