[geeks] Race Tracks

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Sat, 21 Apr 2007 @ 23:17 -0400, Sridhar Ayengar said:

> sammy ominsky wrote:
> >> In downstate New York, there have always been truck drivers who open
> >> their door when they see you coming.  Not cool.
> > 
> > Wow, that's seriously messed up.  What are they thinking?  Do they  
> > really intend murder?
> 
> I saw it happen.  It's *horrifying*.  The guy I saw who took the door in 
> his face didn't die, but he definitely would've needed to spend some 
> time in traction, and/or learning how to walk again.  And unfortunately, 
> the law sides with the truckers, because it's illegal to lane-split. 

Lane splitting is illegal around here, but I know that a couple of
people who deliberately ran a motorcycle and a car off the road by doing
that were put in jail.

Oh, yes, I've seen people lane split with cars.  

Usually the cars hit the shoulder, but I've seen several of the really
tiny cars go right down the middle.

At the same time, I do know a couple of times riders have hit doors, and
it realy wasn't the drivers fault.  When traffic is stopped, it is quite
common around here because of the large numbers of tunnels and bridges,
and because of heat, for drivers to check their vehicles when stopped.

This causes a lot of lane splitter accidents.

I think we should have one lane per vehicle, period. I think implied
double lanes should be marked, or signed. Most of them are left blank
and you have to memorize the rules.

Moving more aside, but related:

Locally we have roads, usually exit ramps, where there are two lane
lights or signs, and two lane exits, but no painted divider before them.
The road widens, and it is obvious by design that the single lane is
supposed to split into the two exits. VA Law also says that vehicles
should form two lines cooperatively.

The C-word pretty much guarantees disaster, but moving along...

The problem is VA law doesn't specifically list this as being legal.
Most cops do it themselves, but every once in awhile you get a Barney
Fife who will write you a ticket. The judge will almost always throw it
out, but it sucks to bother with it. Fortunately ticket are rare.

However, it causes other problems.

It confuses a lot of drivers. I can't believe that the city/state saves
much money on paint by not marking a few hundred feet of road or at
least putting up a sign.

Then, related to opening doors to hit riders on purpose, some people
become traffic vigilantes and try to block you from using both exits.

If there are two lights, both indicating opposite directions, and two
exit lanes, what makes them think you should stay single file when the
road clearly doubles in width to accomodate filtering?

Then again... there *IS* only one lane marked, so some confusion is
understandable.

Traffic is bad enough without this kind of stupidity.

I don't know what Europe and the UK is like, or a lot of other states,
but locally one of our biggest problems was the elimination of traffic
bureaus many years back, most in the 1970s.

Our police departments used to have special units called traffic
bureaus, and they not only enforced traffic law, but they also designed
roads, evaluated existing roads, and gave feeback for changes in policy
and law, as well as road design. They went to school and studied physics
and other sciences to back up their forensics work.

Now most cops rarely bother with a full investigation of an accident,
and some clearly don't know how to work them.


-- 
shannon
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