Unpopular Anything Road-Related Opinions

[texaskdog]

Interesting.  I could get behind upgrading them with Jesery barriers and a passing lane every 10 miles or less.  Still, I think it's unrealistic to expect major upgrades of most two-lane highways.  FWIW, two-lane, undivided highways go up to 75 MPH in Texas: https://goo.gl/maps/xC6HcTGaVHTfon4R9

Is Texas trying to get people killed??? A 150 mph speed differential between adjacent lanes is not safe at all.

Even on four lane divided rural highways in California, the maximum speed limit is only ever 70 mph. They really love speed in Texas

The Dutch have found that it's not safe to have speeds above 40 mph on undivided roads

Ever been to the remote parts of Texas?

[formulanone]

I don't care about sign fonts

Me neither.

So if DOTs start using Comic Sans on highway signs, you're cool with it?

Heh. For a better example, see the two sign photos on this page.

Revision:
Any bold sans-serif font that is legible will work on a road sign.

Except it won't—legibility is not a value that is either 0 or 1, at least not for road signs. Engineers have conducted studies to prove that different typefaces have different degrees of legibility. Say you have one typeface that can be read from 100 ft away, while another can be read from 75 ft away. They're both technically "legible"—you can read them both—but one can be more easily read from further away, and that means it is more legible. On a road, since you are moving, that means the driver has extra time to read and react to the message. This difference can be safety-critical.

So the statement "any bold sans-serif font that is legible will work on a road sign" isn't an opinion you can have, it's a statement that is simply wrong.

Sure it is; its an opinion. It's just that Arial, Helvetica, Transport, DIN Mittleschrift, and Clarendon haven't been tested side-by-side against Highway Gothic/Clearview to prove they're ineffective by any substantial degree. To several roadfans and roadgeeks, the difference in usage may as well be Comic Sans or Papyrus (admittedly terrible choices for something conveying important information with regards to safety).

That's what's irksome about some hobbies; those that demand precision can sometimes be so arbitrarily tribal about why they don't like something, rather than using that same level of precision in word choice to explain it.

There's also an expectation difference between a few signs in a shopping center or city park which usually suffer few readability issues at 15-30 miles an hour, rendered in a basic non-standard font; rather than the importance of a guide sign font for those travelers moving at 50-75 miles an hour.

[SkyPesos]

For those interested in which other fonts are used on road signs around the world, I found this wikipedia list. Arial is one of them btw.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_public_signage_typefaces

[Ned Weasel]

no way.  at some lights you'd never get to go otherwise.  Go into the intersection.

That's a good way to get a ticket if the light turns red and you get stuck there.  And if you don't get a ticket, that's a good way to block traffic and look like someone who doesn't know how to drive.

Ever drive in Alaska?  if the light is yellow, you go or get run over.  You only stop on red.  Makes a lot of sense really.

Ever drive in NYC?  If the light is green and you can't get across the intersection because traffic is backed up, but you enter the intersection anyway, and then you're just sitting there blocking the intersection when the other street has the green light, then you're that annoying tourist driver everyone hates.  Makes a lot of sense really.

[HighwayStar]

So many unpopular opinions, where to even start?

• Speed limits need to be abolished for most highways outside of urban areas and replaced with a German style "Keep Right Except to Pass" requirement
• The US Numbered Highways need to comprehensively renumbered into a real grid with as many Banner routes as possible
• We need a real I-99 that is east of I-95. Something that uses a combination of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel and the proposed crossings of Long Island Sound, New York Harbor, and the Delaware Bay
• The original planned interstates in Baltimore, DC, New York, etc. need to be constructed
• SUVs need to be banned for on road use

[JayhawkCO]

• SUVs need to be banned for on road use

  How do you get them to wherever you think they should be used?

Chris

[texaskdog]

no way.  at some lights you'd never get to go otherwise.  Go into the intersection.

That's a good way to get a ticket if the light turns red and you get stuck there.  And if you don't get a ticket, that's a good way to block traffic and look like someone who doesn't know how to drive.

Ever drive in Alaska?  if the light is yellow, you go or get run over.  You only stop on red.  Makes a lot of sense really.

