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uncle_skin posted:
Absolutely the wrong thread. This owns bones.
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 18:17 |
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# ? May 23, 2024 17:08 |
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SlapActionJackson posted:48 lbs/hp That's not much better than a kid's scooter. And you take it on the highway? You're a braver man than I. The 200D (that's 55hp, later 60hp) in that same car was called "rolling wandering dune" in Germany.
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 18:23 |
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The thing about slow cars where I live is that lots of the highway on-ramps are too short for them to merge at highway speed. Trying to squeeze into a busy highway 20mph slower than the slow lane makes a mess.
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 18:51 |
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EightBit posted:The thing about slow cars where I live is that lots of the highway on-ramps are too short for them to merge at highway speed. Trying to squeeze into a busy highway 20mph slower than the slow lane makes a mess. Our off-ramps inside the city share a lane with the on-ramps making every highway on-off an effective suicide lane as people are trying to get on behind people who are trying to get off. It's still not that bad unless you end up with someone who uses the brakes as a substitute for observation and intelligence.
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 19:37 |
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Seat Safety Switch posted:Our off-ramps inside the city share a lane with the on-ramps making every highway on-off an effective suicide lane as people are trying to get on behind people who are trying to get off. It's still not that bad unless you end up with someone who uses the brakes as a substitute for observation and intelligence. We have some like that in St. Louis. No-one wants to drive in them, ever. They're like ghost lanes between exits, even while the other lanes sit bumper to bumper. It's kinda bizarre the immediate desire of St. Louis drivers to get out of that lane, even if it's open for a mile it doesn't matter, they want out. I cruise them all the time when the rest of the lanes are stopped, and if I can't get back over before the on-ramp turns to an off-ramp I just take the off-ramp, wait the light and drive straight across. I must chop 15 minutes out of my drive home doing that.
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 19:51 |
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Seat Safety Switch posted:Our off-ramps inside the city share a lane with the on-ramps making every highway on-off an effective suicide lane as people are trying to get on behind people who are trying to get off. It's still not that bad unless you end up with someone who uses the brakes as a substitute for observation and intelligence. Lots of these in Minneapolis, except they're separated from the main highway lanes by a median. Sometimes they are for more than one exit as well, so I routinely see people, mostly out-of-towners, unknowingly try to cross the median to get to their exit, because they weren't paying attention to the signage. Just last week I saw a Mercedes hatchback that had sheared off a wheel by trying to do just that.
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 20:00 |
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trouser chili posted:No-one wants to drive in them, ever. They're like ghost lanes between exits, even while the other lanes sit bumper to bumper. That's kind of shocking. Pretty much anywhere else I've driven assholes will drive pretty much anywhere that its physically possible to squeeze a car through to avoid gridlock. I once saw people driving in the grass along side the shoulder when the shoulder also went bumper to bumper when five lanes of interstate got shut down due to a hazmat spill.
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 20:01 |
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Geoj posted:That's kind of shocking. Pretty much anywhere else I've driven assholes will drive pretty much anywhere that its physically possible to squeeze a car through to avoid gridlock. I once saw people driving in the grass along side the shoulder when the shoulder also went bumper to bumper when five lanes of interstate got shut down due to a hazmat spill. Well maybe my proposed dangerously underpowered video just got a bit more exciting!
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 20:08 |
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Geoj posted:That's kind of shocking. Pretty much anywhere else I've driven assholes will drive pretty much anywhere that its physically possible to squeeze a car through to avoid gridlock. I once saw people driving in the grass along side the shoulder when the shoulder also went bumper to bumper when five lanes of interstate got shut down due to a hazmat spill. I think it's just perpetually ingrained in people after years of near-misses that those are death lanes and they must never be occupied. I saw two F-150s occupy the same space at 110kph in the one near my office once and it was like something out of a Michael Bay movie. Sometimes they are separated from normal traffic by means of a solid white line "virtual" median, but that doesn't stop people from crossing it.
