...Danny Jimenez Dr. B. Jones ENC1102 20 April 2010 Freedom for Freeways Many of us have little or no time, especially dealing with work, school, gym and many other errands at the same time. Sometimes time is just not enough and we have to rush ourselves in order to make it to our commitments on time and to make things worse, traffic and speed limits get in our way. In moments like these a speed limit becomes more of an annoying suggestion rather that an enforced rule. Not necessarily by increasing or removing speed limits freeways would become dangerous, but also is not a matter of just take away these limits. Society should be better educated and trained in order to create a safer and more efficient road environment giving chance to reach longer distances in a shorter amount of time and why not, put our powerful line of super-vehicles to the test. In America, the average Maximum Speed Limit ranges between 55-75 mph. as a community, it’s necessary to create safety parameters in order to maintain a controlled environment and reduce the risk of fatalities, injuries and/or property damage since it’s believed that speed is one of the greatest killers out in the roads, it gives less reaction time and also in a vehicle traveling at a high speed, any defect or anomaly on the surface tend to be a high risk of loss of control of the vehicle. Also environmental issues have been part of the opposition and there has been an ongoing debate between environmentalists and fuel consumption...
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...Drinking, speeding and driving May 21, 2009 Objective Part: The topic I chose revolves around an announcement “Don’t be an ass, don’t drive” made by Kunhadi.org, an organization that supports and advices people to drive slowly without getting drunk, in order to avoid car accidents. In fact, this item managed to hold my interest since I am really concerned with awakening the public on the numerous numbers of accidents occurring a year. If truth be told, over 500 people in Lebanon die every year in car accidents mostly caused by drinking and exceeding speed limits. Additionally, more than 9000 accidents are taking place each year, which of course are no coincidence. Thus, convincing people to be cautious and watchful is, without a doubt, a requirement. Subjective part: As abovementioned, drinking too much along with driving too fast has already cost and threatened so many lives. As a matter of fact, many people, when being in nightspots, tend to drink an outsized amount of alcohol, and on their way home, become fatalities or sufferers of car accidents. Accordingly, in order to circumvent such dramatic catastrophes, I think that the government should place security forces in almost every region to catch and punish the persons who consumed an amount of alcohol greater than the tolerated average. Plus, as stated earlier, most of the people can’t stand driving behind cars motoring at a snail's pace. In reality, they tend to overtake them even if they had to exceed the speed...
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...Classification Essay-DRIVERS In my experience, there are three kinds of drivers in this world, The Erratic Driver, the Over Cautious Driver, and the Alert Driver. There is the Erratic Driver, this type of driver can seem to be fairly unpredictable on the road, with their tailgating and speeding, this person is the most hazardous to themselves and other travelers. Then there is the Over Cautious Driver, who is just as easy to spot as the Erratic Driver. They are normally going under the speed limit or close to it, this type of driver will slow up traffic, and in highly congested areas, they can be a hazard on the road from hesitating and not flowing well with the traffic. Finally, there is the Alert Driver, this type of driving style consists of paying attention to the surroundings, such as weather, potholes, and other traffic. The Erratic Driver: Has a tendency of pissing off other drivers, with their erratic and unpredictable actions. They can be 100 yards behind you one second, and the next second they're so close that you can't read their license plate. They seem to always be in a hurry, whether they actually are in a hurry or not doesn't matter, the erratic driver is not a safe driver. Here's a tip from a recovering lead foot, you can't control other drivers, so pull your foot off the pedal, you can only affect your share of the road. Driving the speed limits will save you fines, and insurance hikes, and it will help you go with the flow of traffic. The Over Cautious Driver:...