Ever drive in NYC?  If the light is green and you can't get across the intersection because traffic is backed up, but you enter the intersection anyway, and then you're just sitting there blocking the intersection when the other street has the green light, then you're that annoying tourist driver everyone hates.  Makes a lot of sense really.

actually we might be talking about two different things.  I'm thinking of people making left turns on the green ball that either don't pull out.  if you're talking about people going straight and you can't cross because it's backed up I'm 100% with you.

[interstatefan990]

• Speed limits need to be abolished for most highways outside of urban areas and replaced with a German style "Keep Right Except to Pass" requirement
  

You do realize that Keep Right Except to Pass is already in effect on almost all freeways in the United States?

[HighwayStar]

• Speed limits need to be abolished for most highways outside of urban areas and replaced with a German style "Keep Right Except to Pass" requirement
  

You do realize that Keep Right Except to Pass is already in effect on almost all freeways in the United States?

Not true. Most states have have something to the effect of requiring you to yield the lane when going slower than the speed limit. Some states, like New Jersey, which do prohibit the continuous use of the left lane regardless of speed, are so urban that it is a meaningless law for a large percentage of the time as both lanes are usually full.
Beyond that, it is not generally well enforced and does not resemble the German implementation in any meaningful way. So no, we don't have that in effect. And when you remove the speed limit it changes the setup entirely anyway, which throws out half or more of the state laws on the books now as no longer meaningful in that case.

[HighwayStar]

• SUVs need to be banned for on road use

  How do you get them to wherever you think they should be used?

Chris

Not really an issue, once you make them illegal for road use they will cease to be manufactured in quantity as road vehicles. I suppose you can grandfather the existing stock in in the interim.[/list]

[oscar]

You do realize that Keep Right Except to Pass is already in effect on almost all freeways in the United States?

KRETP isn't even the law in many places. Often, the signs say "slower traffic keep right" -- and we know how reluctant people can be about admitting that they are "slower traffic", even when other drivers are passing them on the right. STKR is even less enforceable than KRETP.

[JayhawkCO]

• SUVs need to be banned for on road use

  How do you get them to wherever you think they should be used?

Chris

Not really an issue, once you make them illegal for road use they will cease to be manufactured in quantity as road vehicles. I suppose you can grandfather the existing stock in in the interim.[/list]

I'm curious how I would have been able to drive a couple weeks ago when I had 27" of snow at my house and my newly-mandated Honda Civic-type car couldn't get through it?

Chris

[SEWIGuy]

• Speed limits need to be abolished for most highways outside of urban areas and replaced with a German style "Keep Right Except to Pass" requirement
  

You do realize that Keep Right Except to Pass is already in effect on almost all freeways in the United States?

Not true. Most states have have something to the effect of requiring you to yield the lane when going slower than the speed limit. Some states, like New Jersey, which do prohibit the continuous use of the left lane regardless of speed, are so urban that it is a meaningless law for a large percentage of the time as both lanes are usually full.
Beyond that, it is not generally well enforced and does not resemble the German implementation in any meaningful way. So no, we don't have that in effect. And when you remove the speed limit it changes the setup entirely anyway, which throws out half or more of the state laws on the books now as no longer meaningful in that case.

If you are driving on a rural interstate with little traffic around, why does it matter what lane you are using?

[HighwayStar]

• SUVs need to be banned for on road use

  How do you get them to wherever you think they should be used?

Chris

Not really an issue, once you make them illegal for road use they will cease to be manufactured in quantity as road vehicles. I suppose you can grandfather the existing stock in in the interim.[/list]

I'm curious how I would have been able to drive a couple weeks ago when I had 27" of snow at my house and my newly-mandated Honda Civic-type car couldn't get through it?

Chris

People always pull out some kind of extreme edge case to try and justify those ridiculous things, but the reality is that 99% of miles driven can easily be accommodated with a sedan. I have spent years living in northern snowy climates driving a FWD sedan and never needed an SUV. Usually if it snows 27" you just clear the driveway and wait for the road to be plowed anyway. The once in a decade storm is not a justification for driving that thing all the time. Believe it or not people in the 70s did just fine without them.
The SUV only came into existence as a result of unintended consequences of regulation, so it should meet its demise by regulation. End of story.

