5 ms·

This is seriously needed near me - there are a couple of freeway interchanges with notorious merges that sport accidents bad enough that at least a couple cars

by EricE 4y ago

This is seriously needed near me - there are a couple of freeway interchanges with notorious merges that sport accidents bad enough that at least a couple cars get towed every week. Not sure it would cause the idiots that cut in and cause them (and who usually get off scott free) to shape up but would at least give more heads up to other people to maybe not tailgate at high speed?

akira2501 4y ago
I would assume that a statistically significant increase of accidents in an area is due to road design failure and not to lack of driver information. The obvious answer is to fix the road, not add more automated distractions to a drivers attention load.
- BitwiseFool 4y ago
  Agreed, in principle. There is an intersection on my commute that was almost certainly designed to look pretty and break up the monotony of the grid layout with some elegant curves. Sadly there are accidents almost every single week, most likely because of bad sight lines and how much turning goes on. It would be nice for them to "fix the road" by just straightening it out but it would likely require a staggering amount of time and money because of how much infrastructure has been built up around it. The city has already tried what it can, so I think having the warning in the app is the best we can do in the meantime.
- madspindel 4y ago
  Is it a road design failure if it's more dangerous to drive above the speed limit? In Sweden we have some roads with a lot of accidents caused by people driving above the speed limit. They fixed this by installing automated speed cams. The goal is not to give people speeding tickets but to get drivers to slow down. It works really well so I actually believe this new Waze feature will be really handy. Edit: Btw, I use Waze to get alert about the speed cams.
  - EamonnMR 4y ago
    I can think of one intersection in my town with several accidents. It's a cross intersection with stops signs on one street and none on the other. The accidents probably all boil down to some combination of "He won't pull out" and "I'm tired of waiting." A signal light would eliminate this indecision. I fault the road design, because it requires patience people just don't tend to have to use it safely.
  - rattlesnakedave 4y ago
    It's not mutually exclusive.
  - akira2501 4y ago
    > They fixed this by installing automated speed cams. That is a user hostile way to solve the problem, and it still leaves the design issue open. _Why_ are people driving too fast for what the road can safely allow for? There's a lot of work being put into road design which naturally calms traffic, and a good part of it shows promise. Large wide open boulevards seem to encourage people to driver faster than what is actually safe because they feel comfortable driving at that speed with that much perceived space. If you narrow the road, add center island obstructions to limit long distance views, remove outside lanes for parking with curb extensions or put in protected bike lanes, roundabouts, better lane markings, they all seem to make drivers more aware of the density of their environment and work to slow them down naturally. And again.. this all works to get them paying attention to the environment, not simply trained to wait for an automated alert with financial consequences.
    - b112 4y ago
      This fad only works for a short while, then people just get used to it.
      - jackvalentine 4y ago
        Is this your opinion?
    - 4y ago
- macNchz 4y ago
  Generally I agree, we should absolutely design roads to guide drivers into proper behavior, but there are some drivers who are simply way more dangerous than others^, and I'd love to have this feature to know where to be extra alert for other drivers messing up. I have a fascination with watching dashcam videos on /r/roadcam and /r/idiotsincars (I think it has made me a better/significantly more defensive driver), and seeing some of the videos from places that have fixed cameras that catch every crash just makes it clear that some portion of people simply don't pay attention to anything. In the 11'8" bridge example (https://11foot8.com/ https://11foot8.com/), they've installed a system that detects if the approaching truck is too tall, flashes an "OVER HEIGHT" neon sign, and automatically turns the traffic light red. They even raised the bridge 8 inches a few years ago. People consistently ignore the sign, run the red light, and rip the roof off of their truck on the special bar that was installed to protect the bridge from direct damage. In the Milwaukee Roundabout example (https://www.youtube.com/@MilwaukeeRoundabout/videos https://www.youtube.com/@MilwaukeeRoundabout/videos), drivers are coming across the bridge way, way above the speed limit to go sailing as far as they do. Perhaps in this case the road could be narrowed and speed bumps installed, but this is a contingent of drivers who are not paying attention to the road, and the rest of us would benefit from knowing where they screw up. ^As an example, 17-19 year old drivers have a 19-fold higher risk of a fatal single-car crash than 60-69 year olds: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022437517307600#s0035 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002243751...
  - hammock 4y ago
    “Warning: teenagers at the wheel” (in the style of “children at play”)
    - BitwiseFool 4y ago
      I have a feeling this would be considered unacceptable ageism elsewhere, but Japan requires some drivers to display a sticker which indicates to "other drivers that the marked driver is not very skilled, either due to inexperience or old age". For the Young/New: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshinsha_mark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshinsha_mark For the Elderly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dreisha_mark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dreisha_mark
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  The obvious answer is to fix the road If you're paying, sure. If you're not, the obvious answer is to route away from the accident-prone routes while trying to minimize increases in journey time.
- julianeon 4y ago
  "never let the perfect be the enemy of the good" fix the road <= perfect solution warn people that the road is bad until the road is fixed (possibly never) <= good solution

by EricE 4y ago

akira2501 4y ago

I would assume that a statistically significant increase of accidents in an area is due to road design failure and not to lack of driver information. The obvious answer is to fix the road, not add more automated distractions to a drivers attention load.

