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posted by janrinok on Thursday April 30 2015, @08:52AM   Printer-friendly
from the shortest-distance-between-two-points dept.

An L.A. Councilman is attempting to blame the application Waze for neighborhood "cut-throughs", where people divert to side streets during traffic congestion.

In his view this is a new phenomenon that has never happened before, although it is widespread around the world and has been so for many years, certainly existing long before 'apps' became popular. The councilor is planning on using a data sharing agreement with Waze in order to strong-arm the application into becoming less useful, which will not solve the problem because people will just use other applications, and those with local knowledge will still know the quickest route from A to B.

The popularity of Waze is largely because it helps drivers avoid delays and to find alternative routes based on the the reports received from other drivers. Applying the measures that the councilor is hoping for will neuter the app completely, rendering it pointless. However, the councilor does make one good point - there are more pedestrian safety facilities (e.g. crossing points, barriers etc) on major routes and that the practice might lead to increased casualty rates in residential areas.

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @10:15AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @10:15AM (#177022)

    He is certainly not wrong. (And I don't understand all the people lambasting the 'stupid politicians because there have always been maps!'. I know for mayself I am much more incline to take unknown backalleys when I have some nav system available than when I only have an old school paper map.)

    Best option is to make local roads *slow*. Here in holland most local roads have a max speed of 30 km/h (about 20 mph) . This does not really inconvenience locals, which tend to drive slowly anyway, but it makes the roads less attractive as shortcut.

    In the city where I live they even have some convoluted one-way-streets system which makes you traverse the whole neighbourhood if you go in, tis makes it uneconomical to drive through the neighborhood (but not impossible, which would be very inconvenient for the locals).

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @10:20AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @10:20AM (#177023)

    And here in America where drivers are illiterate, you can't reduce speed by posting limits with signs. You have to use speed bumps. Speed bumps are very, very effective.

    • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @10:39AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @10:39AM (#177024)

      And here in America where drivers are illiterate, you can't reduce speed by posting limits with signs. You have to use speed bumps. Speed bumps are very, very effective.

      Of course it's America, so the speedbumps have guns, tazers and automatic cameras that can detect whether the driver is black.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @10:49AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @10:49AM (#177029)

        To detect whether the driver is a black man, speedbumps contain millimeter wave scanners to find any black testicles in the driver's seat.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @01:15PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @01:15PM (#177067)

        They also detect if you have a Corvette.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @06:30PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @06:30PM (#177199)

        Or enforced by radar!
        https://what-if.xkcd.com/87 [xkcd.com]

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by epl on Thursday April 30 2015, @10:45AM

      by epl (1801) on Thursday April 30 2015, @10:45AM (#177026)
      And Holland is FULL of those retched things, so that isn't anything unique to America. People will always aim to get to their destination as quickly as possible; making the non-main routes as unattractive as possible is one option, but I would so prefer if councils and governments in general would stop taking bribes and filling their own wallets and start thinking a few more years into the future and offering alternative ways for people to get where they need to go. I take the car to work, not because I want to, but because getting there by other means e.g. public transport will take forever-and-a-day each way. All of our larger cities have roads that are already filled to, or beyond, capacity, limiting the number of routes over them will not solve the problem in the long term.
    • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday April 30 2015, @02:07PM

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday April 30 2015, @02:07PM (#177081)

      No, they really aren't. People can drive over them pretty quickly, especially in larger SUVs.

      What's more effective is speed dips. These are concrete trenches in the road. If you drive into one of them too fast, you bottom out.

      • (Score: 2) by jdccdevel on Thursday April 30 2015, @03:01PM

        by jdccdevel (1329) on Thursday April 30 2015, @03:01PM (#177096) Journal

        Around here they've been installing Speed Humps [trafficlogix.com] instead of Speed Bumps. (The website sells rubber ones, but most of the ones I've seen are permanent.)

        With a normal speed bump, driving faster makes the effect less noticeable, because the suspension of the vehicle absorbs the impact. With a speed hump on the other hand, the driving faster makes the effect larger. Like speed bumps, they're most effective when you use a bunch of them in series. Unlike speed bumps, when you drive slowly you barely notice them at all.