[HighwayStar]

• Speed limits need to be abolished for most highways outside of urban areas and replaced with a German style "Keep Right Except to Pass" requirement
  

You do realize that Keep Right Except to Pass is already in effect on almost all freeways in the United States?

Not true. Most states have have something to the effect of requiring you to yield the lane when going slower than the speed limit. Some states, like New Jersey, which do prohibit the continuous use of the left lane regardless of speed, are so urban that it is a meaningless law for a large percentage of the time as both lanes are usually full.
Beyond that, it is not generally well enforced and does not resemble the German implementation in any meaningful way. So no, we don't have that in effect. And when you remove the speed limit it changes the setup entirely anyway, which throws out half or more of the state laws on the books now as no longer meaningful in that case.

If you are driving on a rural interstate with little traffic around, why does it matter what lane you are using?

It doesn't, until you remove the speed limits and go Autobahn style. Then you need the rule to prevent passing on the right and people bottling up traffic.

[texaskdog]

So many unpopular opinions, where to even start?

• The US Numbered Highways need to comprehensively renumbered into a real grid with as many Banner routes as possible

There should be a "top 100" US highways grid redone.  anything else can be over 100 and those could go anywhere, not "branches" per se

[HighwayStar]

So many unpopular opinions, where to even start?

• The US Numbered Highways need to comprehensively renumbered into a real grid with as many Banner routes as possible

There should be a "top 100" US highways grid redone.  anything else can be over 100 and those could go anywhere, not "branches" per se

Well that would be the grid more or less. The major north south 1,11,....,91,101. And the major east west 10,20,...,80,90
Three digit routes with those as their parents, might as well have them attached in some logical fashion.
Then cardinal directional variants like 10N or 1E.
Then alternate, bypass, scenic, truck, city, etc.

[SectorZ]

• SUVs need to be banned for on road use

  How do you get them to wherever you think they should be used?

Chris

Not really an issue, once you make them illegal for road use they will cease to be manufactured in quantity as road vehicles. I suppose you can grandfather the existing stock in in the interim.[/list]

I'm curious how I would have been able to drive a couple weeks ago when I had 27" of snow at my house and my newly-mandated Honda Civic-type car couldn't get through it?

Chris

People always pull out some kind of extreme edge case to try and justify those ridiculous things, but the reality is that 99% of miles driven can easily be accommodated with a sedan. I have spent years living in northern snowy climates driving a FWD sedan and never needed an SUV. Usually if it snows 27" you just clear the driveway and wait for the road to be plowed anyway. The once in a decade storm is not a justification for driving that thing all the time. Believe it or not people in the 70s did just fine without them.
The SUV only came into existence as a result of unintended consequences of regulation, so it should meet its demise by regulation. End of story.

Unintended consequences of regulation? What regulation is/was necessary, other than your authoritarian pouting?

In your world, I presume a 1983 Ford Crown Vic is A-OK yet a 2021 Mazda CX-3 isn't?

[JayhawkCO]

• SUVs need to be banned for on road use

  How do you get them to wherever you think they should be used?

Chris

Not really an issue, once you make them illegal for road use they will cease to be manufactured in quantity as road vehicles. I suppose you can grandfather the existing stock in in the interim.[/list]

I'm curious how I would have been able to drive a couple weeks ago when I had 27" of snow at my house and my newly-mandated Honda Civic-type car couldn't get through it?

