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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • I’m not concerned about myself not being able to stop. I’m generally not concerned about my behavior. I’m concerned, once again, about how OTHER drivers will react to ME going slowly and becoming an obstacle. I can control myself, I can leave proper follow distance. I CANNOT make anyone else do that. No one can, all we can do is encourage better behavior.

    If we follow that thread, how do we encourage people to slow down? We can do so with fines and enforcement. We can fine anyone who goes over an arbitrary speed. Or, we can do it with physics and behavioral psychology. Make it so that those same roads are less easy/fun/convenient to drive on at high speeds.

    I’m beginning to doubt that you’ve read half of what I’ve posted, so I’m not going to continue with this.



  • Both of those are horribly ineffective options. Let’s call cops who won’t get here before a crash happens, and let’s throw tire spikes that will force a crash to happen.

    The proper response is to create distance from the situation. In this particular scenario, by merging into another lane as soon as it’s safe, and accelerating back to the speed of traffic.

    None of this changes the fact that the slower driver, while within the letter of the law, is the root cause of all of this danger. Speed is determined by more than an arbitrary number on the side of the road. It’s determined by myriad road factors, from congestion and moisture to the current traveling speed of traffic.

    If you want to reduce the speed safely, you have to reduce the speed people naturally want to travel at. Anything else will result in speed disparities, which are always more dangerous than just raw speed.




  • Rural areas are an interesting case, admittedly. Most of my personal suggestions are for urban areas, even so far as my general loathe of cars - they suck in cities but are practically required for rural living.

    I’d be curious to see the difference in fatalities for an optimally set up city versus a current rural setup. My gut tells me that, just due to the relatively sparse density of cars, rural driving is already significantly safer, and if you DO drive like shit, you’re likely to only injure yourself.

    Ultimately, rural and urban driving are COMPLETELY different beasts, and what works for one doesn’t for another.

    Edit: and, any implemented traffic calming measures are only worthwhile if they incorporate pedestrian and bike friendly implementations. Otherwise you’re just trading one problem for another. For instance, instead of just moving the curb inward, keep it where it is and install bollards every 10-15 feet or so, so cars can’t use the area but bikes can.


  • And as long as the penalty is fines, it’s literally “pay the toll to go fast”. At very best, this leaves a class of people completely unimpacted by traffic enforcement. But, without a drastic change in the public perception of speed limits, we can’t just say “ok 1 mph over is now criminal. Go to jail.” That’ll do way more harm than good.


  • I can broadly agree with these sentiments. I think speed limits, as they’re implemented right now, are largely folly and should be replaced with something that can’t be abused for revenue. And even if we agree that MOST cameras and speed fines aren’t revenue focused, we HAVE to acknowledge the possibility of abuse.

    I think in an ideal world, I’d set speed limits to be higher than they are now - say, (spitballing) 100mph for interstates. It’s HARD enforced, at even 1mph over, and a criminal offense. I know this level of enforcement is already in place, technically - usually speeds like, 20 over are considered criminal - but it’s subject to too much discretion. Those cases need to be enforced almost unilaterally.

    From there, addressing the rest of the speed issue is the job of urban planners. Make the roads just not fun(safe, convenient, whatever) to drive at speeds even approaching the limit. From there, enforcement becomes far more justifiable, and will consistently target people driving the most unsafe.

    Obviously, reckless driving and other such penalties would be in place, to catch anything else reckless, and that’s going to be case-by-case, still subject to discretion, but at least it’s something.


  • I don’t disagree with anything you said. Slowing down is a good thing.

    The problem I have with this approach is that speed limits either do nothing, or do marginal work compared to designing roads that aren’t able to be driven at excessive speeds. Narrower lanes, chicanes, medians, speed bumps or cushions - all VASTLY more effective at actually slowing traffic than a camera or cop saying “hey! Slow down or pay the toll!”


  • I would love to see a more recent study. Safety tends to be a weird subject, particularly the treadmill of introducing safety features, which means more drivers drive unsafely because safety features give an appearance of safety.

    Overall, I still stand by what I said outside of maybe the very first sentence. Even if they DO slow traffic, there are vastly better ways that don’t have a disproportionate impact.

    My city started putting in speed cushions at roads that were constantly over-traveled. Neighborhoods that would see increased traffic during rush hour, for instance. They’re aggressive, you have to go BELOW the speed limit to safely drive the route. Those roads see SIGNIFICANTLY less traffic, and the traffic that is there is slower.

    Fines just don’t work to deter your average driver, or at least not as much as physics does.



  • If only speed cameras worked to lower the speed anyone travels at… Realistically, people are going to drive the speed that feels safe for that road, and a speed camera is just going to disproportionately punish people without the money to pay the fines.

    Make roads that are designed for the speed you want people to drive at, not wide open expanses that give no actual reason to slow down.



    • Glocks have a half cocked striker once you rack the slide, and this gives a factory glock a trigger pull weight that is directly in between a cocked single-action trigger and an uncocked double-action trigger.

    I can see your interpretation of this passage, now that I re-read it. My interpretation of the passage was that, upon racking the slide, you’d have a trigger pull weight between the two. Glad we could clarify hahah.




  • Their safeties are the fact that you have to manually pull back the hammer to fire the weapon. Basically impossible to negligently discharge, barring a few that don’t have a strike plate between the firing pin and hammer, meaning a strong blow to the hammer can shoot off a chambered round.

    Double action revolvers can also typically be operated as a single action, manually cocking the hammer. This also removes the other Xtra weight from the trigger, which was just the force added by having to cock the hammer and rotate the cylinder.


  • Glocks are, and were already, very popular guns. This means that accessories manufacturers will target their devices at these guns, so they target as large of a market as possible. Thus, more manufacturers are wanting to produce automatic adapting devices for Glocks than other guns.

    Bit of a chicken and egg situation, tbh.