Comment by Teever
7 months ago
You seem to be suggesting that frozen roads paradoxically make for safer driving?
Is that a fair characterization of your comment?
7 months ago
You seem to be suggesting that frozen roads paradoxically make for safer driving?
Is that a fair characterization of your comment?
If so, that's interesting.
Why?
One of my principles is that we gain control of an uncontrollable environment by relinquishing control to that environment. It may not be obvious, but icy roads are an uncontrollable environment. Hence, the rally driver gains control by relinquishing control, allowing the car to have an imaginary and symbolic role in her success (all hail Michelle Mouton). Think of the best Scandinavian WRC champ. In the real world, abandoning driving is advisable for many, or if continuing to drive in obviously unsafe conditions, controlling what can be controlled by lowering speed, etc.
This may seem improvisational, as some of it is indeed. However, these control schemes may be orchestrated as well. How? By ranking tires by performance in the worst winter conditions on Tire Rack before making a choice. Do that and everyone wins.
I'm not the person you're replying to, and I have no idea what the data says about frozen roads, but it's certainly possible that two things are both true:
- There are more accidents (per active vehicle) on frozen roads
- There are fewer fatalities on frozen roads due to the lower speeds
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Yes, that is a pretty fair characterization. The reasons is because most accidents happens due to inattention and over confidence, hazardous roads makes people pay more attention. A distracted person is more dangerous than a drunkard on the road.
People widely believe this about stick-shift cars, too. I don't, but people do.
And narrow lanes make drivers more cautious.
People not used to it. On my school run some will do 20-60 depending on where along the road and how narrow and what the sight lines are. Others will just do 20-30 for the whole 10 miles.
At a couple of locations there’s morning room but lots of room to overtake (as long as nothing comes the other way), the road is nearly wide enough to have a line down the middle. Most drivers are fine but some of the 20-30 lot will swerve all over the road to try to block overtaking.
These aren’t super narrow, you can get a tractor or hgv down the whole road, and even at some passing places get one past another.