Chris

People always pull out some kind of extreme edge case to try and justify those ridiculous things, but the reality is that 99% of miles driven can easily be accommodated with a sedan. I have spent years living in northern snowy climates driving a FWD sedan and never needed an SUV. Usually if it snows 27" you just clear the driveway and wait for the road to be plowed anyway. The once in a decade storm is not a justification for driving that thing all the time. Believe it or not people in the 70s did just fine without them.
The SUV only came into existence as a result of unintended consequences of regulation, so it should meet its demise by regulation. End of story.

a) This isn't really a once in a decade type of storm around here.  I just used the most recent example.  We get over a foot of snow a couple times a year.  And in a lot of municipalities, they don't plow side streets, only main streets.  If I just shoveled and waited, it would have been at least three days before I could have gotten out with a low clearance vehicle. 

b) There were a whole lot more accidents/ending up in a ditch before AWD/4WD became more popular (as well as with other technology improvements like ABS).  Growing up in Minnesota in the 80's, I don't think I can count on both hands how many times I had someone I know ended up in a ditch.  Returning to that doesn't seem like a ton of fun.

c) It also isn't an edge case for those of us that like to recreate in the mountains and don't always drive on paved (or even graded) roads.  My Jeep is hardly just a mall cruiser. 

Chris

[HighwayStar]

• SUVs need to be banned for on road use

  How do you get them to wherever you think they should be used?

Chris

Not really an issue, once you make them illegal for road use they will cease to be manufactured in quantity as road vehicles. I suppose you can grandfather the existing stock in in the interim.[/list]

I'm curious how I would have been able to drive a couple weeks ago when I had 27" of snow at my house and my newly-mandated Honda Civic-type car couldn't get through it?

Chris

People always pull out some kind of extreme edge case to try and justify those ridiculous things, but the reality is that 99% of miles driven can easily be accommodated with a sedan. I have spent years living in northern snowy climates driving a FWD sedan and never needed an SUV. Usually if it snows 27" you just clear the driveway and wait for the road to be plowed anyway. The once in a decade storm is not a justification for driving that thing all the time. Believe it or not people in the 70s did just fine without them.
The SUV only came into existence as a result of unintended consequences of regulation, so it should meet its demise by regulation. End of story.

Unintended consequences of regulation? What regulation is/was necessary, other than your authoritarian pouting?

In your world, I presume a 1983 Ford Crown Vic is A-OK yet a 2021 Mazda CX-3 isn't?

The regulation that caused it was perhaps necessary but extremely poorly implemented, in that SUVs were given the same MPG requirements as trucks, even though they are passenger vehicles. Even that regulation only became necessary due to earlier failures on the part of the Federal Government and the Texas Railroad Commission.

The Crown Vic, and the Panther Platform more generally was an excellent series of automobiles. The 2021 Mazda CX-3 is not by any means. The comparison is not entirely fair, as you are looking at decades of difference in technology etc. But the basic design principles of the comparison hold true. For a given vehicle, ride height MUST sacrifice fuel economy and handling/ride quality. That ride height is unnecessary and has been ingrained in a bizarre arms race to see over the vehicle in front of you.

[Scott5114]

I don't care about sign fonts

Me neither.

So if DOTs start using Comic Sans on highway signs, you're cool with it?

Heh. For a better example, see the two sign photos on this page.

Revision:
Any bold sans-serif font that is legible will work on a road sign.

Except it won't–legibility is not a value that is either 0 or 1, at least not for road signs. Engineers have conducted studies to prove that different typefaces have different degrees of legibility. Say you have one typeface that can be read from 100 ft away, while another can be read from 75 ft away. They're both technically "legible"–you can read them both–but one can be more easily read from further away, and that means it is more legible. On a road, since you are moving, that means the driver has extra time to read and react to the message. This difference can be safety-critical.

So the statement "any bold sans-serif font that is legible will work on a road sign" isn't an opinion you can have, it's a statement that is simply wrong.

Sure it is; its an opinion. It's just that Arial, Helvetica, Transport, DIN Mittleschrift, and Clarendon haven't been tested side-by-side against Highway Gothic/Clearview to prove they're ineffective by any substantial degree. To several roadfans and roadgeeks, the difference in usage may as well be Comic Sans or Papyrus (admittedly terrible choices for something conveying important information with regards to safety).

Okay then, it's an opinion based on facts which aren't true. Which means it's wrong.

