5 ms·

Good driving doesn't have that much to do with your reaction time. 40% slower to respond, with a well planned drive, is a lot safer than 40% faster driving too

Good driving doesn't have that much to do with your reaction time. 40% slower to respond, with a well planned drive, is a lot safer than 40% faster driving too close.

jessaustin 13y ago
Sure, but one aspect of "terrible" driving would be: following too close, leaving oneself insufficient space to brake in response to leading vehicles. So, someone who is terrible in that respect could be more dangerous sober than a better driver is when drunk.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  Of course, the real reason the limit is there is because the greatest danger is the terrible driver, drunk. When you take 30% worse of "terrible", you get "really terrible".
  - dasil003 13y ago
    I couldn't help but think of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URupBZbfbJg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URupBZbfbJg
  - jessaustin 13y ago
    That's the reasoning, but to me it just proves that drunk driving shouldn't be a crime separate from poor driving. (I guess it would be OK as an aggravating factor for other traffic crimes.) Someone who drives acceptably while drunk drives acceptably, period.
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      I figure the reason it's set up that way is because BAC is way easier to determine on the side of the road during a traffic stop than a comprehensive study of someone's driving, so we have to lean to the less permissive side. (We opt not to lean to the more permissive side because drivers who are drunk are indeed already responsible for a great deal of injury, loss of life, and damage)
    - 6d0debc071 13y ago
      I don't know. You can't, unfortunately, stop everyone who drives poorly. Too many people do - and even if they just got off with points on their license, quickly enough they'd be banned and then out of work. Seriously, I can drive for fifteen minutes and see dozens of people who are driving too close together or committing some other sin. All those people who, just going into a corner, you see lighting off their brakes one after another - when all you, a little further back, have to do is roll your toes back a little to take some of the speed out. Considering random breath tests don't seem to be that big of a thing, (I think - https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q723.htm https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q723.htm - that they can't do truly random testing,) they're probably picking the people liable to be the worst examples anyway. Which I suspect is the most we can practically hope for at the moment.
      - harlanji 13y ago
        not yet... now, if only we could use the video record of our driving for the trip prior to the traffic stop to determine if we were driving reasonably... I'll just leave this here: http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/146909-darpa-shows-off-1-8-gigapixel-surveillance-drone-can-spot-a-terrorist-from-20000-feet http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/146909-darpa-shows-off-1-... for better or worse, it's not far off. imagine we could cross reference some street level CCTV (license plate, maybe gate and facial recognition) and "select driver_dl from trips where driving_ability < 0.7"; revoke licenses from those who can't drive well, consistently... to pay for it, maybe, we could just issue some DUI tickets where the car was parked in-front of a bar for a while and the driver appeared to walk unusually (dozens of violations per habitual drinker, ez). cross reference some phone/text and CC metadata to determine sociability and spending, maybe more, and you can get a pretty good certainty who's probably driving under the infuence and/or a poor driver, and take them off the road. barely fiction (maybe not at all?), but it won't be hard forever and they won't need to "stop" many people in the sense that is hard to do, for much longer.
      - jessaustin 13y ago
        Too many people do - and even if they just got off with points on their license, quickly enough they'd be banned and then out of work. In the absence of usable public transit and a populace capable of bicycling, I guess we'll just have to wait for the self-driving cars...
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
sliverstorm 13y ago
Well... I'd say good driving works to minimize the importance of your reaction time, but that doesn't make reaction time unimportant. I do agree with your general point though.

Good driving doesn't have that much to do with your reaction time. 40% slower to respond, with a well planned drive, is a lot safer than 40% faster driving too close.

jessaustin 13y ago

Sure, but one aspect of "terrible" driving would be: following too close, leaving oneself insufficient space to brake in response to leading vehicles. So, someone who is terrible in that respect could be more dangerous sober than a better driver is when drunk.

sliverstorm 13y ago
Of course, the real reason the limit is there is because the greatest danger is the terrible driver, drunk. When you take 30% worse of "terrible", you get "really terrible".
- dasil003 13y ago
  I couldn't help but think of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URupBZbfbJg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URupBZbfbJg
- jessaustin 13y ago
  That's the reasoning, but to me it just proves that drunk driving shouldn't be a crime separate from poor driving. (I guess it would be OK as an aggravating factor for other traffic crimes.) Someone who drives acceptably while drunk drives acceptably, period.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    I figure the reason it's set up that way is because BAC is way easier to determine on the side of the road during a traffic stop than a comprehensive study of someone's driving, so we have to lean to the less permissive side. (We opt not to lean to the more permissive side because drivers who are drunk are indeed already responsible for a great deal of injury, loss of life, and damage)
  - 6d0debc071 13y ago
    I don't know. You can't, unfortunately, stop everyone who drives poorly. Too many people do - and even if they just got off with points on their license, quickly enough they'd be banned and then out of work. Seriously, I can drive for fifteen minutes and see dozens of people who are driving too close together or committing some other sin. All those people who, just going into a corner, you see lighting off their brakes one after another - when all you, a little further back, have to do is roll your toes back a little to take some of the speed out. Considering random breath tests don't seem to be that big of a thing, (I think - https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q723.htm https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q723.htm - that they can't do truly random testing,) they're probably picking the people liable to be the worst examples anyway. Which I suspect is the most we can practically hope for at the moment.
    - harlanji 13y ago
      not yet... now, if only we could use the video record of our driving for the trip prior to the traffic stop to determine if we were driving reasonably... I'll just leave this here: http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/146909-darpa-shows-off-1-8-gigapixel-surveillance-drone-can-spot-a-terrorist-from-20000-feet http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/146909-darpa-shows-off-1-... for better or worse, it's not far off. imagine we could cross reference some street level CCTV (license plate, maybe gate and facial recognition) and "select driver_dl from trips where driving_ability < 0.7"; revoke licenses from those who can't drive well, consistently... to pay for it, maybe, we could just issue some DUI tickets where the car was parked in-front of a bar for a while and the driver appeared to walk unusually (dozens of violations per habitual drinker, ez). cross reference some phone/text and CC metadata to determine sociability and spending, maybe more, and you can get a pretty good certainty who's probably driving under the infuence and/or a poor driver, and take them off the road. barely fiction (maybe not at all?), but it won't be hard forever and they won't need to "stop" many people in the sense that is hard to do, for much longer.
    - jessaustin 13y ago
      Too many people do - and even if they just got off with points on their license, quickly enough they'd be banned and then out of work. In the absence of usable public transit and a populace capable of bicycling, I guess we'll just have to wait for the self-driving cars...
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

sliverstorm 13y ago

Well... I'd say good driving works to minimize the importance of your reaction time, but that doesn't make reaction time unimportant. I do agree with your general point though.