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...found that the average speed had increased along urban interstate, rural US highway, urban US highway, and rural state highways by 8,4,7, and 5 mph, respectively. Crashes were grouped into the following biases: (fatal crashes), (fatal and incapacitating crashes), (fatal, incapacitating, and capacitating crashes), and (all types of crashes with different injury severity). However, property damaged only was discarded for the study. It was found that 15 months after speed limits had been changed, all types of crashes on rural interstate increased by 16 percent, on urban interstate all types of crashes increased by 28 percent, and on US and state highways all types of crashes increased significantly. Additional factors that may have influenced the results were defined. For instance, truck involvement, exceeding speed limit, lighting issues and many other factors. After NMSL was repealed, the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) and Michigan State Police raised the speed limit of 500 miles of freeway to 70 mph. The 500 miles were designated to study the impact of a new speed limit on crashes over a six month study period; the study was conducted by Taylor (Taylor and Maleck, An Evaluation of the Michigan 70 MPH Speed Limit. 1996). The study did not discover significant speed changes before and after the speed limits were changed and there was insufficient data to determine the safety impacts. In 1997 MDOT raised the speed limit along an additional 1000 miles of rural freeway...
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...GOAL: To alleviate traffic congestion in GTA and especially on the east-west route cost effectively and in as short a time as possible. INTERVENTION: To establish and privatize a new east-west route (407) to ease the congestion on the main route (401). The new privatized highway is intended to reduce traffic, therefore reducing the amount of time spent commuting, hence encouraging investors and stimulating the economy through productive time gained. ANALYSIS: This is a DIRECT intervention. The government is directly involved at A in supporting the decision to privatize the highway (407) to improve traffic flow and efficiency. At B: (i) the goal of reduce traffic congestion in the GTA is satisfied since another east-west route is introduced to relieve the pressure on the existing one (401). (ii) the intended goal is achieved by the government’s decision to lay the burden of developing, designing, building operating and maintaining of the new highway on the private sector. (iii) a new state of equilibrium is established because the change in government policies that allow for privatization enabled the government to share the financial burden with the private sector, resulting in quicker and more cost efficient building of highway 407. This curbed the traffic congestion problem faster and more efficiently than if the government was the only player. This intervention is COERCIVE because when the government...
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...Evaluation of the Topic ‘Causes of Road Fatalities’ Roadway accidents or fatalities, is a globally increasing problem. This problem consumes the lives of persons, mainly males, daily in the most violent of ways. We see in many cases the government of various countries, where this monstrous problem is more prevalent, establish institutions that in turn develop strategies and implementations to tackle and take down this mighty colossus, thereby injecting millions of dollars into these programmes to ensure that every effort is taken to do this. In this Expository piece, we look at that the ‘Causes of Road Fatalities’. But what exactly are we talking about when we say the ‘Causes of Road Fatalities’? To properly investigate the ‘Causes of Road Fatalities’ we need to fully or completely understand what this means. The ‘causes’ of anything speaks about its direct root, where it originates, what allows it to occur or what induces it. Road Fatalities only exist upon the creation of a road accident. Therefore in order to be successful in this investigation, the topic ‘Road Accidents’ is needed to be evaluated and not necessarily Road Fatalities. ‘Road Accidents’ can be defined as, a roadway mishap that in most cases leads to damage of property, injury or death to person(s). Bringing the two together, we can therefore conclude that this expository-piece’s sole purpose is to look into the specific or direct reasons that induce or create an unpredictable occurrences...
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...Automated Traffic Enforcement Policy This policy addresses the installation and use by state, city and county law enforcement agencies of automated traffic enforcement systems, specifically, automated red-light violation and speed enforcement systems on the state highway system only. The Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission (MHTC) hereby delegates the administration of this Policy to the MoDOT Director, who shall be authorized to further delegate by memorandum the administration of this Policy to such MoDOT employee(s) as the MoDOT Director deems appropriate. Automated Enforcement of Red-Light Violations To ensure red-light traffic signal violations are mitigated as completely and as feasibly possible, state highway intersections that are candidates for automated red-light violation enforcement will undergo both an engineering study and a violation study. The engineering study will ensure the state highway intersection warrants the installation of an automated red-light enforcement system and that the cameras and related equipment will not impact the existing signal operation. The review will encompass the following steps: Step 1: Confirm safety problem Step 2: Identify the scope Step 3: Conduct engineering analysis to identify factors contributing to problem Step 4: Identify and select appropriate countermeasures Step 5: Implement countermeasures The violation study will include each approach of the state highway intersection. Conditions for Installation For...
