The Obscure French System has its uses, I suppose, but I note that Buzz said “40 feet, down 2 1/2. Kicking up some dust.” when humans first landed on the moon.
If it was good enough for Buzz and Neil it’s good enough for me.
Metric is good for a lot of engineering purposes. Quick, what’s the density of iron? Bet you thought in terms of grams per cubic centimeter. 300,000,000 meters per second is a lot easier to work with than 186,000 miles. (or 983,000,000 feet)
Metric is optimized for base 10 mathematics. Imperial (or whatever hybrid of it that we use) is optimized for human body estimation. They each have their place.
I was so annoyed when I got to college and had to learn conversion factors, because all of my previous science classes had been in metric.
Ah, but is it still? The sun is constantly shedding mass. True, not a lot relative to its size. The difference might be way off to the right somewhere in that string of digits.
What Cops Know, by Connie Fletcher, recorded a cop making the interesting observation that the only people in America who’ve embraced the metric system are… the drug dealers. Converting grams to ounces to kilos to pounds, etc.
Suddenly have to dodge several less than brilliant drivers. Threshold skid stuff.
At maximum challenge point…
A 3″+ roach drops off the roof of my vehicle into my hair, then scuttles onto my glasses, then my face, then back to glasses…
swat bug off, lnock glasses askew (mostly now blur blind), now back to dodging cars, mostly blind right?, now “drifting” at 70+, bug on windshield, bug back on me, between the trucks, glasses now off face on floor somewhere, see brake lights flare, evade slide evade, made it to shoulder, bug re-engages face gets swatted elsewhere, off road, bring to stop.
deep claming breathing.
find glasses and recover.
bug hiding.
I am parked in a debris field of tire killer objects.
New roundabouts, if properly designed, are a vast improvement on standard four-way stops. However, when you try to wedge them into already-existing city intersections to the point where there are rub marks on the telephone poles, that’s a bad call.
(There are several semi-rural intersections near to me that have been vastly improved by the addition of roundabouts. One is a road/highway intersection that used to be exceedingly scary and is now routine.)
There is two within half a mile on the highway north out of Jackson, WY. Makes a difference, no more accidents because the people heading south on the highway do not stop at the 4 way stop for the Gros Venture, or Airport, roads. Probably need more on the highway itself, and the actual park road on the other side of the Snake River canyon. Not that their are many intersections (would ranch roads count?) but to slow down traffic because hitting wildlife, particularly bison or moose, is really, really, bad for vehicles.
Hitting, killing, a bear, grizzly or not, even surviving, means fury of the public. Look at public opinion of the person who hit grizzly 399. Not *speeding. Late at night. Well south of the park. Dark river canyon. No where to “dodge” even if there had been time.
(*) Under speed limit, because, hey dark wildlife riparian canyon corridor.
Note, there have been a lot of comments of “why no street lights if it is so dangerous?” Also a lot of responses of “Serious? How to tell you are from a city. Without admitting you are from a city.”
I am rerouting after driving through Jackson for many years, the traffic with the roundabouts was a nightmare. Hadn’t been home for about 7 years, but I can’t imagine they were an improvement.
We always approach from the north because we avoid driving through Jackson. We come in through Moose road, if possible. The last time we drove them was last fall; October. Heading to where the bull moose congregate. Found them.
Last place I worked, I would go about an intersection because it was impossible to take the turn I needed. Then they put in a round-about and I would use it.
Part of proper roundabout design is to angle the entry lane so you’re almost going straight as you enter the circle. That one design note makes them very intuitive—and it’s why retrofit roundabouts are a mess.
You should see the one on the south side of Franklin, as one enters the bridge into Springfield over the river. OMG it is horrible. Not so bad if you are taking Franklin to I-5 via McVey highway. Or north from the bridge to continue north on Franklin. Or from McVey highway onto the bridge. All essentially right turns. Don’t have to worry about traffic entering the circle to give right away. But if you are coming from the bridge and need to cut left, using the traffic circle to McVey, it is EEEEEKKKK. Because you have to make sure that the south bound Franklin traffic give the right of way, which they have to do. Problem is from their perspective it is almost straight so they “should” have the right of way; they do not.
