Random Posting

[janice6]

36 minutes ago, SC Tiger said:

 

 

 

The people in the USA are so enamored with the perception that Europeans are so much further advanced as a civilization, that they want to copy every thing they do.  Including every thing that Europeans do as a result of having extremely limited areas in which to accommodate automobiles and truck traffic.  ( If they jumped off a bridge, would you also)
 

European roadways existed since the beginning of their cities and population centers, to serve walkers and animal pulled carts.  The homes and buildings were built with room for only small carts in mind.  My father used to call a portion of St. Paul, MN, "Tangle town", because he said that whatever path the livestock wandered they made into a street.

Now cars and trucks came along, and suddenly they have to accommodate something that's quite a bit larger than the original methods of the population movement and with much greater space requirements.

However, it is easier to put constraints on the existing roadways than to tell the population to tear down their infrastructure and make more room for greater vehicle size.

Many of the roadways and whole cities are not built for powered vehicles and certain rules and accommodations had to be made to serve the larger and faster transportation.  Methods were devised to "fit" in these vehicles.  due to extremely limited sized pathways.

Since these methods of accommodating vehicular traffic require unique solutions due to the lack of initial design, it doesn't follow that they are solutions for our country and it's roadways that have had powered vehicles almost from their onset.

 The only places we have problems similar to Europe are those cities populated in the very early development of our country, these problems are not prevalent in most of our lands.

Now a segment of the population in America that still worships the Europeans as the seat of intelligence, humor and urban design, want to adopt even the methods and techniques derived from not having a surplus of land available, as we do in the USA. Hell, my state is only about 100 years old, where a friend of mine in London bought a house that was "only 100 years old_.

Before you try to emulate a land perceived as "more civilized", look to their slapstick humor and their extremely limited land potential causing them to accommodate powered vehicular traffic, rather than designing it into their original towns and cities.  Look at how compressed their population is due to very limited land mass available.  We shouldn't make their problems, our problems.  We should have better solutions than they do.

We would do better to recognize that our country was built, on and serves the powered vehicular traffic from it's earliest days, and with the massive available land, we should not copy someone else that has severe restrictions and simply recognize that our greatest natural resource is room.  We have a country that is huge and can accommodate many times our numbers instead of copying a place that duplicates "too many Rats in a cage".

Our unique development deserves unique solutions.

 

Edited August 19, 2019 by janice6

[SC Tiger]

4 minutes ago, janice6 said:

The people in the USA are so enamored with the perception that Europeans are so much further advanced as a civilization, that they want to copy every thing they do.  Including every thing that Europeans do as a result of having extremely limited areas in which to accommodate automobiles and truck traffic.  ( If they jumped off a bridge, would you also)
 

European roadways existed since the beginning of their cities and population centers, to serve walkers and animal pulled carts.  The homes and buildings were built with room for only small carts in mind.  

Now cars and trucks came along, and suddenly they have to accommodate something that's quite a bit larger than the original methods of the population movement and with much greater space requirements.

However, it is easier to put constraints on the existing roadways than to tell the population to tear down their infrastructure and make more room for greater vehicle size.

Many of the roadways and whole cities are not built for powered vehicles and certain rules and accommodations had to be made to serve the larger and faster transportation.  Methods were devised to "fit" in these vehicles.  due to extremely limited sized pathways.

Since these methods of accommodating vehicular traffic require unique solutions due to the lack of initial design, it doesn't follow that they are solutions for our country and it's roadways that have had powered vehicles almost from their onset.

 The only places we have problems similar to Europe are those cities populated in the very early development of our country, these problems are not prevalent in most of our lands.

Now a segment of the population in America that still worships the Europeans as the seat of intelligence, humor and urban design, want to adopt even the methods and techniques derived from not having a surplus of land available, as we do in the USA. Hell, my state is only about 100 years old, where a friend of mine in London bought a house that was "only 100 years old_.

Before you try to emulate a land perceived as "more civilized", look to their slapstick humor and their extremely limited land potential causing them to accommodate powered vehicular traffic, rather than designing it into their original towns and cities.  Look at how compressed their population is due to very limited land mass available.  We shouldn't make their problems, our problems.  We should have better solutions than they do.

