Austin's ranks low in "Allstate America’s Best Drivers Report" (Houston: safe, transportation)

[latikeriii]

Shocking..I once saw a lady on her cell phone, doing her makeup, and hair, all while driving on MoPac..Believe it or not, she actually wasn't that bad of a driver..

[austinite45]

Originally Posted by latikeriii

Shocking..I once saw a lady on her cell phone, doing her makeup, and hair, all while driving on MoPac..Believe it or not, she actually wasn't that bad of a driver..

... until she runs over your kids one day ...

[datacity]

Originally Posted by latikeriii

Shocking..I once saw a lady on her cell phone, doing her makeup, and hair, all while driving on MoPac..Believe it or not, she actually wasn't that bad of a driver..

She must have been in good hands, er. had good hands!

[mimimomx3]

I've seen some bad infrastructure all over the world- Italy, France, Spain- we're talking roads from the Roman times! The drivers are wonderful, and I've never see the kind of accidents I see here. They're courteous, thoughtful and attentive for the most part...and they deal with more pedestrians, bicyclists, moped/scooter/motorcyclists than an Austinite EVER will.

[inthecut]

I remember standing by my car in the Walgreen's parking lot at the Mopac/Mcneil exit, and watching cars miss each other by inches pulling off the exit onto McNeil....over and over and over....and realizing how far behind growth Austin's road infrastructure is.....

Poor road inf. hands down the main cause of accidents...bed signage/new people share second place...

[jread]

Austin has a terribly inadequate and confusing road infrastructure, coupled with some of the most clueless drivers I have ever seen in my life. It's a dangerous combination.

[inthecut]

Originally Posted by jread

Austin has a terribly inadequate and confusing road infrastructure, coupled with some of the most clueless drivers I have ever seen in my life. It's a dangerous combination.

One thing we haven't mentioned is the confusing road grid itself.....not really a grid, and many dead ends and strange ways of leading back when roads get cut off by diagonals...frontage road IH roads with retail strips make it more confusing....if streets were even CLOSE to a pure perpendicular grid it would be far better....add that to the huge influx of new registered automobiles the last 5-8 years AND new drivers coming every year AND poor signage/design, and it is nothing short of a miracle that we don't have an accident on every corner every minute...

[thesonofgray]

Originally Posted by austinite45

If a driver can't handle traffic jams, he/she is a bad driver. Unless the roads move while people are driving on them, it's pretty lame and pathetic to blame the infrastructure for collisions. Are you sure you understand the meaning of the word "logic"?

Originally Posted by austinite45

you've got to be kidding me. Immature would be something like an adult blaming the road or highway after a collision. Frankly, this childish attempt of blaming Austin's roads for collisions is a first as far as I can remember.

Well you obviously have absolutely no background or knowledge in the design of roads. Millions of dollars are spent every year for research in the better design of our roadways. The first day I walked into my highway engineering class, there were two things written in huge capital letters on the board: EFFICIENCY and SAFETY. Those are the two primary goals in the design of highways. We were reminded of that countless times throughout the class and other roadway and traffic engineering classes.

Please tell me, with your incredibly sound logic, austinite45, why there are entire fields of engineering and entire industries devoted to the design of SAFE roadways when, according to you, roadways play no part in the safety of its users?

Originally Posted by austinite45

NY has a far higher car density than Austin, and therefore NY's roads are more crowded than Austin's. And since NY ranks a lot better than Austin on collision rate, the lame excuse of crowded roads causing Austin's collisions is exposed and refuted, not that it actually needs any elaborated refutation.

This makes absolutely no sense. You've chosen the worst comparison to try and make your point. Ever wonder what all that yellow is on NYC roads? Ponder for a moment the differences in experience and local knowledge between cab drivers and other drivers in any given city. And now compare, as a percentage of road users, the difference in cab numbers between Austin and NYC. Oranges and apples, my friend.

Roadway design plays as much a role as the makeup of drivers using them (and the former is typically a result of the latter, e.g. interstate vs residential collector).

[iceshots]

Austin's infrastructure combined with drivers new to the area are a bad combination.

When I first started coming down here on business it was very difficult to try to find out where you are going AND concentrate on where your lane was going.

You're driving in the left lane of a 4 lane street and all of a sudden your lane is now a left turn only lane and the only sign was painted on the roadway itself. Same thing can happen in the right lane. I quickly learned to stay in the middle lane if I did not know the area and exactly when through lanes became turning lanes.

Having to go back on to a city street in order to switch from one highway to an intersecting highway was also a real treat.

The saving grace in all of this is that I find MOST Austin drivers know their streets are confusing and are regularly on the lookout for that lost soul who finds themselves in the wrong lane and and is now trying to rectify the situation. Most drivers let this poor little lost soul get back into the flow of traffic when that happened.

There are drivers here with bad driving habits, but the road layout and signage does not help.

[inthecut]

Originally Posted by iceshots

Austin's infrastructure combined with drivers new to the area are a bad combination.

When I first started coming down here on business it was very difficult to try to find out where you are going AND concentrate on where your lane was going.

You're driving in the left lane of a 4 lane street and all of a sudden your lane is now a left turn only lane and the only sign was painted on the roadway itself. Same thing can happen in the right lane. I quickly learned to stay in the middle lane if I did not know the area and exactly when through lanes became turning lanes.

Having to go back on to a city street in order to switch from one highway to an intersecting highway was also a real treat.

The saving grace in all of this is that I find MOST Austin drivers know their streets are confusing and are regularly on the lookout for that lost soul who finds themselves in the wrong lane and and is now trying to rectify the situation. Most drivers let this poor little lost soul get back into the flow of traffic when that happened.

There are drivers here with bad driving habits, but the road layout and signage does not help.

How about right-turn only possiblities on interstate off ramps? If you are going left, you have to circle around on local streets and come back again......