Sure, though that’s a feature seen only in places with plenty of space. European roundabouts that I remember don’t look like that. In fact, one baffling type of roundabout seen in England is a simple intersection with a large white dot painted in the middle. That dot makes it a roundabout.
The trouble at least in New England is that a lot of people don’t know the right of way rule for roundabouts, and if you default to “traffic from the right has the right of way” you do the wrong thing for roundabouts.
That is what happens locally, at least at the Franklin roundabout. Vehicles entering the roundabout from the right think they have the right of way because the traffic exiting the circle across them, have to use the outside circle lane to do so. It is obvious if the traffic already in the circle is using the inside (left) lane that has the right of way. Less obvious (I guess) if they switch to the right lane to take the exit and have to cross the lane that has to “wait”/give-way. My response? Be prepared to lay on the horn, slow, and stop if needed (also helps that our vehicles have dash cams). At least our current vehicles have horns that actually are loud. Have had a few vehicles where the horn was rather lame.
Those are Massachusetts rotaries, which are circular but aren’t designed as modern roundabouts. They and the DC circles are to roundabouts what softballs are to grapefruit.
The ones in Sister’s Oregon are RV traps. Relatively new. Already torn up. Made them too small for longer pull RV’s and semi’s. Only option through town. Both ends of town have them on hwy 126. Need another at the rodeo turn off. Doubt that will happen.
Lordy. The aforementioned roundabout that joins a highway and a road is something enormous—maybe 100 feet across the center. (I’m not really good at that kind of estimation because I’m paying attention to the traffic.) One primary use of that highway is people taking boats to various lakes in the area, so they would have had to pull a really boneheaded maneuver to make the roundabout inimical to RVs and trailers.
It doesn’t surprise me that somebody does, but while road maintenance in California is really bad due to high-level funds mismanagement, when the crews actually get to do road improvement they do good design work.
Unwritten Rule #1 of Traffic Engineering: Every road user thinks they’re a better traffic engineer than the professionals who have studied and work in the field. And goes double if they disagree with the professional.
Much of my family on my wife’s side were CalTrans engineers or other employees. Given what little I know that they worked on, seem to be competent.
I’ve had to file PRAR papers with a bunch of cities in CA; pretty uniformly, the actual working people were cooperative and helpful. The occasional high supervisor was a bit reluctant, but eventually professional.
I think the engineers, at least with retrofitted roundabouts not only have to deal with the traffic model for the area, but what is there. In the case of the Sister’s western roundabout, which isn’t tiny, it is possible to take a semi, and any RV through properly and safely. But NOT if don’t properly slow down. Should be by then. Speed does drop from highway speeds (55) to slower (30) gradually, west of there … then it drops to 20 for the roundabout and through town. But, guess what? Drivers do not slow down enough. Guess why they had the roundabouts put in. Don’t think the roundabout could be any bigger without moving buildings. Which should not have been needed.
Hmm. Might be a “BSASWP” – Between Seat And Steering Wheel Problem.
We have a number of clover leaf on/off ramps that way too. Some bad ones within miles of the others. South bound I-5 to east hwy 126. *Beltline east to north I-5. Washington/Jefferson bridge to north Delta. The **”improved” north Delta to Beltline west. Most passenger vehicles can take them at some speed, not the freeway speed, but faster than posted, if pavement is dry. Anything else, including any RV? Not a chance.
(*) The new off ramp actually made that curve much tighter than it was originally. OTOH now not mucking up east bound Beltline because not backing up traffic on beltline to take the old curve (new off ramp actually off beltline is the same as the south bound one, then the lane goes to two lanes which splits for south and north.
(**) North Delta to Beltline off ramp drivers have to slow because of the “improved” metered traffic flow lights anyway. Not that they help any. Beltline is still sludge through there at the usual times (between 7 – 9 AM, and 2 – 6 PM, usually) without accidents.
The Off Ramp of Doom in the Familiars books is based on a real traffic feature. Entering traffic is blind, through traffic is blind, entering traffic has a steep, accelerating descent and then … “Hi there!”