We would do better to recognize that our country was built, on and serves the powered vehicular traffic from it's earliest days, and with the massive available land, we should not copy someone else that has severe restrictions and simply recognize that our greatest natural resource is room.  We have a country that is huge and can accommodate many times our numbers instead of copying a place that duplicates "too many Rats in a cage".

Our unique development deserves unique solutions.

 

IMO the simple roundabout is a much better solution than the "4 way stop" and keeps traffic flowing better.  It is not a solution for a true stoplight area though, or where there is an imbalance in traffic flow.  But in America they pop up in odd places - such as in the middle of highways.  Not interstates but highways like US 178 in South Carolina.

As far as that thing in Swindon - some say it's great, and some say the locals just avoid the whole thing.   To me it looks like what happens when a traffic circle gets designed by committee and without slide rules.

Edited August 19, 2019 by SC Tiger

[janice6]

Just now, SC Tiger said:

IMO the roundabout is a much better solution than the "4 way stop" and keeps traffic flowing better.  It is not a solution for a true stoplight area though, or where there is an imbalance in traffic flow.

I have traveled the roundabouts in my state and my observations are that they generate more confusion that stop signs do.  They do little to reduce congestion since many drivers are uncomfortable not knowing what direction or lane change the other drivers are going to make.  Therefore, the either go very slow or even stop, to accommodate other cars.

At least 4 way stops are intuitive and even the least experienced among us can understand them.  Roundabout depend on all drivers knowing the rules since they can't post all the limitations placed on the users, so prior knowledge is required with roundabouts. 

Many drivers don't have that knowledge or lack the will to let the other guy go first.  We have a dominate driving gene that causes us to react much differently than a European driver who was brought up being told what to do, rather than having the same "independence" that Americans seem to share.  I'm not saying we are "better", just that we are different!

[SC Tiger]

3 minutes ago, janice6 said:

I have traveled the roundabouts in my state and my observations are that they generate more confusion that stop signs do.  They do little to reduce congestion since many drivers are uncomfortable not knowing what direction or lane change the other drivers are going to make.  Therefore, the either go very slow or even stop, to accommodate other cars.

At least 4 way stops are intuitive and even the least experienced among us can understand them.  Roundabout depend on all drivers knowing the rules since they can't post all the limitations placed on the users, so prior knowledge is required with roundabouts. 

Many drivers don't have that knowledge or lack the will to let the other guy go first.  We have a dominate driving gene that causes us to react much differently than a European driver who was brought up being told what to do, rather than having the same "independence" that Americans seem to share.  I'm not saying we are "better", just that we are different!

What I've observed is that once people get used to them they flow pretty well when used properly.  Then you just have the occasional knucklehead that likes to go around it a few times for laughs:

There is an adjust/griping/questioning why we need this period but once people get past that, they have their place.  I'm talking about the little ones.  Not the multi-lane behemoths like in Paris or London.  Those are just stupid - or at least building a new one would be.

[janice6]

Just now, SC Tiger said:

What I've observed is that once people get used to them they flow pretty well when used properly.  Then you just have the occasional knucklehead that likes to go around it a few times for laughs:

There is an adjust/griping/questioning why we need this period but once people get past that, they have their place.  I'm talking about the little ones.  Not the multi-lane behemoths like in Paris or London.  Those are just stupid - or at least building a new one would be.

We only have little ones and they experience a disproportionate number "me firsts".

[gwalchmai]

9 hours ago, Cougar_ml said:

"Y'all got any mustard? M'hmm."

[Eric]

 

[janice6]

1 hour ago, Eric said:

 

You are what you pretend to be.  Authoritarian form of government.  Synonymous with tyrant.

Chile admires the loser in two wars...……….  fitting.

[pipedreams]

13 hours ago, railfancwb said:

The circle can never be more than 1-1/2 lanes wide. Ideally a scant one lane wide.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Check this originally constructed as a traffic circle in 1930 and reconstructed as a modern roundabout in 1993.  There is a outer circle and inner circle. 

First time around this can be a thriller.

