In article >, Dave Head wrote:

>>What do you mean slows? they are both 30th percentile drivers.

> Think about it. If they are going the same speed, nobody's gonna catch anyone
> so they can be beside them. The only way they could be beside each other is if
> one entered the road at the exact same speed as the other, and did right beside
> the other.

There are no on-ramps in your universe are there.

Here's how it often works here in the real world with real traffic.
Sloth driver A is driving along in the left lane. Sloth driver B comes
down an on ramp and now cruises along side sloth driver A. At some point
sloth driver B will move to the middle lane and sloth driver C will enter.

> I would like automated roads because:
>
> I can quit driving and read the paper, or sleep, or almost anything that's more
> interesting that steering a car mile after mile, which is almost anything else
> you'd care to name. Driving is boring. The challenge with driving is mostly
> to remain alert.

So because you and the rest of the LLBing toaster-driving crowd don't
want to put any effort in and your LLBing etc etc isn't making things
miserable enough for the rest of us, you'll have the machines take over.

> I can't be ticketed for any sort of "driving error" - the computer's in
> control.

Figures you'd be the type not to want to have any responsibility.

> The car can be made to go faster - the only reason that they can't right now is
> that the human being is not capable of reliably operating the car safely at
> that high of a speed - or at least that's the government line, in spite of the
> German experience with the Autobahn. There would be no excuse not to operate
> an automated highway at 100 mph.

Cars can go quite fast under human control safely. Because the will
doesn't exist in the control-freak dominated lowest common demonator USA
doesn't make it impossible.

>>Automated control or not, it's the same result. Clumps. CLUMPS. To follow
>>your ideas generates clumps.

> The only things really objectionable about clumps is that they tend to slow
> traffic and that they put cars in close proximity so more will be involved in
> an accident if it occurs.

Clumps are created by people who don't KRETP or cops driving under the
flow speed. When the passing lane isn't blocked by some LLB who has to
drive a fixed speed like 7 over, clumps don't form.

> Automated highways would allow neither slow clumps nor would they have "things
> going wrong" for the reason of human failure. System failure, sure, but that
> should be extremely rare.

At the very best it would be all one big slow clump. Here's a hint. It
won't be you or I that get to pick the speed of the automated roads. It's
going to the ralph naders and the joan claybrooks. The heros of people
like carl talyor and the other troll judy. The clumps you find -slow- the
ones that move at 5 over, will be FAST by comparison.

> On an automated highway, you could probably expect to be following the car
> ahead at a distance of inches or a few feet, and have cars on either side
> maintaining inches of clearance, and probably at 100 mph. Do I think its
> feasible in our lifetimes? Nope, but that would still be the automated highway
> ideal situation.

100mph will -NEVER- happen on an automated road system. Control freaks
who favor such things are the same people who demand things like the
return of the 55mph NMSL or worse. They will set the pace.

>>Again, where-you-drive isn't everywhere. I am glad traffic densities
>>where you drive are somewhere below that of 3am on a weekday in NE IL,
>>but your methods don't scale. Those who follow your driving methods here
>>cause all sorts of clumps all the time. I went through about a dozen
>>tonight where some LLB was doing your 'keeping left except to pass' and
>>caused a clump. There isn't room to go around your dumb asses on the
>>right all the time.

> There is when I do it.

Yet you complain about clumps. Just like before, both can't be true.
Either there is room to go around all the time and clumps don't form or
there isn't and they do.

>>Just the traffic volume alone allows one LLB to cause
>>a clump just by slowing the _RATE_ that other traffic can pass him.

> Well, you got a problem with traffic volume, then. You're problem child pulls
> over, it'll just be the next guy a car or 2 up that's the new problem.

That's why KRETP is so very important. We don't have enough lanes to cope
with such nonsense. We aren't getting more pavement so the only way to
get more out of the roads is through lane displine.