Usually those are yellow signs, not white ones, so technically they indeed are suggestions. Now admittedly a suggestion of 25 mph probably means 65 is a bad idea, certainly for a truck. It might be ok for a Porsche. My experience is that yellow sign speed + 50% is perfectly safe in a Tesla.
Not the ones locally. They are white signs, not suggestions. OTOH near as I can tell those seem to be “suggestions” too.
Although I get a kick out of the one from west Beltline to Division. It is 30 MPH. People were complaining that too often vehicles were taking off ramps too fast. To be honest taking the ramp onto Division, slowing down to 30 MPH screws with traffic speed on Beltline itself. If one is going straight onto Division itself, you can take it faster, but if taking the turn (calling it a cloverleaf would be an exhilaration even if technically it is) to go back under Beltline to Silver Lane, 30 MPH is too fast. But during the “sludge” hours (commuting) one actually speeds up to take the exit at 30 MPH. Until then the traffic is crawling at maybe 20 MPH, or less.
Least anyone think I’m whining about Eugene traffic (I am, but …). Please note, our commuting traffic is a slight PIA sludge (unless there is an accident) of 10 minutes, maybe. Nothing, I mean Nothing, compared to Portland. Portland is nothing compared to Seattle, or what the commuters deal with in California. Or why are people willing to commute from say Drain/Yoncolla, Curtin, Cottage Grove, Creswell, etc., a 40 – 50 mile commute to Eugene or Roseburg? Because it is only a 35 – 50 minute commute. Less if the drive doesn’t require taking Beltline, Jefferson/Washington, or Coburg, bridges to get over the Willamette, either direction.
I know. The traffic circles are large. Vehicles aren’t slowing down. OTOH they weren’t slowing down before, until forced. Trust me Sisters main street is such they are forced to slow down. No racing through there, speed traps or no. Seriously. No racing through town. It is a wild west tourist destination with tourist shops lining both sides of the two lane highway (20 MPH highway). Pedestrians just cross the highway, plus bumper to bumper traffic.
“New roundabouts, if properly designed, are a vast improvement on standard four-way stops.”
Ew, no. Roundabouts are only useful if there’s too much traffic for a 4-way stop to work well, but if there’s that much traffic, you end up with more than one lane in the roundabout, which is *STUPID* and horrible.
The only time I’ve ever seen a roundabout be vaguely reasonable is in cases where several streets come together (basically, a failure of city planning) – you can have a large roundabout with several ins and out that gets the job done better than several multi-plex traffic lights, in about the same amount of space, and much nicer to look at.
Other than that, you’re wasting a huge amount of space for something that is no better than a 4 way stop.
One of the ones that was an improvement had a single lane in each direction, but the flow of traffic varies by time of day as to which direction it’s coming from. So in the afternoon, there would be a huge backup on one leg, and people would get frustrated, and frustrated drivers are stupider than the regular bad drivers. By doing a roundabout, the flow of traffic is much faster and clears out the one side that is feeding at that time of day.
More to the point, the number of accidents sharply decreased at that location with the roundabout, which was the real goal.
I’ve got cats who do that superposition thing. One as a kitten would have her hind feet on a 6 inch box while eating from a bowl on the floor. She still prefers having her butt higher than her head.
I’ve got cats who do that superposition thing. One as a kitten would have her hind feet on a 6 inch box while eating from a bowl on the floor. She still prefers having her butt higher than her head.
I am the 1975-50-years meme. Except in 1975, I was 26 and wondering if I would see the new century in 2001. (Celebrating on the ‘ 0 ‘ year and the ‘ 1 ‘ year gets you 2 good parties; the first, with everyone, and the second with the subset of ‘everyone’ that remembers it was once educated.)
My local field animals are actually solar-powered balloons. The ones sitting down are not yet fully charged and inflated.
The reason that’s in is that older son and I found this in the store, looked at each other and went “bork, bork, bork” at each other, like the Swedish chef.
In the Asian country where I live, people will usually put the local language and English on signs, to help all the foreign tourists and foreign workers not be completely lost. But the English signs are not always correctly spelled, as the people making them are usually not native English speakers and don’t always notice typos. The local supermarket, for the longest time, could sell you frozen chicken, frozen pork, or frozen “beep”.
