Video - Is the Prius Gay?

I'd agree with more roundabout use. Have them all over Europe -they save on traffic light costs (running costs & installation) and if collisions occur, they're at a much lower speed than would occur with a red light jumper.

Forget all the jokes about not being able to get off them once you're on etc, a correctly designed roundabout solves that. Also, the traffic is pretty much moving all the time, so no waiting for lights to turn. A couple sets of major lights in my town were replaced with large roundabouts and traffic flows much more freely now.

 

You are turning my suggestion of "follow the flow of traffic" into "gunning from a light to race to the next red light". You are the one who's twisting the meaning to force your arguments.

You use examples of bad driving habbits of a few other drivers (such as cell phone use) to argue that your inconsiderate driving habbit is acceptable. Another twist of logic, I'm afraid. You're like arguing to the judge: "If that robber got away with robbing the bank, why is my robbing the corner convenience store a crime?"

 

teasal,

Even on the flow of traffic, it's often speeding, and over the years it's been going faster and faster. I don't see it as safe or green, but creeping entitlement that over the years has made the roadways less friendly and less safe. In urban areas like Dallas and many other US cities, there is no lack of aggressive driving - reality.

 

You are missing the point completely. And political correctness (which is idiotic) has nothing to do with it. The word "gay" is being used to mean lame or stupid. Thereby when you say something is gay and are using because you think it is stupid or lame, you are implying being gay is stupid or lame. It is derrogatory that way and yes that is hate speech.

Yes "nigger" should never be used to mean "black people". Just like "gay" should never be used to mean "lame"/"stupid". Perhaps we should start saying, "that's so black" when it is lame or stupid? Do you not see how that then makes "black" mean something it is not, and that something is derrogatory?

As for punishing kids with cookies instead of force, it doesnt really work for more intelligent kids. You can threaten some people/kids forever and have them follow orders that way. However usually smarter individuals question the authority, and idle threats are easily overthrown. I have good friends who got around pretty much all their parents "rules" because the punishment was going to your room, or not talking with friends, or not being able to do other things. For little things that works. Dont eat your vegetables, go to your room. That makes sense. Get caught at school with weed, get charged for it, and you better make a better punishment than not eating your veggies. But forcible punishment is not what the thread is about, perhaps that can be debated in another thread...

 

Excellent description.

The behavior of many drivers shows that they normally face little or no effective speed enforcement in their daily life, and have become so accustomed to this situation that they expect to travel at speeds that, at another point during my life, would have led to license revocation fairly quickly.

I can't afford to speed up to match. I still live near a speed trap, travel often to another, and can't believe they are the only ones out there.

 

Wow. Your post betrays absolutely no hint of safe following distance or vehicle spacing.

Under all the rules I've heard -- 3 seconds, 2 seconds, 20 feet for each 10 mph, 1 car length for each 10 mph -- at highway speed the carrying capacity is a very weak function of speed.

For example, under the 2 second rule, increasing speed from 60 mph to Mach 1 increases carrying capacity a mere 3.6%. To speed of light, just a 4.3% capacity increase.

When drivers believe that capacity is proportional to speed, a simple sneeze at 75+ mph starts causing 50 car pileups.

 

We need a true fast lane. Each vehicle has computer controlled speed, radar collision, and carbon-ceramic brakes or you are not allowed in. The highway itself controls your speed through RF. Since it knows where all cars are going, and which are entering, it can pack them together more efficiently at higher speeds more safely. Any accident/emergency is sent through the cloud and the brakes kick in.

Or just go vertical. We need a jetpack option for the Prius.

 

You keep equalling the few extremely aggressive drivers as the norm,
and use that to back up your claim to be ok to hypermile whenever as you like even if it means impeding the normal flow of traffic. Same logic as saying if the robber robs the bank, then your robbing the convenience store is no crime.

This "creeping entitlement" is due to the fact that there're too many cars on the road, and the only way to get rid of these cars from the road faster is to let them drive a little faster than "speed limit". Even the cops are not ticketing anybody driving at the norm of the traffic flow. The real dangers causing collisions are difference in speed, not the 10% or so higher than speed limit that everybody is doing. If you insists on driving at or slower than the speed limit than you are a constant danger to the society and yourselve, that is reality.

You are also very un-green, by making the rest of the drivers "hate" the Prius. The few mpg improvements in your precious Prius is making all the drivers impeded by you to never consider buying a Prius at all, thus eliminating the chance of converting more people to drive green cars. You can bet those people who call the Prius "gay" will definitely not consider the Prius in their future car purchase decisions.

 

False. Speed has little connection to lane capacity except when speeds are low.

That is because they are incapable of writing thousands of tickets per hour. This herd strategy doesn't work in the very light traffic areas where I like to go.

Once again, speak for your own community. You clearly do not speak for mine.

Checking some traffic fatality statistics for several states in my region, I see that speed difference is definitely a factor:
#1, speed difference against the ground and its fixed objects;
#2, speed difference against oncoming traffic
#3, speed difference against cross traffic.

While rear end collisions far outnumber head-ons, they produce a fraction of the fatalities.