No matter how much we bitch and moan about the DOT, they employ professionals that make decisions based on hard data. Studies and a huge amount of math and engineering practice go into determining the orthodoxy when it comes to road and traffic control design. If you've got a different opinion than what the standard practice of the profession is, you damn sure better have your own data to back up that opinion, or it doesn't mean shit. It is the exact same mentality that got this country into such deep shit with the pandemic–sure there's a team of doctors with 40 years of experience in this field recommending one thing, but I read a Facebook post, so I'm pretty sure I know better.

It's not even so much about Arial's inherent legibility per se. What the FHWA Series and Clearview fonts bring to the table is that they have both been tested for legibility in such a way that we can predict that a sign set in FHWA Series D (or Clearview, or Clarendon, or DIN, or whatever road sign font) at a certain size will be legible to the driver from so many feet away. That means we can place a sign a known number of feet ahead of a feature of interest (hazard point, decision point at a junction, whatever) and guarantee that the driver will have time to read the sign and react to the message accordingly. This is data we straight up don't have for Arial or Franklin Gothic. So those fonts simply do not work for road signs, as they introduce too many unknown variables for effective engineering practice to be possible. That isn't a thing you can have an opinion on, it's a black and white fact.

[HighwayStar]

• SUVs need to be banned for on road use

  How do you get them to wherever you think they should be used?

Chris

Not really an issue, once you make them illegal for road use they will cease to be manufactured in quantity as road vehicles. I suppose you can grandfather the existing stock in in the interim.[/list]

I'm curious how I would have been able to drive a couple weeks ago when I had 27" of snow at my house and my newly-mandated Honda Civic-type car couldn't get through it?

Chris

People always pull out some kind of extreme edge case to try and justify those ridiculous things, but the reality is that 99% of miles driven can easily be accommodated with a sedan. I have spent years living in northern snowy climates driving a FWD sedan and never needed an SUV. Usually if it snows 27" you just clear the driveway and wait for the road to be plowed anyway. The once in a decade storm is not a justification for driving that thing all the time. Believe it or not people in the 70s did just fine without them.
The SUV only came into existence as a result of unintended consequences of regulation, so it should meet its demise by regulation. End of story.

a) This isn't really a once in a decade type of storm around here.  I just used the most recent example.  We get over a foot of snow a couple times a year.  And in a lot of municipalities, they don't plow side streets, only main streets.  If I just shoveled and waited, it would have been at least three days before I could have gotten out with a low clearance vehicle. 

b) There were a whole lot more accidents/ending up in a ditch before AWD/4WD became more popular (as well as with other technology improvements like ABS).  Growing up in Minnesota in the 80's, I don't think I can count on both hands how many times I had someone I know ended up in a ditch.  Returning to that doesn't seem like a ton of fun.

c) It also isn't an edge case for those of us that like to recreate in the mountains and don't always drive on paved (or even graded) roads.  My Jeep is hardly just a mall cruiser. 

Chris

The idea that AWD/4WD makes accidents like going into the ditch less common is really fanciful. 86% of people that buy those vehicles but bad "all season" tires on them and call it good. The stopping distance for a Camry with studded tires is 1/3 of a CRV with all season tires. AWD helps you speed up, it has ZERO impact on braking and little impact on handling. The difference you see is thanks to ABS, ESC, etc. along with other factors that had nothing to do with AWD.

I'm glad you go off roading in your SUV, but 99% of the miles driven by those things are on paved roads to the mall, Walmart, etc. As you said it is for recreation anyway so it need not dictate policy for the vast majority of them.

[JayhawkCO]

The idea that AWD/4WD makes accidents like going into the ditch less common is really fanciful. 86% of people that buy those vehicles but bad "all season" tires on them and call it good. The stopping distance for a Camry with studded tires is 1/3 of a CRV with all season tires. AWD helps you speed up, it has ZERO impact on braking and little impact on handling. The difference you see is thanks to ABS, ESC, etc. along with other factors that had nothing to do with AWD.

Agreed re: tires (I have severe winter rated BFG KO2s), and I'm well aware that tires stop your vehicle, not drivetrain.  But if your car starts to get a little squirrely on a snowpacked road, having all wheels driving to straighten you out instead of going into a spin does matter.  If we're strictly talking "slamming on the brakes" straight line stopping, then obviously the 4WD/AWD is irrelevant.