The signs were in capital letters, so at some point someone took a pen in the background color of the sign and colored in part of the letter P so that it looked almost like a letter F, fixing the sign. Then a few months later they reorganized the layout of the store, and this time the frozen beef sign was correctly spelled.
P.S. My favorite sign was the one that should have been translated “Handicapped toilet”. The English translation was, and this is a direct quote, “Toilet for lamer”.
Ditto, except I don’t even have a site-specific WordPress account. I just have one, and yet WordPress constantly forgets that I’m logged in here and makes me log in again for every comment I post. Also makes it hard to hit the Like button, as the “please log in” popup appears, goes away immediately since it found a login cookie, and then doesn’t register the click on the Like button because it was apparently the wrong login cookie. Somehow.
WPDE. In theory it’s open-source and I could try debugging the issue myself. In practice, you couldn’t pay me enough to do that, because WP is written in PHP. My job used to involve dealing with PHP, and I am so VERY glad to be out of that project and on another project. ASP.NET Core has flaws (as all software does), but it is light-years better than PHP. You could not pay me enough to take a job dealing with PHP all day.
My sister’s cat had kttens, several of whom were a rather blue-purple-grey. One kitten’s people called it Grape because of its coloring and because it got stepped on a lot. (Mama cat was 2nd or 3rd generation brother/sister mating, and she had two litters by her brother before they got her spayed. A few kittens were OK, but most had mental or physical defects, and Mama was none too bright herself.)
My sister’s cat had kttens, several of whom were a rather blue-purple-grey. One kitten’s people called it Grape because of its coloring and because it got stepped on a lot. (Mama cat was 2nd or 3rd generation brother/sister mating, and she had two litters by her brother before they got her spayed. A few kittens were OK, but most had mental or physical defects, and Mama was none too bright herself.)
I am coming to the belief that “traffic engineering” schools are actually on the other side of the Gates to Hell. Only way to explain some of their absolutely insane and evil “solutions.”
Every single one of these is good, but the Pluto one had me going, “Hmmm.” At least until I read the reply beneath the picture. Now I need to clean coffee off my keyboard.
I’d like to import that reindeer illumination program to Texas for use on deer and feral hogs. The program could be funded by selling videos of game wardens roping and tying the hogs so they could be sprayed.
According To Hoyt 
There’s no room in that trunk, if that car even has an actual trunk, for anyone larger than a five year old.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, not in one piece there isn’t.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t recall seeing that car in any episode of One Piece.
LikeLiked by 1 person
When car shopping I always evaluate vehicle trunk space in units of “number of bodies”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Like any good American, using anything but metric measurements ;-)
LikeLiked by 3 people
Two minds that fester like one.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We joke that the 2013 Accent can (just) hold one adult body, but the 2006 Sonata can hold at least two, probably three.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Honda Civic might well fit two intact, more in pieces.
LikeLike
Americans will do anything to avoid using metric.
LikeLiked by 2 people
The Obscure French System has its uses, I suppose, but I note that Buzz said “40 feet, down 2 1/2. Kicking up some dust.” when humans first landed on the moon.
If it was good enough for Buzz and Neil it’s good enough for me.
LikeLike
Besides, what is the Obscure French System unit of trunk volume, anyway? Baguettes?
LikeLike
Metric is good for a lot of engineering purposes. Quick, what’s the density of iron? Bet you thought in terms of grams per cubic centimeter. 300,000,000 meters per second is a lot easier to work with than 186,000 miles. (or 983,000,000 feet)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Metric is optimized for base 10 mathematics. Imperial (or whatever hybrid of it that we use) is optimized for human body estimation. They each have their place.
I was so annoyed when I got to college and had to learn conversion factors, because all of my previous science classes had been in metric.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t remember everything from my college degree days, but I do remember the mass of the Sun is 1.99×10^33grams.
LikeLike
Ah, but is it still? The sun is constantly shedding mass. True, not a lot relative to its size. The difference might be way off to the right somewhere in that string of digits.