 

Agreed 100%, sir. I had posted that in light rtraffic areas you can do whatever hypermiling as you want. I never tried to speak for others' communities where the driving conditions are light. Clearly we are not in opposites of this debate. Thank you for your support.

I would think any kind of collisions are not desirable, not only for fatalities, don't you agree?

 

teeasal,

The lengths you are going to be disagreeable just to be disagreeable is absurd, not to mention your inability to be factual about my posts is at times comical (such as I drive a Prius).

90% of the traffic in Dallas and all the other major US cities speed, yet you call 90% the minority? I see no lack of articles on aggressive driving, speeding, lack of money to crack down on it, the vast preponderance of accidents caused by high speeds.

I go 50 on a 60 freeway before rush hour, so how can I block ALL four lanes and the local radio stations not report it or get pulled over? BTW, going 10 under is legal - going 10 over is illegal.

Bait and opinion not supported by reality - people did not drive this badly in the 70's.

You don't even have to click to see my car is not a Prius!....that only highlights you are interested only in flaming and obscuring the truth.

The speeders were going to waste their gas anyway, so your assine guilt trip is invalid.

You won't reason - you need thearpy, but not the usual kind.

It should be mandating you to drive only a 200cc motorcycle in the "friendly packs" ... no problem if you honestly believe all you said about traffic.

 

You can't even being to see how politically correct and how wrong you are. The word gay was usurped from its original meaning to describe a male homosexual. Now it's being usurped again to mean lame. And you call it hate speech? You have no idea which usage begot the other. Further, when the word changes in meaning again and all your law is established and codified are you going to jail people because of some archaic usage of a word?

Also, you need to listen to yourself. "That's so black" is not the same as using the "n" word as you have said here in this thread. Nor, is it hate speech nor necessarily hateful. "That's so black" could me it is really dark, foreboding, morbid, etc., yet you define it as hate speech.

Go away and beat some kid because he called your Hybrid gay... You need to lighten up and quit being so politically correct; especially, if you consider political correctness to be idiotic.

 

I'm sure I would be, yes. Are you implying that it would be OK to waste more fuel since we're already looked upon as fuel wasters? If we already use more than others, that we shouldn't worry about our consumption? I see now that you replied to Chuck taking exception to this very comment as being selfish. I also understand that you and I are are basically on the same page as far as consumption goes. What is being misinterpreted is my definition of driving conservatively. Sounds like it is much the same as yours - though what's being inferred is that I'm hypermiling in heavy traffic, and holding everybody up. NEVER happens.

And finally, there is the implication that the selfishness of those who speed is somehow more just than my "selfish" desire to NOT speed. That one still needs to be explained to me.

Brilliant idea. But I don't think you'll get it through congress. At this speed, I could more easily draft cars on the highway, and get places much faster on my bike.

I don't hypermile. I simply see the benefits of driving conservatively. I think you might be reading more into my comments than I intended to offer. Doesn't matter what car I'm driving, I drive them all the same. On the bike I waste energy like it grows on trees, however.

 

I know this wasn't aimed at me... but...

You did precisely this to me. Turning my suggestion of conservative, speed-limit-following driving into, "hypermiling" and "holding up traffic."

 

During commute times around here in the SF bay area, nobody can drive anywhere near as fast as the speed limit. Too many cars on the road at the same time is what causes congestion. While I agree that stop-and-go driving is dangerous and leads to more fender-benders... that kind of congestion is not caused by slower speeds. It is caused by too many cars. In general, driving slower is safer for everybody. But safety only seems to come into play when we choose the size of car to buy... not in the actual operation of same.

Then why would you write, "Driving a Prius SHOULD NOT be treated as playing a game of scoring the highest mpg with total disregard to inconveniencing other drivers on the road." It has the sound of you telling others how to drive, certainly.

I happen to agree with this sentiment, and I never drive with "total disregard to inconveniencing other drivers on the road." I am aware that some drivers are guilty of this. I also happen to think that many speeders drive with total disregard for my desire for cleaner air, cheaper fuel, safer roads, etc.

In the end, I think we agree more than we disagree. I just don't see any acknolwegement of the need to conserve fuel and increase safety on our roads.

I can easily imagine that if I held somebody up, that they'd think I was taking their rights away. But I don't do that, so I'm not sure why we're discussing it. I need to know who determines what the "flow of traffic is" on a 4-lane highway. During typical non-commute times around here we've got trucks and old folks bumping along in the right lane at 55 mph. We have the folks next to them doing 60. In the left lane we've got guys who swear that they're driving with the "flow of traffic" at 80+ mph. The only people I hear talk about "flow of traffic" are the ones going faster than most people on the road. Interesting to me is that people can think they're driving with the flow of traffic, while still passing car after car. It is all a matter of perspective, and what perceived needs are.

The thing is, I can drive "conservatively" and not stifle anybody's "rights" by holding them up. But nobody can exceed the speed limit and not effect *my* rights.

 

I can see now that we are all arguing for the sake of arguing. You guys acused me of acusing you of acusing me of acusing...(sigh!)

Let's just be happy and "gay". Bye

 

Yup. Pretty much it. But of course you accused me of accusing you of accusing me first.

I think.

 

sounds like a bitch fight in here

 

I think somebody wants to get slapped.

 

open handed...