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Is there such a thing as being too safe? Jeff Kaufman writes that buses are much safer than cars, by about a factor of 67 but buses are not very popular and one of the main reasons is that if you look at situations where people who can afford private transit take mass transit instead, speed is the main factor. According to Kauffman, we should look at ways to make buses faster so more people will ride them, even if this means making them somewhat more dangerous. Kauffman presents some ideas, roughly in order from "we should definitely do this" to "this is crazy, but it would probably still reduce deaths overall when you take into account that more people would ride the bus": Suggestions include not to require buses to stop and open their doors at railroad crossings, allow the driver to start while someone is still at the front paying, allow buses to drive 25mph on the shoulder of the highway in traffic jams where the main lanes are averaging below 10mph, and leave (city) bus doors open, allowing people to get on and off any time at their own risk. "If we made buses more dangerous by the same percentage that motorcycles are more dangerous than cars," concludes Kauffman, "they would still be more than twice as safe as cars."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Saturday March 19 2016, @12:01PM
Wait, what? Is it really true that a bus in America has to open their doors whenever it stops at a railroad crossing? What's the rationale of this ruling?
Also, does the above quote mean that they have to stop at each and every railroad crossing? There are of course railroad crossings where mandatory stopping makes sense, just as there are street crossings where mandatory stopping makes sense. But that can be handled with stop signs, just as it is done for streets (I guess the same is done for streets in the US, right?)
However I would not consider such changes as "making buses less safe" but as "removing rules that don't really add to the safety of buses".
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 4, Informative) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday March 19 2016, @12:03PM
[quote]Wait, what? Is it really true that a bus in America has to open their doors whenever it stops at a railroad crossing? What's the rationale of this ruling?[/quote]
Ooh, ooh, I know this one!
Apparently it varies from place-to-place - in some cases it's only for ungated crossings.
But anyway, the rationale for opening the doors and stopping is to give the driver a chance of hearing a train coming.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 3, Insightful) by iwoloschin on Saturday March 19 2016, @12:05PM
Yes, busses *must* stop by railroad crossings. I live near an active commuter rail crossing with working gates, busses always stop. This adds a total of about 15 seconds to the bus route. I'd focus on signal timing before changing this.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nerdfest on Saturday March 19 2016, @01:40PM
It also causes big traffic delays.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 19 2016, @07:22PM
By 'big traffic delays', do you mean the accumulated 15 seconds of everyone tailgating?
(Score: 2) by AndyTheAbsurd on Saturday March 19 2016, @01:50PM
I'm not sure what "on the shoulder of the highway" means (that's my English lacking; the only shoulder I know is where the arms are attached), but I'd say in a traffic jam your speed is not limited by how fast you are allowed to drive, but by how fast you can drive.
In American English, the "shoulder" of a roadway is the part that is paved but not part of a travel lane. It can be anywhere from non-existent to a width equal to a full travel lane. In some cases - especially highways, which is where it becomes relevant to this story - the shoulder is often a full lane wide and serves as an emergency/breakdown lane.
The real solution here is to have separate bus lanes on which normal cars are not allowed; there will not be any traffic jam on those bus lanes, and therefore the buses can drive at standard speed without making it less safe.
I suspect that very few people in the US would respect this (and changing social norms so that they begin to do so would require a massive ticketing effort by the police), and the traffic jam would simply spread into the "bus-only" lane.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 19 2016, @09:52PM
Where I'm from, the shoulder is the flat but unpaved area between the pavement and the railing|soundwall|ditch|woods|dropoff|rock outcropping.
If it's between 2 pieces of roadway that have traffic going in opposite directions, it's called the median.
It's where you pull off to if your vehicle is having problems.
It's supposed to be for emergencies only.
If you get up a lot of speed on it and somebody ahead has a conked-out car and wants to pull over, things can get hairy.
.
...and, as for "More Dangerous":
Frida Kahlo was in a bus accident at age 18. [wikipedia.org]
So, "More dangerous"?
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(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday March 20 2016, @01:11AM
So, "More dangerous"?
Yes, because the plural of "anecdote" is not "data." Especially if you have to go back to 1925 for your anecdote.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 19 2016, @04:53PM
Is it really true that a bus in America has to open their doors whenever it stops at a railroad crossing?
Yep. Also commercial vehicles carrying haz-mat.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday March 19 2016, @05:54PM
>Very bad idea. Since the driver is involved in the paying...
Really? I don't ride the bus that often, but when I have there has usually been an automated pay station next to the driver, who isn't directly involved at all except to make sure you actually pay. In which case the driver doesn't need to pay any attention except to listen for a nice clear chime indicating you've paid, and stop and tell you to get off if it doesn't sound.
I agree with getting on and off while moving though seems like most buses would be really treacherous for that. Gotta love that old London bus design! It would be nice at stoplights, etc. though - if the bus is stopped, the doors could be open.