LikeLike
Density of iron?
A bit heavy. Heavier than a rock, lighter than a block of lead.
LikeLiked by 1 person
So, iron is somewhat heavier than duty, and definitely heavier than death*.
*For equivalent volumes of duty and death.
LikeLike
”Assume a homogeneous spherical volume of duty…”
LikeLike
Ah, yes. The Meiji equivalence principle.
LikeLike
“Furlongs per fortnight”
You had to be there.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Snail Speed Ahead!
LikeLike
What Cops Know, by Connie Fletcher, recorded a cop making the interesting observation that the only people in America who’ve embraced the metric system are… the drug dealers. Converting grams to ounces to kilos to pounds, etc.
LikeLike
My oldest niece turns 14 today. Alas, my Chevy Spark can’t hold Bugs in the trunk very well. Need to get a hatchet and a drill as well.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Bugs….
….
Driving at oh dark thirty.
Suddenly have to dodge several less than brilliant drivers. Threshold skid stuff.
At maximum challenge point…
A 3″+ roach drops off the roof of my vehicle into my hair, then scuttles onto my glasses, then my face, then back to glasses…
swat bug off, lnock glasses askew (mostly now blur blind), now back to dodging cars, mostly blind right?, now “drifting” at 70+, bug on windshield, bug back on me, between the trucks, glasses now off face on floor somewhere, see brake lights flare, evade slide evade, made it to shoulder, bug re-engages face gets swatted elsewhere, off road, bring to stop.
deep claming breathing.
find glasses and recover.
bug hiding.
I am parked in a debris field of tire killer objects.
get out. Tires ok. Kick stuff away in lauch path.
resume driving. All is well.
LikeLike
My Guardian Angel takes tranquilizers.
and drinks heavily….
LikeLiked by 1 person
Is the hatchback version of a sedan a truncated vehicle?
LikeLiked by 1 person
‘Aibophobia’ is my new favorite word. It’s perfect. It’s self-defining!
Obviously, the network admin is a Frank Zappa fan.
Little Matilda would probably do a better job than the government they have now. How could she do worse?
If I saw that deer in the road, I’d be looking for the Wild Hunt!
Give Naughty Cart Adolf a break; he was homeless, and he couldn’t find any crack. The anesthetic was just a substitute.
Traffic circles: Just because the French and British do something, doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.
Are they sure that sheep wasn’t just grazing on beans?
You missed the part where Politico ‘fact checked’ Trump’s denial of being dead.
Leave it to a Democrat to misspell ‘decipher’.
That picture is missing ‘SURRENDER TRUMP’ written in black smoke.
LikeLiked by 1 person
New roundabouts, if properly designed, are a vast improvement on standard four-way stops. However, when you try to wedge them into already-existing city intersections to the point where there are rub marks on the telephone poles, that’s a bad call.
(There are several semi-rural intersections near to me that have been vastly improved by the addition of roundabouts. One is a road/highway intersection that used to be exceedingly scary and is now routine.)
LikeLiked by 2 people
There is two within half a mile on the highway north out of Jackson, WY. Makes a difference, no more accidents because the people heading south on the highway do not stop at the 4 way stop for the Gros Venture, or Airport, roads. Probably need more on the highway itself, and the actual park road on the other side of the Snake River canyon. Not that their are many intersections (would ranch roads count?) but to slow down traffic because hitting wildlife, particularly bison or moose, is really, really, bad for vehicles.
Hitting, killing, a bear, grizzly or not, even surviving, means fury of the public. Look at public opinion of the person who hit grizzly 399. Not *speeding. Late at night. Well south of the park. Dark river canyon. No where to “dodge” even if there had been time.
(*) Under speed limit, because, hey dark wildlife riparian canyon corridor.
Note, there have been a lot of comments of “why no street lights if it is so dangerous?” Also a lot of responses of “Serious? How to tell you are from a city. Without admitting you are from a city.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am rerouting after driving through Jackson for many years, the traffic with the roundabouts was a nightmare. Hadn’t been home for about 7 years, but I can’t imagine they were an improvement.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We always approach from the north because we avoid driving through Jackson. We come in through Moose road, if possible. The last time we drove them was last fall; October. Heading to where the bull moose congregate. Found them.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Why did they put this deer crossing on a busy highway, instead of somewhere safer?”
