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From: stern@tilt.FUN
Newsgroups: net.auto
Subject: Re: Best Roads
Message-ID: <3900003@tilt.FUN>
Date: Thu, 24-Oct-85 10:18:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: tilt.3900003
Posted: Thu Oct 24 10:18:00 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 25-Oct-85 04:13:40 EDT
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Organization: The Official Fun Machine of Princeton University EECS
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Nf-From: tilt!stern    Oct 24 10:18:00 1985

[]

Best Road I've Driven:

Route 17 in between San Jose and Santa Cruz, CA.  The scenery is nice 
(especially for an east-coast boy) but the driving is outrageously fun.
I would love to make the drive sometime in a real sports car, rather than
the Escort I had when I was on it last.  

Worst Road I've Driven:

Interstate 84 ONLY in Connecticut, between Hartford and Brewster, NY.  
"But sterno, it's an interstate, it's two lanes, what's wrong with it?" 
you ask....well, how about one of the highest auto-truck accident fatality
rates in the country?  I have driven the route many, many times in the past
four years, and I have always hit traffic in Hartford.  Why does an interstate
function as a "main drag" through the city?  

Also, anyone who is up on their min-cut,max-flow theory will realize that if
traffic is moving along fine at 55 MPH when I-84 is three lanes, it might
have to slow down when it goes from three to two lanes.  I-84 does this,
with about 500 feet warning, every five or six miles.  It's both annoying
and dangerous, when you realize you are about to drive off the road or
hit that tandem trailer next to you.  To top it off, CT has such a poor way
of dealing with speeding tickets that people are petrified to drive more than
55 MPH (residents, not out of staters).  Consequently, the traffic tends to
bunch up, creep to a halt, and then open up again.  Many times I've seen
cars come to a complete halt, and when you get to the end of the jam, there's
nothing there -- not even accident debris to make it look like there was a
justification for the slowdown.  One of the major contributors to the truck-
car accident rate is the "wave" motion of traffic -- sometimes you have an
18-wheeler cruising at 60 MPH and just a little ways ahead, the traffic is
bottled up...and smack!  instant accordions made from your imported cars.

'nuf flaming.

--Hal Stern
  {ihnp4, seismo, allegra}!princeton!flakey!stern