        Speed humps vs Speed Bumps [ct.gov]

        Here's a video showing some Russians driving too fast over one. [youtube.com]

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by snick on Thursday April 30 2015, @01:02PM

    by snick (1408) on Thursday April 30 2015, @01:02PM (#177059)

    A 25 mph speed limit and a couple weeks of strict enforcement should be perfect for a social app like Waze. "Stay away ... it is a speed trap!" should do the trick.

    I know folks here are equating not wanting through traffic in a residential neighborhood with being Hitler, but as someone whose kids used to play out front, I have to say that _anything_ that encourages folks to use residential streets as shortcuts is a bad thing.

    • (Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Thursday April 30 2015, @04:22PM

      by Fnord666 (652) on Thursday April 30 2015, @04:22PM (#177145) Homepage

      A 25 mph speed limit and a couple weeks of strict enforcement should be perfect for a social app like Waze. "Stay away ... it is a speed trap!" should do the trick.

      Why not just have neighborhood members flood Waze with police and traffic jam reports along those residential streets?

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @02:28PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @02:28PM (#177088)

    > Best option is to make local roads *slow*.

    There is an entire area of research devoted that, it is called traffic calming. [pps.org]

    It isn't just about physical impediments either, more important are psychological impediments. That includes things like narrowing the streets and using tight corners because wide streets with make drivers feel like it is safe to speed because they have more room to manoeuvre. Another very effective option is to use brick pavers - the rumbling sound that tires make rolling over bricks is disturbing and makes drivers more cautious.

    • (Score: 2) by M. Baranczak on Thursday April 30 2015, @02:43PM

      by M. Baranczak (1673) on Thursday April 30 2015, @02:43PM (#177091)

      Another very effective option is to use brick pavers - the rumbling sound that tires make rolling over bricks is disturbing and makes drivers more cautious.

      And you don't think it would be disturbing to the people who live there?

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @03:58PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @03:58PM (#177127)

        > And you don't think it would be disturbing to the people who live there?

        As someone who lives on a brick-paved road, I can't even hear it from inside the house.

    • (Score: 2) by lentilla on Thursday April 30 2015, @04:10PM

      by lentilla (1770) on Thursday April 30 2015, @04:10PM (#177138)

      That includes things like narrowing the streets [...] because wide streets with make drivers feel like it is safe to speed

      Not necessarily... here is a suggestion to do the opposite [nytimes.com]:

      To make communities safer and more appealing, Mr. Monderman argues, you should first remove the traditional paraphernalia of their roads - the traffic lights and speed signs; the signs exhorting drivers to stop, slow down and merge; the center lines separating lanes from one another; even the speed bumps, speed-limit signs, bicycle lanes and pedestrian crossings. In his view, it is only when the road is made more dangerous, when drivers stop looking at signs and start looking at other people, that driving becomes safer.

      the rumbling sound that tires make rolling over bricks is disturbing

      Hell no. Not in my backyard, not in anybody's backyard.

      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @05:05PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @05:05PM (#177162)

        >> Not necessarily... here is a suggestion to do the opposite:

        Did you read your own link?

        It says get rid of what makes it easy for drivers to feel like it is safe to speed - in that case signs regulating traffic that implicitly give cars the right of way.

        > Hell no. Not in my backyard, not in anybody's backyard.

        Spoken like someone who has never lived on a brick-paved road. I have in both Tampa, FL and Tyler, TX. It wasn't a problem. For one thing, much of the vibration noise is transmitted into the car by contact. For the slower you drive, the less noise your tires make. So not only does that give the driver feedback to drive slower but it also warns pedestrians when someone is speeding. Basically only bad drivers get noticed.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @08:39PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @08:39PM (#177248)

      Speed bumps/humps and brick pavers are moot if you drive over them fast enough. Try it next time in a parking lot; you can sail right through a speed bump at 30-40mph (high profile tires only). Sure it makes a bit of racket, but there is virtually no vertical motion to the car.

      • (Score: 2) by soylentsandor on Friday May 01 2015, @06:07AM

        by soylentsandor (309) on Friday May 01 2015, @06:07AM (#177378)

        That depends on their design. Some are awkward at any speed. Also, shock absorbers don't come cheap.