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| Re: Atlantic Avenue speed limit lower to 25 mph (292220) | |||
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Re: Atlantic Avenue speed limit lower to 25 mph |
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Posted by Stephen Bauman on Sun Apr 13 18:45:56 2014, in response to Re: Atlantic Avenue speed limit lower to 25 mph, posted by BrooklynBus on Sun Apr 13 16:18:02 2014. How do you expect a driver to exercise due care when a pedestrian crosses in the middle of the street and misjudges the speed of the car thinking he can beat it across and then gets hit in spite of the driver's best attempt to stop or swerve?One way for a driver to exercise due care is to drive at a speed that allows a safe stopping distance. The yellow change interval is based on a braking rate of 10 fps/sec. As mentioned in another post, the reaction time is 1.0 sec. This means that the reaction time travel distance for traveling at 40 mph is 80% of the total reaction+braking distance than traveling at 20 mph. I once saw a pedestrian do just that and was most likely killed because of it. The pedestrian and the car both took the same evasive action. The pedestrian speeded up to out run the car and the driver swerved to avoid him so they both collided. If only one took evasive action, there would have been no accident. The pedestrian who was jaywalking was definitely wrong and unfortunately paid the price. Two pedestrian fatalities occurred within 5 blocks of my residence within the last two years. In both cases the pedestrian was proceeding across an intersection, within a crosswalk and with the traffic signal. One pedestrian was killed by a car making a left turn; the other pedestrian was killed by a car making a right turn. However, policy should not be driven by anecdotal evidence. As noted, NYCDOT analyzed all NYPD collision reports involving pedestrians from 2008 to 2012. Their conclusion was that drivers alone were responsible for 53% of the time; there was joint responsibility 17% of the time and the pedestrian was solely responsible 30% of the time. So let's make all good drivers suffer by adding countless minutes to their trips costing God knows how many dollars, so pedestrians can continue to be careless. I don't pretend to be God, however it's fairly easy to estimate the "inconvenience" to be borne by drivers. 80% of all unlinked vehicular trips are under 5 miles. The time difference between the current 30 mph and new 25 mph speed time per mile is 24 seconds. Therefore 80% of drivers will experience an increased travel time of less than 120 seconds due to solely to the reduced speed limit. That 5 miles is not uniform by borough. The 80% deciles are: 3.1, 3.8, 2.8, 4.7 and 5.1 miles for trips originating or ending in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island, respectively. While you are at it, whose property are the roads? If one divided unlinked trips that use streets between motor vehicles and non-motor users, the non-motor users account for 63% of all trips. It's pretty equal in terms of time spent on the streets; 51% motor vehicles and 49% non-motor vehicles. Why should all pedestrians, the majority street users, "suffer countless minutes to their trips" because of a few dangerous drivers. :=) Narrowing roads, more traffic lights, and slowing traffic are always the answer. DOT would never considering extending the time limit of amber lights to make it easier to stop or better signage, or merging lanes without any prior warning, or sudden left and right turn lanes that appear out of nowhere without prior warnings. There are other ways to increase safety besides making it impossible to travel anywhere. As I noted in another post, I'm in favor of all measures that will reduce vehicular speed. One radical solution that has been successfully used elsewhere is to remove all traffic signals. Motorists exercise due care, when crossing traffic can cause drivers real damage. Collisions with pedestrians are one sided. Having to pay a hefty insurance deductible is a proven incentive to make drivers more cautious. By your logic all roads should have a ten mph speed limit to cut the fatality rate further. Like most physical systems, there's a point of diminishing returns at both extremes. As noted elsewhere, a collision at 50 mph is fatal nearly 100% of the time. Therefore reducing a speed limit from 55 to 50 mph will have no effect. Similarly, a small percentage of pedestrians will be thrown violently to the pavement at low speeds. The point of diminishing returns on the low side is around 20 mph. Vision Zero is admirable but unattainable. Death is unavoidable. The promise of postponing death keeps those drug companies in business. |
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