Path: utzoo!lsuc!tmsoft!dptcdc!berner!ziebmef!mdf
From: mdf@ziebmef.uucp (Matthew Francey)
Newsgroups: ont.general
Subject: Re: Highway Driving Rules
Keywords: speed limits = wasted gas, wasted time
Message-ID: <1989May5.211750.17968@ziebmef.uucp>
Date: 6 May 89 01:17:49 GMT
References: <89Apr26.134028edt.9320@ois.db.toronto.edu> <440@bnr-fos.UUCP> <1989Apr27.112604.11727@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <1730@yunexus.UUCP> <3166@looking.UUCP> <9522@watcgl.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: mdf@ziebmef.UUCP (Matthew Francey)
Distribution: ont
Organization: Ziebmef Public Access Unix, Toronto, Ontario
Lines: 34

In article <9522@watcgl.waterloo.edu> kim@watsup.waterloo.edu (Kim Nguyen) writes:
>In article <3166@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes:
>>I believe that somebody
>>once calculated that when the US reduced from 70 to 55, thus making
>>everybody's trips take 25% longer, you actually got a bad result.
>>
>>The bad result comes from taking total passenger hours, taking 25% of
>>that, and expressing it in years of human waking lifetime.  Many
>>thousands of lifetimes are being wasted on the roads because of slower
>>speed limits -- more than the number of lives cut short by traffic
>>death.

  I'm afraid I don't understand.  Are you saying that perhaps its OK to
let a few more people die (real deaths here) rather than waste a few of these
fictious "lives" you have just created?

>Not only does a lower speed limit increase the amount of time wasted
>on the road, but time = $$$ (eg. a truckdriver, lost productivity,
>etc.).

  ... time = $$$.  Yuck.

>Then, the gasoline consumption argument for lowered speed limits is
>silly too, since you WASTE 25% more gas just running your car for 25%
>longer getting there...

  This assumes that you don't use 25% more gas to travel at the higher
speed.  I strongly doubt this is the case.  [Simple example: air resistance
goes with the square of the speed, so just a 25% increase in V amounts to a
56% increase in air resistance.  If this is 1/2 the load on the engine, there
goes your 25% savings right there.]
-- 
Name: Matthew Francey			 Address: N43o34'13.5" W79o34'33.3" 86m
mdf@ziebmef.UUCP		  uunet!utgpu!{ontmoh!moore,ncrcan}!ziebmef!mdf