Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Red_Scare867 t1_irgalwb wrote

Reply to comment by CARLEtheCamry in Bridge Painter dies after Semi- crashes into the bucket lift by [deleted]

Narrow the lanes for starters. The US had absurdly wide lanes already. They do this successfully in plenty of countries in Europe. Why do we have to be stuck in 1950? There are plenty of real world examples of road diets that work, but US traffic engineers value the travel times of drivers above all else. That includes the lives of the drivers and the ones around them.

−1

CARLEtheCamry t1_irgjezn wrote

> Narrow the lanes for starters. The US had absurdly wide lanes already. They do this successfully in plenty of countries in Europe.

Narrowing lanes is another city/urban traffic calming strategy (which I am in favor of). I can't find it being applied on any highways. If you can link me a source I'll stand corrected.

2

Red_Scare867 t1_irgjy67 wrote

Highway lanes in the US are 12 feet wide. Highway lanes in the Netherlands and Japan are 3.25 meters which is more than a foot more narrow than our lanes in the US.

1

CARLEtheCamry t1_irgol2s wrote

OK, but was that done as a function of improving safety, or just the standard they adopted?

The Federal Highway has this to say on the subject (emphasis mine) :

> Speed is a primary consideration when evaluating potential adverse impacts of lane width on safety. On high-speed, rural two-lane highways, an increased risk of cross-centerline head-on or cross-centerline sideswipe crashes is a concern because drivers may have more difficulty staying within the travel lane. On any high-speed roadway, the primary safety concerns with reductions in lane width are crash types related to lane departure, including run-off-road crashes. The mitigation strategies for lane width presented in Chapter 4 focus on reducing the probability of these crashes.

> In a reduced-speed urban environment, the effects of reduced lane width are different. On such facilities, the risk of lane-departure crashes is less. The design objective is often how to best distribute limited cross-sectional width to maximize safety for a wide variety of roadway users. Narrower lane widths may be chosen to manage or reduce speed and shorten crossing distances for pedestrians

So I interpret that as narrower highways are more dangerous, and they have standards to reduce speed to account for that. To go back to my original point - even if you narrowed the lanes and reduced the speed limit to say 45 instead of 55 - people are still going to speed. And they're going to get into more accidents if the lanes are narrower. They already drop the speed limit on most of I-376 to 55 as opposed to the "normal" 70mph, to less than desirable effect.

The only place I see people regularly not speeding on 376 is the business loop around the airport, because International Drive is or has been the #1 speed trap in the state. I pass it daily on my commute. It actually drops down to 40mph as you approach University Blvd and they enforce it. Otherwise, to paraphrase R Kelly, speed limit ain't nothin but a number.

2