"Priority to the Right" rule
Feb 24th, 2015, 02:15 AM
#41
Join Date: Apr 2007
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I spent most of last week driving around Normandy, unfortunately in the rain but Normandy is delightful even when conditions are less than optimal.
I noticed that in many small towns, yield signs had been install on roadways giving drivers clear notice of cars entering unseen from the right. This is a welcome trend as in many small towns with narrow streets, cars can pop out in front of you with no warning. Of course the locals know where these locations are but those driving through town for the first time do not.
Hopefully more communities, concerned about safety and needless property damage, continue to take steps to flag these blind spots and to warn drivers, unfamiliar with local traffic idiosyncrasies, that an unsceen car may enter the roadway in front of you.
I noticed that in many small towns, yield signs had been install on roadways giving drivers clear notice of cars entering unseen from the right. This is a welcome trend as in many small towns with narrow streets, cars can pop out in front of you with no warning. Of course the locals know where these locations are but those driving through town for the first time do not.
Hopefully more communities, concerned about safety and needless property damage, continue to take steps to flag these blind spots and to warn drivers, unfamiliar with local traffic idiosyncrasies, that an unsceen car may enter the roadway in front of you.
Feb 24th, 2015, 03:23 AM
#42
Join Date: Oct 2013
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One factor that enters into American traffic fatality statistics is the the US is much less densely populated than Europe, and the population is spread out far beyond the city limits in most places. As the result, the average American drives a much greater distance in the course of a year than the average European does. The average American private vehicle drives 11,300 miles (almost 19,000 km) per year, or an average of over 50 km per day. I can't find comparable statistics for Europe, but I think most people who live here will agree that that's considerably higher than the average distance driven by a European car in a year. Note that this is averaged over all cars, even those driven by the elderly, who maybe go to the post office or the supermarket a few times a week.
The scarcity of public transportation in the US partly explains the distances driven, but that is also affected by the low population density. It's much more costly to operate a bus system in a place where the population density is so low. Even in places where there are buses, they often pass only once an hour, and if you have to change buses, you might have to wait an hour at an isolated bus stop, with no place even to sit. I know something of this, having lived in the US without a car for some years, in central NJ, an area much better served by public transportation than most non-urban regions.
I think the real source of the problem in the US is the urban sprawl that characterizes large parts of the country. The sprawl derives from a dense network of roads, cheap fuel, and poor urban planning. There seems to be a bit of a tendency to move back to the center cities from the suburbs, but it's too early to know if it's just a Brooklyn fad.
The scarcity of public transportation in the US partly explains the distances driven, but that is also affected by the low population density. It's much more costly to operate a bus system in a place where the population density is so low. Even in places where there are buses, they often pass only once an hour, and if you have to change buses, you might have to wait an hour at an isolated bus stop, with no place even to sit. I know something of this, having lived in the US without a car for some years, in central NJ, an area much better served by public transportation than most non-urban regions.
I think the real source of the problem in the US is the urban sprawl that characterizes large parts of the country. The sprawl derives from a dense network of roads, cheap fuel, and poor urban planning. There seems to be a bit of a tendency to move back to the center cities from the suburbs, but it's too early to know if it's just a Brooklyn fad.
