Category: Transportation
Have you killed anyone today?
I want a personal helicopter!
This could also be an awesome way to trim the hedges!
No Redlight Cameras
Engineer Roads for Speed Control, part II
The video below focuses on bicycles. Beginning at minute 3:00 they discuss and give examples of traffic calming methods, what I refer to as engineering for speed control.
Engineer Roads for Speed Control
Knoxville is pondering the use of automated speed cameras to ticket people who violate the speed limits. I am opposed. I am a treat the problem, not the symptom type of guy. My quality assurance training taught me that if you automate a flawed process, you simply perform that flawed process with greater efficiency.
Florida came up with a solution. I read about it a couple of years ago. (unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find the reference) An architect and civil engineer reduced speed by eliminating traffic controls, removing signs, putting people and trees closer to the road, and narrowing the roads. 
They engineered speed control! It worked. Would you like to try it? Knoxville is engineering roads for speed right now! The roads that connect Kingston Pike to Sutherland passing by West High School are changing to reduce speed. If you turn from Kingston Pike to Forest Glen Dr you will undoubtedly notice that the double yellow widens briefly, the road has some lines painted across it, and some ruts have been carved into the road to audibly warn you to slowdown. These are fairly intangible but work! You cannot help but slow down.
What happens when people get used to the lines and drive fast anyway? Firstly, the faster you drive over the ruts, the more horrid the noise which sounds like you are destroying your tires. Secondly, in addition to the psychological narrowing, the roads are being physically narrowed at the midpoint. With the addition of this median, cars will slow down. Maybe they’ll add a tree! (doubt it)
Why not engineer the roads and use speed cameras? Speed cameras treat the symptom. The symptom is that people are speeding. 
The problem is that people feel like they are making good time and packing more into their lives by speeding. The truth of the matter is that if you are speeding in a town or city, you may be shaving a minute or two off your commute but due to traffic patterns, and the placement and timing of lights and other traffic controls, your commute does NOT change that dramatically as compared to simply driving the speed limit.
Won’t cameras teach people to slow down? No, cameras work after the fact, catch the wrong people, and cannot identify the driver. They also cannot judge the situation. Safe driving sometimes includes speeding up. Often we try to avoid an accident by slamming on the brakes. It feels natural. Sometimes accidents can be avoided by speeding up and I shouldn’t have to speed a day of my life in court plus fees explaining that to repeal a ticket from a robot. Since speed cameras have their effect after the incident, they in no way prevent tragedy! The camera that send a ticket to a speeding high schooler for speeding from West High to Kingston Pike does not save the life of the child who runs out into the road to get his lost ball. The re-engineered roads, which treat the problem and force the new high school driver to slow his vehicle, give that driver the opportunity to stop in time to save the life of the child running into the road to get his lost ball.
Update: Groovy!
CONFIRMED! Google IS mapping Knoxville.
I wasn’t sure if it was Google or a competitor driving around with the camera on the car. It is confirmed! That is a Google car!
Knoxville Street Views Happening Now
Narration with additional commentary (note: since this was ad libbed I misspoke and called the antenna on top of the car "a satellite" when I intended to say "a satellite uplink" or "satellite antennae): [audio:http://realityme.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/knoxvillestreetviewshappeningnow.mp3]
Put your best lawns on! A California company is driving around Knoxville taking pictures of your neighborhood for Google Street Views or a competitor. I saw one of these cars zoom through my cove a few weeks ago and I wasn’t quick enough to strike an interesting pose. 
I was also unhappy with the state of my lawn and porch but oh well. So, will Google catch you peeing on the side of the road? Getting a ticket? Breaking into a house? Growing pot? Or just showing off your favorite thong? (see also). Concerned about privacy?
Better picture:
Update: Confirmed! That is a Google car!
