Most of Iowa's interstate miles only have 2 lanes. You'd have to restrict them to the right lane period.
Raising Speed Limits Cost Lives
- Thread starter barometriclow
- Start date
Yeah that’s why it would be great if we could expand to 3. I know it’s just a dream.
Yeah, living out west where the 2 lane highways were 65 mph, the roads were not any better than Iowa highways, but enforcement was always harsher for speeders.
Beyond the enforcement, the chance of elk, moose, or cows (open range areas) on the roads, rock slides, and cliff edges beyond the shoulder also minimized the super speeders.
Now imagine all that traffic going down a two lane with a convoy of semi’s all passing each other at 1 mile an hour.
Part of the problem for some of those states is because they limit trucks to a lower speed limit, which if they are allowed to use all lanes they cause major back ups.
I remember years ago, when driving in areas that have lower truck speed limits, without lane restrictions, it caused huge backups, major traffic buildups as these trucks all created slow moving road blocks.
Think of it like when a truck with a governor system, decides to pass another truck, going basically the same speed. They go for miles side by side because the passing truck cant speed up because of the governor, and the truck being passed refuses to slow even a small amount to let the other truck pass. Many times they think it is funny pissing off dozens of cars stuck behind them. So it also becomes a game for them.
The slower truck limits and governor systems cause more problems than they help. Instead of limiting trucks to prevent accidents, it would be better hiring better and more qualified drivers to prevent accidents.
Now imagine all those cars sitting in the garage because we have a robust public transit system
The dot is building 3 lanes on i80. It takes years because you have to redo all the bridges and buy up all the ROA. I think they said it would take 15 to 20 years or more.
A country the size of the US is really difficult and expensive to build a High Speed Rail network. Its great in theory, but in this day and age most people would still rather fly, especially when flying would still be as cheap or cheaper and still take less time. Many others would still rather drive. Then to go along with the high speed rail system, you would need many more regional and metro type lines to support it which would drastically increase the cost on top of it.Now imagine all those cars sitting in the garage because we have a robust public transit system
Then you just have the American culture, where driving is part of our DNA and what everyone is now used to, it just makes it unrealistic, at least at this point.
I agree the governors suck but hiring more qualified drivers isn’t really an option with the high turnover rates. Long hours, boring work, away from home for days, no real set schedule and a lot of them are contractors that don’t get benefits. It’s just not a very desirable job.
China can do it, why can't we? Aren't we the greatest country on earth?
Smartass answer would be "we don't want it"
Guessing on other reasons: chinese gov't doesn't have the same issues we would have with property rights, environmental studies, fewer people own cars
Plus you have the cost of acquiring right of way from people who don’t want to sell their land. That really drove up the cost in California. I imagine China doesn’t have that issue.
Not to mention the workers building the track get paid about $200 per month. Construction workers here make more than that in a day. Factory workers making the steel etc, make more than that in a day.
Cost of labor in all aspects from actually building the lines to making the components drastically reduces the cost.
Land value in the US, that are all privately owned, that have to be paid. In China if anything is privately owned they just take it.
And as I said the US culture has become much more dependent and used to driving, we just dont care that much or want that much to get on a train, that takes longer than flying, and costs more than driving.
And like I said, people would rather fly for same or less money, than a train, especially when a flight is much shorter time. There are only 13,800 domestic flights per day in China, in the US there are over 102,000 domestic flights per day. Rail is more of a necessity in China. About 75% of the US Population has a drivers license, only about 25% of China's Population has a drivers license. In the US there is about 0.8 cars for every person. In China there is only about 0.2 cars per person. etc.
The US has much much more regulation, much more restriction, much higher costs etc. trying to compare China with the US is ridiculous on so many levels, there is really not much that is remotely close to the same between each country.
And on and on.
And like above, people just dont want it.
Do you want to go into the quality of construction in China? Safety records? Some of these things I would not want to get on.
$200 a month if they are fortunate. Lots of slave labor used on those big projects.
Just like a lot of our original infrastructure was built.
Unless you’re visiting your dying mother in the hospital why would anybody be driving in whiteout conditions?
You know what I’m really bad at? Riding a horse. The Asian steppe nomad people would be ashamed of me. But that’s no reason not to adapt a much better technology which would save a lot of lives and stress in 99.9% of driving situations.