I'm glad you go off roading in your SUV, but 99% of the miles driven by those things are on paved roads to the mall, Walmart, etc. As you said it is for recreation anyway so it need not dictate policy for the vast majority of them.

But it's also my daily driver.  Unless I'm misunderstanding what you posted earlier, you would prefer that I not be able to use my vehicle in that role.

Chris

[SectorZ]

• SUVs need to be banned for on road use

  How do you get them to wherever you think they should be used?

Chris

Not really an issue, once you make them illegal for road use they will cease to be manufactured in quantity as road vehicles. I suppose you can grandfather the existing stock in in the interim.[/list]

I'm curious how I would have been able to drive a couple weeks ago when I had 27" of snow at my house and my newly-mandated Honda Civic-type car couldn't get through it?

Chris

People always pull out some kind of extreme edge case to try and justify those ridiculous things, but the reality is that 99% of miles driven can easily be accommodated with a sedan. I have spent years living in northern snowy climates driving a FWD sedan and never needed an SUV. Usually if it snows 27" you just clear the driveway and wait for the road to be plowed anyway. The once in a decade storm is not a justification for driving that thing all the time. Believe it or not people in the 70s did just fine without them.
The SUV only came into existence as a result of unintended consequences of regulation, so it should meet its demise by regulation. End of story.

a) This isn't really a once in a decade type of storm around here.  I just used the most recent example.  We get over a foot of snow a couple times a year.  And in a lot of municipalities, they don't plow side streets, only main streets.  If I just shoveled and waited, it would have been at least three days before I could have gotten out with a low clearance vehicle. 

b) There were a whole lot more accidents/ending up in a ditch before AWD/4WD became more popular (as well as with other technology improvements like ABS).  Growing up in Minnesota in the 80's, I don't think I can count on both hands how many times I had someone I know ended up in a ditch.  Returning to that doesn't seem like a ton of fun.

c) It also isn't an edge case for those of us that like to recreate in the mountains and don't always drive on paved (or even graded) roads.  My Jeep is hardly just a mall cruiser. 

Chris

The idea that AWD/4WD makes accidents like going into the ditch less common is really fanciful. 86% of people that buy those vehicles but bad "all season" tires on them and call it good. The stopping distance for a Camry with studded tires is 1/3 of a CRV with all season tires. AWD helps you speed up, it has ZERO impact on braking and little impact on handling. The difference you see is thanks to ABS, ESC, etc. along with other factors that had nothing to do with AWD.

I'm glad you go off roading in your SUV, but 99% of the miles driven by those things are on paved roads to the mall, Walmart, etc. As you said it is for recreation anyway so it need not dictate policy for the vast majority of them.

You act as if SUVs are all Jeep Wranglers and mid-90's Ford Broncos. You have gone out in the world right? Most SUVs, what people call them, are really crossovers, and are more car like than many cars. Many get better gas mileage than many cars.

We get it, you hate something and want it banned, taking away the rights and enjoyment of million of people you apparently hate. Get over it. Please. Hating on SUVs to the point of demanding their ban is just shitting on a huge chunk of your brothers and sisters in this country.

[interstatefan990]

You do realize that Keep Right Except to Pass is already in effect on almost all freeways in the United States?

KRETP isn't even the law in many places. Often, the signs say "slower traffic keep right" -- and we know how reluctant people can be about admitting that they are "slower traffic", even when other drivers are passing them on the right. STKR is even less enforceable than KRETP.

A lot of people are going to disagree with this, but if you really think about it, at their core, KRETP AND STKR are the same thing.

In a STKR state: If you are considered "slower traffic"  then that means you're not passing other vehicles, they're passing you, so you are already required to keep right except to pass even slower traffic. Hence, keep right except to pass.

In a KRETP state: If you aren't passing other vehicles, you are technically slower traffic, and you are also required to keep right. Hence, slower traffic keep right.



Also about this SUV talk: What do you even consider a real "SUV" ? Is my Subaru Crosstrek or Toyota RAV4 too threatening to your non-SUV vehicle to be allowed on the road?