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 20:10 |
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At least its only on and off ramps you have to deal with, and not this bastard situation where two freeways become one as they interesct and split back into two, and all of the subsequent merging has about 1000 ft to happen. http://goo.gl/maps/8tUjL
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 20:10 |
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We have one of those outside of Cleveland - http://goo.gl/maps/zsZBW - 5 lanes of 271 (3 "normal" lanes + 2 "express" lanes) become two. Then about two miles later - http://goo.gl/maps/wrC1M - 2 lanes of 480 merge with the previous 2 lanes of 271 (becoming three.) If you're not clear of the 271/480 merge point by 4 PM it can take 45 minutes to clear that clusterfuck. Geoj fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Apr 16, 2013 |
# ? Apr 16, 2013 20:17 |
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Around here the highway engineers have their heads up their asses and do things like making a 3 lane highway split off a 2 lane exit, but stay 3 lanes for another ~100 yards, then squeeze down to a 2 lane, then a one lane comes in making it 3 lane, then a 2 lane entrance ramp comes in making it a 5 lane, then a merge to 4 lanes, then an exit ramp, then a merge to 3 lanes. That particular disaster used to add 5-10 minutes to my commute every single evening because a combination of stupid, very unobservant people, jackasses who try and cut by everyone, and truckers (who just plain get screwed in the whole deal) will stay in every single right hand lane right up till the very last minute, then try and jam their way in, while the people in the middle lane refuse to let them in. It is a disaster, since this happens 3 times in like 2 miles along with all the entrance and exit ramps. If they'd just made it so there was a 2 lane exit (with the middle lane of the highway forking so it results in a 2 lane exit and a 2 lane highway), then a 2 lane entrance ramp resulting in 4 lanes, then one peeling off as the next exit ramp, resulting in a 3 lane highway, traffic would have flowed a whole hell of a lot better. Except people around here are too stupid to figure out what a big yellow EXIT ONLY banner on an interstate highway sign means, too, so they would probably wait till the last minute to get out anyways. (this is all describing the i290 westbound interchange where i190 joins it in Worcester MA, btw) kastein fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Apr 16, 2013 |
# ? Apr 16, 2013 20:45 |
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trouser chili posted:Just two days ago I was thinking about making a "dangerously slow" video in response to this train of thought. Using my 3,200lb, 67hp 240d in a normal commute to work I think I can show how you really don't need any more power than it has. I'm afraid it would be terminally boring though. But how many torks does it have, this is all that matters. Also, I would drive every single one of those "rods" posted.
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 21:01 |
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I'm never around during heavy traffic to witness that clusterfuck, but exit 14 on I290W is the worse case of on-ramp-becoming-an-off-ramp I've ever seen. You have about 500ft to merge onto or exit an arterial highway.
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 21:01 |
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Not easy to discern is the split-levels on I35 coming back together inside this little stretch and giving you very little time to cross several lanes of traffic to get your loving exit: https://maps.google.com/?ll=29.434608,-98.48578&spn=0.023715,0.046756&t=m&z=16
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 21:05 |
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veedubfreak posted:But how many torks does it have, this is all that matters. Also, I would drive every single one of those "rods" posted. A little more than 100tq.
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 21:06 |
The Ask me about being a Traffic Engineer" thread is pretty great and filled with highway clusterfucks, with explanations of the "logic" that went into them (normally lack of funding, outdated thinking, and constrained rights of way). I35 through Austin (and indeed most of the highways in Austin) has some wonderful examples of the combined acceleration lane with exit-only offramp bullshit. Also endemic around the area are people who take the onramp as a way to bypass a light then immediately exit at the offramp. That's fine if they are at highway speeds but every now and then they will putter along the on/off lane at 45mph completely screwing over the ability of those behind them to accelerate up to the 70+mph traffic flow of the highway.
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 21:13 |
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This video is terrible and involves a car but the car is not what makes it terrible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yfjBO6PXJY
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 21:21 |
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Shifty Pony posted:The Ask me about being a Traffic Engineer" thread is pretty great and filled with highway clusterfucks, with explanations of the "logic" that went into them (normally lack of funding, outdated thinking, and constrained rights of way). The really sad part is that the one I gave as an example could be fixed just by repainting the lines. No change in RoW width required. Hell, some areas would end up with extra wide breakdown lanes. e: holy poo poo, this thread is awesome. Thanks for linking it. The best part is that the OP is ranting about interchanges I know and hate. kastein fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Apr 16, 2013 |
# ? Apr 16, 2013 21:36 |
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kastein posted:The really sad part is that the one I gave as an example could be fixed just by repainting the lines. No change in RoW width required. Hell, some areas would end up with extra wide breakdown lanes. The one I posted is being fixed, over a projected 9 years and $1 billion. This was after 25 years of "studies" being done on the area. They just broke ground last week. I haven't seen any work done since the initial small trench on the side of the highway, but I'm sure the one guy they have working on it will get it done in time.