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...According to a recent article, roadkill accidents are up in Eastern Tennessee because it is fall. With bears out and about, looking for food, some roadkill accidents even involved bears. While you definitely want to avoid hitting smaller animals such as dog, cats, and turkeys, hitting larger animals such as bears can cause even greater damage to your vehicle. So far this year, there have been over 40 bears killed by vehicles in Eastern Tennessee. There are several things you can do to reduce your chances of hitting a bear or other large animal as well as to better protect yourself if you do hit a larger animal while driving. • Slow down. This is particularly important in rural areas, areas where your visibility is limited, and areas where bears...
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...People should not speed because they will reduce the amount of car accidents, lower the risk of being approached by police and save money. The Basic Speed Law states that when an individual is operating a vehicle one is prohibited to drive at an unreasonable speed and may not endanger the safety of others. As a driver increases the speed of his vehicle so does the distance travelled during the driver’s reaction time and the distance needed to stop. A driver’s reaction time is how long it takes for the driver to notice any hazard and the time it takes for the driver to react to the hazard. On average it takes a driver 1.5 seconds to react to a risky situation while driving. Speeding increases the risk of losing control of the vehicle making it difficult for one to maneuver around turns. Speeding is directly related to the probability and the outcome of a crash. In 2012, there was a total of 33,561 crashes in the United States and 10,219 of the crashes involved speed. In Maryland there were 505 total traffic fatalities and 199 were caused by speeding. Resulting in an annual economic cost of $40.4 billion for speed related crashes alone. Speeding doesn’t only endanger individuals in cars, it’s also endangers pedestrians and motorcycle riders who are way more vulnerable than individuals in cars. As a vehicle’s speed increases its kinetic energy is also increasing. A moving vehicles kinetic energy is mass times velocity squared. When a vehicle crashes all of the kinetic energy must...
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...Do you think the current highway speed limit in Canada is appropriate? How would decide whether or not it should be increased or decreased? Considering Canada has nearly 900,000 kilometers of road, I am a little surprised the topic of speed limit optimization hasn’t been more of a hot topic for government agencies. Canada has a maximum speed limit of 100km/hour on multi-lane highways. For two lane highways, the speed limit remains the same at 100km/hour. In urban areas the speed limit drops to 60km/hour on major roads, and down a further 10 km/hour for a speed limit of 50km/hour in residential areas. As is typical in any country around the world, the speed limit in school and playground areas is reduced further (AngloInfoCanada.Com). If the speed limit were raised, the marginal benefits would be: 1. Reduced travel times 2. Congestion relief 3. Higher productivity of transportation of goods The marginal costs associated with a speed limit increase would be: 1. The cost of more patrol vehicles and police presence 2. Lost revenue from assigned speeding tickets 3. The cost of increased fuel consumption When looking at the marginal benefits, there can be assumptions made on increased productivity, reduced travel times and congestion relief, however there are no real numbers or evidence to support these statements as they are natural assumptions. The current infrastructure in Canada accommodates the number of vehicles on the road, yet there is frustration with congestion...
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...THE RIDE OF A LIFETIME Last year, when I was still living in India something terrible happened. In India everybody in high school has a motorcycle, in the US if a teenage driver gets pulled over by a cop for speeding twenty miles per hour above the speed limit or driving with out license might end up in jail. In India there are no speed limits in cities. If a teenager gets caught by a cop speeding or driving with out license, he can get off by buying a cop a coffee or giving him $10. For me a motorcycle was something more than two wheels and metal, it was freedom for me. According to me freedom is not asking some one for a ride to school or home or on long rides beside mountains racing friends. I finally asked my mother for a motorcycle. Before I begin, I think it is important to give a little background on how I got to where I am today. As a teenager, I had a terrifying experience on a four-wheeler that led me to fear the falling off part. My cousin Sam, his girlfriend of the time, and I were riding on a four-wheeler. He decided to let her drive, and as she jerked forward attempting to take off, I fell backwards off the back. Hanging on by the bars, I could feel my head grazing the blacktop road. It caused a great deal of alarm, but I was a teenager so we continued on our way not telling anyone what had happened to avoid getting into trouble. Since then I started preferring motorcycles rather than...
