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Old 08-25-2016, 08:42 AM
 
Location: Raleigh, NC
6,646 posts, read 5,536,104 times
Reputation: 5498

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Repatriot View Post
"think' is the operative word, and subjective - this is the law: https://www.google.com/url?q=http://...Rq6ShjqT-XVWkA

Source: North Carolina General Assembly - Site Search Results
Upon a street or highway with unobstructed pavement of sufficient width
which have been marked for two or more lanes of moving vehicles in each
direction and are not occupied by parked vehicles;

Highways have sufficient width of two or more lanes and no parked vehicles

Last edited by pierretong1991; 08-25-2016 at 08:59 AM..
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Old 08-25-2016, 11:02 AM
 
544 posts, read 849,435 times
Reputation: 892
I'm not prepared to blames selfish driving on just the transplants. It's steadily gotten worse as traffic increases -- doesn't matter where they are from. A quick scan of Youtube and you will find all kinds of exciting road rage altercations – some with weapons.

Lack of direction signal use here is epidemic. Latest pet peeve: People staring their phone and not realizing traffic is moving. And people who let huge gaps develop between them and the car in front when pulling away from a traffic light. You don't have to tailgate, but 5 car lengths just slows everyone down.

An earlier post mentioned blind spots. I took my daughter to a teen driving school recently and learned how to adjust your mirrors to eliminate that. I had never heard of it.

Most of us adjust our mirrors so we can see down the side of the car – that creates blind spots. Instead, angle your side mirrors out – so that you have to tilt your head as far as you can to that side, to see the side of the car. Now the mirror is showing you what is in the traditional blind spot.

As an example. Someone is behind you in the right lane. You can see them in your mirror on the windshield. As they move closer, and as they then disappear from that mirror, they will show up in your side mirror. As they keep moving forward, and disappear from the side mirror, that car should start showing up in your peripheral vision. The driving instructor referred to it as now having 360 degree vision around you. It really works, give it a try.
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Old 08-25-2016, 11:21 AM
 
Location: Raleigh, NC
6,646 posts, read 5,536,104 times
Reputation: 5498
Quote:
Originally Posted by Emitchell View Post
I'm not prepared to blames selfish driving on just the transplants. It's steadily gotten worse as traffic increases -- doesn't matter where they are from. A quick scan of Youtube and you will find all kinds of exciting road rage altercations – some with weapons.

Lack of direction signal use here is epidemic. Latest pet peeve: People staring their phone and not realizing traffic is moving. And people who let huge gaps develop between them and the car in front when pulling away from a traffic light. You don't have to tailgate, but 5 car lengths just slows everyone down.

An earlier post mentioned blind spots. I took my daughter to a teen driving school recently and learned how to adjust your mirrors to eliminate that. I had never heard of it.

Most of us adjust our mirrors so we can see down the side of the car – that creates blind spots. Instead, angle your side mirrors out – so that you have to tilt your head as far as you can to that side, to see the side of the car. Now the mirror is showing you what is in the traditional blind spot.

As an example. Someone is behind you in the right lane. You can see them in your mirror on the windshield. As they move closer, and as they then disappear from that mirror, they will show up in your side mirror. As they keep moving forward, and disappear from the side mirror, that car should start showing up in your peripheral vision. The driving instructor referred to it as now having 360 degree vision around you. It really works, give it a try.
You still need to be checking your blind spot even with the adjusted mirrors just in case. In MA they wouldn't let you use your mirrors on the driving exam (when I took it a few years ago)

I agree, it's annoying when people are looking at their phones and don't notice the light has turned green. Especially so with left turn arrows where the timing is shorter and dependent on cars passing over the detector at the stop bar.
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Old 08-25-2016, 12:22 PM
 
22,768 posts, read 30,608,174 times
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I've been driving around Raleigh and Durham on the interstates, lately, for the first time. Before this I lived in Wilmington, Charleston, Columbia -- cities with interstates, but generally not 12-lanes of it.

One of the things that I was not used to is how the traffic on the interstate will come to a complete stop -- often for no clear reason. One minute you're going 70 and the next minute the entire interstate is at a standstill. Then you're going 70 again, with no clear indication why it was ever stopped in the first place.

There were a number of times I nearly poo'ed myself when the cars in front of me unexpectedly hit the brakes.
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Old 08-25-2016, 02:32 PM
 
9,265 posts, read 8,201,365 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by le roi View Post
I've been driving around Raleigh and Durham on the interstates, lately, for the first time. Before this I lived in Wilmington, Charleston, Columbia -- cities with interstates, but generally not 12-lanes of it.