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 21:43 |
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Skipopatomus posted:This video is terrible and involves a car but the car is not what makes it terrible. Brown Deer Road sounds like Milwaukee to me.
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 21:44 |
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Skipopatomus posted:This video is terrible and involves a car but the car is not what makes it terrible. Holy poo poo the other videos of this guy
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# ? Apr 16, 2013 21:46 |
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Supposedly he is dead, I'm not totally sure if that's true though.
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 00:59 |
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I had a VW bus with 60hp, I don't want to hear you guys complain about slow. I also drove it all the way to CT from SC on the highway so its not like I was just driving it around town.
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 01:49 |
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Billy Tully posted:I had a VW bus with 60hp, I don't want to hear you guys complain about slow. I also drove it all the way to CT from SC on the highway so its not like I was just driving it around town. Drove cross country in a 60 HP non-turbo diesel Rabbit
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 02:02 |
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CommieGIR posted:Drove cross country in a 60 HP non-turbo diesel Rabbit I'd take that over a bus!
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 02:07 |
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Billy Tully posted:I'd take that over a bus! No AC, mid summer.
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 02:11 |
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CommieGIR posted:No AC, mid summer. No heat, mountain top PA.
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 02:12 |
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Billy Tully posted:I had a VW bus with 60hp, I don't want to hear you guys complain about slow. I also drove it all the way to CT from SC on the highway so its not like I was just driving it around town. Leaving SC is a good idea I ought to consider at some point.
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 02:23 |
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Number_6 posted:Your accelerator pedal and brake pedal seem almost comically huge compared to most modern cars. Or is that an optical illusion? No, they are comically huge. And trimmed in steel.
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 02:32 |
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Skipopatomus posted:This video is terrible and involves a car but the car is not what makes it terrible. The last two words in the video made me do a spit-take into my bowl of cereal.
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 02:48 |
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Geirskogul posted:The last two words in the video made me do a spit-take into my bowl of cereal. What the hell!
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 02:54 |
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Saw a Hyundai Accent with a carbon fiber hood at school today. Do you really need a picture? Because I didn't take one. Although I must admit, that little fishbowl of a car would make for a hilarious(ly good) shell of a sleeper.
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 03:18 |
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Motronic posted:I've seen very few non-enthusiast cars with real gauges and I've been told this is because seeing gauges that aren't always in the same place and/or aren't dampened to uselessness causes the average driver to freak out. And this is why we can't have nice things. I see you've met GM tachometers then. I'm convinced the tach on my car exists to tell you "yup, the engine's running". Endless Mike posted:I saw an Opel Corsa with Virginia plates the other day (took a picture if anyone's interested, but it's an Opel Corsa, nothing actually interesting). Did we get that as a Saturn or something and I forgot? There's also a Renault Twingo I see parked on occasion also with VA plates. I suppose they could be diplomats being as I'm just outside DC, but they usually get Diplomat plates, not local ones. The Corsa was sold with little modification as a Saturn Astra - it replaced the Ion in 2008. says someone just swapped badges. randomidiot fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Apr 17, 2013 |
# ? Apr 17, 2013 04:33 |
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Seems legit
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 05:23 |
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some texas redneck posted:I see you've met GM tachometers then. I'm convinced the tach on my car exists to tell you "yup, the engine's running". The Opel Astra was sold as a Saturn Astra. The Corsa is a different car entirely (B-segment, same size as the Aveo/Yaris).
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 05:32 |
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Throatwarbler posted:The Opel Astra was sold as a Saturn Astra. The Corsa is a different car entirely (B-segment, same size as the Aveo/Yaris). Holden Astra too or is that different?
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 05:39 |
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General_Failure posted:Holden Astra too or is that different? It's the Cruze now but prior to that yeah.
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 05:42 |
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SlapActionJackson posted:And this is exactly why manufacturers have turned these gauges into glorified idiot lights. We shouldn't all be deprived of accurate information just because some people are idiots. Put a disclaimer in the owner's manual that explains that it's normal for the oil pressure and temperature readings to fluctuate under different conditions. And anybody who comes in to the dealer and complains about it (without a real underlying problem) gets a $75 diagnostic fee, non-warranty, for being a dolt.
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 06:00 |
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# ? May 23, 2024 17:08 |
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The problem with that is, you then proceed to get your rear end kicked up, down and sideways in every industry quality survey by those same idiots.
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# ? Apr 17, 2013 06:59 |