Update: The WebUrbanist presents 10 urban snapshots from Google Street View including one implying that the google camera van ignores traffic blockades. Mashable asks Should Google offer to blur Street View imagery for people requesting privacy? And get my cat off your website! If you are enjoying these links then you will also enjoy http://www.streetviewfun.com/, some bizarre splicing issues, and Wired’s voting system to find the best Street View pictures.
Update: Jon Hickman asks, "Where do you actually see the pictures they take?" I am pretty sure these will show up in Google maps and Google Earth. Mashable suggests that they will be accessible from http://www.googlestreetview.com/ and two others but those domains aren’t live yet. Ah! Here is Google’s video explanation of Street Views and a direct link to where Street Views are available.
Of course Microsoft has Windows Live Street View.
Update Feb 6, 2009: Top 10 Moments Caught on Google Maps Street View (link to the flasher – she’s just a blur of pixels now)
Say NO to speed cameras
I was against red light cameras (and still am! $2 million TN dollars went to TX because of Redflex!) and I sure am against speed cameras. Speed trapping makes roads dangerous! Roads should be predictable. We don’t need people slamming on their brakes for police cars and cameras. Sometimes to avoid a problem it is safer to speed up then slow down even if that means hopping above the speed limit. An officer can see, "that truck was about to sideswipe him and he avoided it by speeding up." A camera cannot make that judgment.
I often drive fast on the Interstate. It is safe because the relative speed of traffic is the same and visibility can be several miles. I don’t drive recklessly. There is a huge difference between driving fast and driving recklessly. A slow driver can drive recklessly. In town, I tend to drive the speed limit. I recognize the lights have been timed such that you will make little gain by speeding in town. The few seconds you shorten your trip by speeding is not worth the danger you place pedestrians and other drivers in within the unpredictable confines of busy roads.
Speed cameras and red light cameras are profit tools for public, tax funded law enforcement. We don’t need them! We fix traffic problems through better civil engineering (narrow roads, curves in roads, reduction of traffic signs, removal of speed limits, etc.) and through education. Could you imagine the impact it would have if a police officer pulled you over for speeding and instead of giving you a ticket brought a video player to your car and forced everyone in the car to watch a 15 minute educational video on how speeding wastes fuel, puts unnecessary wear and tear on the vehicle, places people at unnecessary risk, and reduces travel time by less than a few minutes than staying under the speed limit? The 15 minute delay per incident may be reason enough to slow down. But even if the message did not reach the driver, perhaps it would get through to some of the passengers and then you’ve made a difference. Will a bill in the mail have that same impact?
UPDATE: Michael Silence has put up a poll to see if Knoxville wants speed cameras. When I took it, 86% said no.
Update: UT to probe ethics of using traffic cameras. Think about the other cameras we can have in our future "beeeep Our facial recognition software has identified you as Jane Doe. You have been standing in the same spot for 5 minutes and one second which constitutes loitering under ordinance w37704. A fine of $45 has automatically been assessed to your cell phone bill."
Related: Google is mapping Knoxville. How will you be immortalized for the world to view? Do speed cameras change driving habits? See Driving Patterns – Let the Ass Merge.
Driving Patterns – Let the Ass Merge
Narration: [audio:http://realityme.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/drivingpatternslettheassmerge.mp3]
We all know the guy. You are stuck in a slowdown usually for no reason other than rubber necking. Sometimes traffic just slows for no apparent reason at all. Maybe there was a sign encouraging people to merge right or left. You want to be doing 113 km/h but you are stuck at 32 km/h. To make the situation more frustrating you catch a glimpse in your mirrors of car speeding past all the nearly parked cars in hopes that it can merge in ahead of some poor sap. You curse, "why can’t he just get in line like the rest of us!" Then you decide to do your part for society. You will bring justice by moving your car so close to the car in front of you that he can’t possibly merge between you two. If only all the other cars would do the same! We could leave this self-important jackass parked while a solid line of cars cheerfully passes leaving him further behind than ahead. Of course, that never really happens. Some weak person 4 cars ahead of you lets him in. Where’s the vindication?!