 

Edited August 19, 2019 by pipedreams

[pipedreams]

[pipedreams]

[Huaco Kid]

"Look kids!  Big Ben! Parliament!"

[Silentpoet]

[railfancwb]

 

That’s wrong. All wrong! The circle is far too large.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[janice6]

1 minute ago, railfancwb said:

That’s wrong. All wrong! The circle is far too large.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

The real key to traffic circles is to keep them so small that traffic gets limited motion.  (sarcasm)

[tous]

So, I watched a commercial for a beer where the beautiful people on a beach, you know, people that would never allow you anywhere near the cool kids table at a beach that they will never let you go to,  and they're all shoving lime slices down the neck of their bottle of beer.

Not having a beer bottle, a lime wedge or permission to be amongst the cool kids on their private luxury beach, I got out my slide rule, graph paper and Pentel pencil with .05mm hard lead and got to work.

Based on the evidence that the lime wedge has a lower specific gravity than the beer, i..e. it floats, and analyzing the flow of liquid when the bottle is rotated such that the liquid will flow towards the open mouth of the bottle., and taking into account that beer in question is Mexican beer, my model indicates that when you tip up the cold, refreshing brew toward your mouth, the lime wedge will flow more easily, thus, markedly restricting the flow of the liquid, almost plugging the opening.

 

I did not factor in the coolness portrayed by the actors or the exotic beach location; you know, the one we can't go to and wouldn't want to because there are no Walmarts nearby,.

Perhaps one of the benefits of being the cool kids is that physics just wouldn't dare defy your pursuit of attempting to drink from a bottle that the cool have inserted a  built-in stopper.

 

Now, a nap.

A nap, I say!

Edited August 20, 2019 by tous

[janice6]

40 minutes ago, tous said:

So, I watched a commercial for a beer where the beautiful people on a beach, you know, people that would never allow you anywhere near the cool kids table at a beach that they will never let you go to,  and they're all shoving lime slices down the neck of their bottle of beer.

Not having a beer bottle, a lime wedge or permission to be amongst the cool kids on their private luxury beach, I got out my slide rule, graph paper and Pentel pencil with .05mm hard lead and got to work.

Based on the evidence that the lime wedge has a lower specific gravity than the beer, i..e. it floats, and anaylzing the flow of liquid when the bottle is rotated such that the liquid will flow towards the open mouth of the bottle., and taking into account that beer in question is Mexican beer, my model indicates that when you tip up the cold, refreshing brew toward your mouth, the lime wedge will flow more easily, thus, markedly restricting the flow of the liquid, almost plugging the opening.

 

I did not factor in the coolness portrayed by the actors or the exotic beach location; you know, the one we can't go to and wouldn't want to because there are no Walmarts nearby,.

Perhaps one of the benefits of being the cool kids is that physics just wouldn't dare defy your pursuit of attempting to drink from a bottle that the cool have inserted a  built-in stopper.

 

Now, a nap.

A nap, I say!

Any person of questionable character (such as myself) will tell you that Limes go into Margarita's, not beer!  There, you got it directly from the horses ass.

[janice6]

6 hours ago, pipedreams said:

Check this originally constructed as a traffic circle in 1930 and reconstructed as a modern roundabout in 1993.  There is a outer circle and inner circle. 

First time around this can be a thriller.

 

Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock.  The clock struck one, and the other got away!

[Paul53]

38 minutes ago, janice6 said:

Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock.  The clock struck one, and the other got away!

2, TWO mice ran up the clock. They'd intended to take control of the clock and use it for time travel.

[janice6]

Just now, Paul53 said:

2, TWO mice ran up the clock. They'd intended to take control of the clock and use it for time travel.

Damn.  I didn't read that one!

[Silentpoet]

 

Edited August 20, 2019 by Silentpoet

[Eric]

 

[Silentpoet]

12 minutes ago, Eric said:

 

I love the old big coupes of the 70s.  The last big ones I think were the Lincolns in 79.  You could still get the 460 then.  Caddy the last big coupes were 76.  Don't know about Chrysler/mopar products.  I want one of the big coupes. 

[Eric]

 

[Eric]