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...Ecuador Roadtrip Introduction Travelling experience Body Ecuador around the world The “Ruta del Spondylus” Food, adventure, night life Conclusion Learning about my culture Personal experience. For many people the word “travelling” can have many meanings. Some people would consider that If you don’t get in a plane then you’re not really travelling, or that if you don’t go shopping in the place you are visiting then you’re not really travelling either. However, for many people, especially foreigners, travelling is more of a learning experience. You can get to know different cultures, people, customs, food, infrastructure, history, music, languages, dialects and so on. There is a specific kind of trip called “roadtrip”. Roadtripping started as a hippie thing, it’s basically about driving around to different cities, towns, countries without a plan. You can either end up in a nice hotel or at a road motel and both will make you feel or give you the same comfort; even there will be times when you will have to sleep in your own car. Ecuador is most known around the world as a touristic place; actually, most known by foreigners than by their own people (Ecuadorians). I’ve met a lot of foreigners, from different countries, from the US, Europe, Middle East, Latin Americans and so on, and most of them know Ecuador for their beaches and especially for Galapagos Island. We are supposed to teach other people about our country; unfortunately, it turns...
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... | |4 | |4-5 | | |PROS AND CONS OF TOLL SYSTEM IN GERMANY | | |5 |CONCLUSION |6 | |6 |REFERENCES |7 | ABSTRACT Due to the financial crisis in constructing infrastructure and maintenance for autobahns,...
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...Federal Highway Policy Xanthyne Perrin POL 201 American National Government Professor Angela Cranon-Charles June 8, 2015 When we define the Federal Highway policy, we initially think of the many rules and guidelines that are to be followed when considering operating a motor vehicle. The Federal Highway Policy is placed to make a safer driving experience for many road users that are considering traveling by a motor vehicle. The creation of the Federal Highway Policy system in 1956, which was funded by road users who were paying a federal fuel tax of 18.3 cents per gallon of gasoline (The Heritage Foundation, 2010), which initially lost its since of purpose and today no more than 65% of all federal trust fund spending’s goes to general purpose roads. Like any policy in reference to federalism, there are the pros as well as the cons to any situation. The minimum age of drinking, the safety of the way these roads operate and the speed limits are all considered when discussing the Federal Highway Policy as well as the many issues that takes place in reference to the three issues listed. As we are all familiar, the legal drinking age of alcohol consumption is 21. There are many issues to the legal drinking age and why some agree that is should be lowered. Back in the 1970’s, a trend toward lowering the minimum legal drinking age 18, 19, or 20 took place in the states providing many natural experiments (Wagenarr & Toomey, 2005). As a result of lowering the legal drinking...
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...1 Compare and Contrast Essay Autobahn vs. U.S. highways When it comes to the U.S. we love the American open road, there is nothing like it. We have all the necessary traffic laws, cameras, and speed limits. But who needs that when you have the autobahn in Germany! Like every other place in the world the U.S. highways have long stretches of open road. The down side to the autobahn is because there are no speed limits, there are more deaths. There is a news report I read that 4 people were found in the trenches which is never a good thing. U.S. highways are safe for the most part people still have accidents but a large percent of them are usually ok. In the U.S. are traffic laws are pretty self explanatory. If you speed and get caught the police will pull you over and politely (yeah right) give you a ticket. If you feel like they are wrong you can go to court and fight it. In Germany, there is no speed limit so it gives the cop less work to do. In Texas, the most common speed limit is 60 mph. people who drive a ninety thousand dollar sports car in Texas are wasting money mainly because you can not max out the power potential that you might want to achieve. In Germany it is the opposite. There is no speed limits on the Autobahn there are some laws but most of them are towards the truck drivers and farmers. There is nothing wrong per say with the American way of doing things I just believe that I need to drive fast. The autobahn is a way to live it up a little bit...
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