William Beaty helped me realize that I am the problem, not the other guy. In his essay, Traffic "Experiments" and a Cure for Waves & Jams he suggests a simple cure to the merging-lane traffic jam I just described. Let them in! I have started doing this and even if 3 cars (or more) merge in front of me it has little to no impact on my arrival time at my destination. It does feel good to have not fought someone (positive karma). I have put my family at less risk by not tailgating another driver or inciting road rage in the merging driver.
Drive by looking down the road. We should be doing that anyway. When you see a slowdown, not when you start experiencing it (although it is never too late), create a gap in traffic between you and the car in front of you. If a car merges into that gap, recreate the gap. It works! It feels good! Traffic moves better. And you have been a safer driver.
Note: Conversions to metric courtesy of http://www.onlineconversion.com/. Images borrowed from Bill Beaty.
Update 7/24/2014: And 7 years later, this hits the news: http://arstechnica.com/cars/2014/07/the-beauty-of-zipper-merging-or-why-you-should-drive-ruder/
Dear Substitute Bus Driver
If you are going to lie and claim that you stopped at the two stops which you didn’t even slow down for, you better be able to substantiate it! And how is it that your bus appeared so empty? Were no children at any of your stops today? An official complaint has been filed with the transportation department. Next time stop your bus even if you do not see any children at the stop.
If you are a Knoxville parent searching for ways to deal with busing issues, be sure to put the transportation department’s phone number, 865-594-1550, in your cell phone’s address book. We would have fewer busing issues if the school owned the buses instead of contracting them.
Update: The bus did eventually pickup the high schoolers. Turns out their official stop is on the other side of Northshore Drive and roughly 80m (120feet) walk down a busy, overgrown, narrow road with no sidewalks. This would be the section of road with 2 crosses and piles of roadkill. So the substitute driver likely stopped at only official stops. I have to file paperwork to make the stop that the bus has stopped at for at least 7 years into an "official" stop.
Today’s Manly Lessons
Today I replaced the brake pads on the van and, seeing that the front tires look like racing slicks, I rotated the tires. A few reminders to those DIYer auto mechanics out there.
- When working on a vehicle on asphalt, place metal plates under your jack stands because unlike concrete, asphalt is soft. That’s why the vehicle keeps getting lower while you work on it. Also makes it a little difficult to get the jack stands out from under the vehicle when you are done but it does leave some neat looking marks in the road.
- When spinning the spider (lug nut tool) around because it looks cool and is fun, make sure you move your leg because nothing is funnier than a grown man trying to explain to the pre-schoolers that he’s crying because he loves working on his "land ship." That’s right! You heard me yell "land ship."
- The lung cancer you got came from changing the brakes without wearing a mask; not Oak Ridge.
- Test the brakes before you move the vehicle not once you have it coasting at 10 miles per hour even if you are "just pulling it ten feet out of the driveway into the road" particularly if you didn’t really tight the lug nuts.
- And, of course, when you break into irrational yelling at the wife and oldest child, just stop. Stop mid-sentence. Apologize and leave the room. That would have been nice.
Why do I blog?
Because now I don’t need to look up the torque settings. I’ll be in the driveway for the next hour or two.
Van wants shoes
I just noticed how ridiculously bald the tires on the van have become. I was hoping for one more month but I fear we are in danger of a blowout or simply sliding off the road. I sure don’t want this vehicle being driven in the rain! This is not the best time for this type of maintenance but when is it a good time.
Accident Update
We were rear ended on Thursday. The girl’s insurance company called me asking that I take the van to the Knoxville Collision Center on Lexington who assured me that there was no damage. To make sure he wasn’t just brushing me off, I went so far as to quipped, "The insurance company is paying via direct bill. Are you sure there isn’t anything you want to fix?" He explained in detail how my bumper was normal and that the car was structurally sound. "Can’t fix what’s not broken." Wow! Did we ever dodge a bullet! I feel horrible that the girl’s car got smashed in the parking lot while we waited for the police to arrive.