BitwiseFool 4y ago
Agreed, in principle. There is an intersection on my commute that was almost certainly designed to look pretty and break up the monotony of the grid layout with some elegant curves. Sadly there are accidents almost every single week, most likely because of bad sight lines and how much turning goes on. It would be nice for them to "fix the road" by just straightening it out but it would likely require a staggering amount of time and money because of how much infrastructure has been built up around it. The city has already tried what it can, so I think having the warning in the app is the best we can do in the meantime.
madspindel 4y ago
Is it a road design failure if it's more dangerous to drive above the speed limit? In Sweden we have some roads with a lot of accidents caused by people driving above the speed limit. They fixed this by installing automated speed cams. The goal is not to give people speeding tickets but to get drivers to slow down. It works really well so I actually believe this new Waze feature will be really handy. Edit: Btw, I use Waze to get alert about the speed cams.
- EamonnMR 4y ago
  I can think of one intersection in my town with several accidents. It's a cross intersection with stops signs on one street and none on the other. The accidents probably all boil down to some combination of "He won't pull out" and "I'm tired of waiting." A signal light would eliminate this indecision. I fault the road design, because it requires patience people just don't tend to have to use it safely.
- rattlesnakedave 4y ago
  It's not mutually exclusive.
- akira2501 4y ago
  > They fixed this by installing automated speed cams. That is a user hostile way to solve the problem, and it still leaves the design issue open. _Why_ are people driving too fast for what the road can safely allow for? There's a lot of work being put into road design which naturally calms traffic, and a good part of it shows promise. Large wide open boulevards seem to encourage people to driver faster than what is actually safe because they feel comfortable driving at that speed with that much perceived space. If you narrow the road, add center island obstructions to limit long distance views, remove outside lanes for parking with curb extensions or put in protected bike lanes, roundabouts, better lane markings, they all seem to make drivers more aware of the density of their environment and work to slow them down naturally. And again.. this all works to get them paying attention to the environment, not simply trained to wait for an automated alert with financial consequences.
  - b112 4y ago
    This fad only works for a short while, then people just get used to it.
    - jackvalentine 4y ago
      Is this your opinion?
  - 4y ago
macNchz 4y ago
Generally I agree, we should absolutely design roads to guide drivers into proper behavior, but there are some drivers who are simply way more dangerous than others^, and I'd love to have this feature to know where to be extra alert for other drivers messing up. I have a fascination with watching dashcam videos on /r/roadcam and /r/idiotsincars (I think it has made me a better/significantly more defensive driver), and seeing some of the videos from places that have fixed cameras that catch every crash just makes it clear that some portion of people simply don't pay attention to anything. In the 11'8" bridge example (https://11foot8.com/ https://11foot8.com/), they've installed a system that detects if the approaching truck is too tall, flashes an "OVER HEIGHT" neon sign, and automatically turns the traffic light red. They even raised the bridge 8 inches a few years ago. People consistently ignore the sign, run the red light, and rip the roof off of their truck on the special bar that was installed to protect the bridge from direct damage. In the Milwaukee Roundabout example (https://www.youtube.com/@MilwaukeeRoundabout/videos https://www.youtube.com/@MilwaukeeRoundabout/videos), drivers are coming across the bridge way, way above the speed limit to go sailing as far as they do. Perhaps in this case the road could be narrowed and speed bumps installed, but this is a contingent of drivers who are not paying attention to the road, and the rest of us would benefit from knowing where they screw up. ^As an example, 17-19 year old drivers have a 19-fold higher risk of a fatal single-car crash than 60-69 year olds: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022437517307600#s0035 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002243751...
- hammock 4y ago
  “Warning: teenagers at the wheel” (in the style of “children at play”)
  - BitwiseFool 4y ago
    I have a feeling this would be considered unacceptable ageism elsewhere, but Japan requires some drivers to display a sticker which indicates to "other drivers that the marked driver is not very skilled, either due to inexperience or old age". For the Young/New: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshinsha_mark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoshinsha_mark For the Elderly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dreisha_mark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dreisha_mark
anigbrowl 4y ago
The obvious answer is to fix the road If you're paying, sure. If you're not, the obvious answer is to route away from the accident-prone routes while trying to minimize increases in journey time.
julianeon 4y ago
"never let the perfect be the enemy of the good" fix the road <= perfect solution warn people that the road is bad until the road is fixed (possibly never) <= good solution