One of the things that I was not used to is how the traffic on the interstate will come to a complete stop -- often for no clear reason. One minute you're going 70 and the next minute the entire interstate is at a standstill. Then you're going 70 again, with no clear indication why it was ever stopped in the first place.

There were a number of times I nearly poo'ed myself when the cars in front of me unexpectedly hit the brakes.
Once the volume hits a certain point on a road, all it takes is one wrong move by one driver to cause a backup. There was a really interesting study done on this, I'll have to see if I can find it.
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Old 08-25-2016, 02:38 PM
 
544 posts, read 849,435 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by m378 View Post
all it takes is one wrong move by one driver to cause a backup.
... and then everyone bails for the surface streets.

Sometimes you just can't escape it.
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Old 08-25-2016, 02:43 PM
 
22,768 posts, read 30,608,174 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by m378 View Post
Once the volume hits a certain point on a road, all it takes is one wrong move by one driver to cause a backup.
I'm not sure I follow you.

Keep in mind I'm talking about situations where no accident occured -- at least as far as i can tell. Traffic just crawls to a stop for 30 seconds to 1 minute, and then starts going again.
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Old 08-25-2016, 02:47 PM
 
Location: Raleigh, NC
6,646 posts, read 5,536,104 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by le roi View Post
I'm not sure I follow you.

Keep in mind I'm talking about situations where no accident occured -- at least as far as i can tell. Traffic just crawls to a stop for 30 seconds to 1 minute, and then starts going again.
There's a certain capacity of every road in the number of cars it can handle - once it reaches that point, there will be congestion issues whether there's an accident or not just because of the sheer number of cars packed into a road. Sometimes there are bottlenecks where lanes end or where cars are merging from on ramps or shifting lanes in large numbers etc....

A couple other examples from my commute along 440 from North Hills to Jones Franklin of congestion issues beyond the overcapacity issues:

1. In the AM, 440 West backs up because 440 goes from 3 lanes to 2 lanes south of Wade Avenue causing 3 lanes of traffic to pack into 2 lanes. In addition, the backups from Wade Avenue extend back into 440 sometimes causing issues. Then you have people trying to get onto the highway at Lake Boone Trail (and if they're continuing on 440, have to shift 2 lanes in a short period of time) creating further chaos there.

2. In the PM, 440 East comes to a crawl around Western Blvd - there is frequent traffic trying to get on/off Western Blvd and with the large number of vehicles already on 440, traffic has to slow to allow vehicles to merge onto 440 and it just gets slower and slower as there are more and more cars on 440. Once you get past Western, you're usually moving a little better assuming the next item isn't a problem......

3. In the PM, 440 East at Wade slows down - first you have the weave with oncoming traffic merging in from Hillsborough and traffic getting off 440 onto Wade Avenue that is crazy. Also, traffic merging onto 440 East from eastbound Wade Avenue is a problem at times despite the free flow lane - I can't tell you how many times people think they have to merge onto 440 right away once they reach the top of that loop (same at Crabtree Valley Mall with that loop from southbound Glenwood Ave)

Last edited by pierretong1991; 08-25-2016 at 02:57 PM..
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Old 08-25-2016, 04:03 PM
 
Location: Cary, NC
4,292 posts, read 5,942,955 times
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All it takes is just one person tapping the brakes in heavy traffic, and the wave amplifies down the chain of cars as each person brakes just a little more in reaction until people ultimately have to stop. Here is a decent video:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goVjVVaLe10
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Old 08-25-2016, 04:35 PM
 
Location: Raleigh, NC
6,646 posts, read 5,536,104 times
Reputation: 5498
Example Florida DOT capacity table of how many cars per day/hour (in both directions and one direction) will it take to cause a road to operate differently (B-C free/stable flow, D - approaching unstable flow, E - unstable flow)
Attached Thumbnails
40 West Closed - Multiple Car Fires at Davis Drive-fdot-los-c-tables_page_01.jpg   40 West Closed - Multiple Car Fires at Davis Drive-fdot-los-c-tables_page_07.jpg   40 West Closed - Multiple Car Fires at Davis Drive-fdot-los-c-tables_page_13.jpg  

Last edited by pierretong1991; 08-25-2016 at 04:45 PM..
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