LikeLike
Last place I worked, I would go about an intersection because it was impossible to take the turn I needed. Then they put in a round-about and I would use it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I don’t think so, but that may be because most of the roundabouts I encounter are in MA, where drivers proudly ignore any and all traffic laws.
LikeLike
Part of proper roundabout design is to angle the entry lane so you’re almost going straight as you enter the circle. That one design note makes them very intuitive—and it’s why retrofit roundabouts are a mess.
LikeLike
You should see the one on the south side of Franklin, as one enters the bridge into Springfield over the river. OMG it is horrible. Not so bad if you are taking Franklin to I-5 via McVey highway. Or north from the bridge to continue north on Franklin. Or from McVey highway onto the bridge. All essentially right turns. Don’t have to worry about traffic entering the circle to give right away. But if you are coming from the bridge and need to cut left, using the traffic circle to McVey, it is EEEEEKKKK. Because you have to make sure that the south bound Franklin traffic give the right of way, which they have to do. Problem is from their perspective it is almost straight so they “should” have the right of way; they do not.
LikeLike
Sure, though that’s a feature seen only in places with plenty of space. European roundabouts that I remember don’t look like that. In fact, one baffling type of roundabout seen in England is a simple intersection with a large white dot painted in the middle. That dot makes it a roundabout.
The trouble at least in New England is that a lot of people don’t know the right of way rule for roundabouts, and if you default to “traffic from the right has the right of way” you do the wrong thing for roundabouts.
LikeLike
That is what happens locally, at least at the Franklin roundabout. Vehicles entering the roundabout from the right think they have the right of way because the traffic exiting the circle across them, have to use the outside circle lane to do so. It is obvious if the traffic already in the circle is using the inside (left) lane that has the right of way. Less obvious (I guess) if they switch to the right lane to take the exit and have to cross the lane that has to “wait”/give-way. My response? Be prepared to lay on the horn, slow, and stop if needed (also helps that our vehicles have dash cams). At least our current vehicles have horns that actually are loud. Have had a few vehicles where the horn was rather lame.
LikeLike
Those are Massachusetts rotaries, which are circular but aren’t designed as modern roundabouts. They and the DC circles are to roundabouts what softballs are to grapefruit.
LikeLike
I refer to roundabouts as “tank traps”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
They are tank traps.
The ones in Sister’s Oregon are RV traps. Relatively new. Already torn up. Made them too small for longer pull RV’s and semi’s. Only option through town. Both ends of town have them on hwy 126. Need another at the rodeo turn off. Doubt that will happen.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lordy. The aforementioned roundabout that joins a highway and a road is something enormous—maybe 100 feet across the center. (I’m not really good at that kind of estimation because I’m paying attention to the traffic.) One primary use of that highway is people taking boats to various lakes in the area, so they would have had to pull a really boneheaded maneuver to make the roundabout inimical to RVs and trailers.
It doesn’t surprise me that somebody does, but while road maintenance in California is really bad due to high-level funds mismanagement, when the crews actually get to do road improvement they do good design work.
LikeLike
Unwritten Rule #1 of Traffic Engineering: Every road user thinks they’re a better traffic engineer than the professionals who have studied and work in the field. And goes double if they disagree with the professional.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Unwritten Rule of Life 1: experts f*up in their own fields just as often as non-experts.
Unwritten Rule of Life 2: 99% of all experts working for the government, aren’t.
Observation: Hydrologists and software designers know more about flow than 99% of the traffic engineers in this country.
LikeLike
Much of my family on my wife’s side were CalTrans engineers or other employees. Given what little I know that they worked on, seem to be competent.
I’ve had to file PRAR papers with a bunch of cities in CA; pretty uniformly, the actual working people were cooperative and helpful. The occasional high supervisor was a bit reluctant, but eventually professional.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think the engineers, at least with retrofitted roundabouts not only have to deal with the traffic model for the area, but what is there. In the case of the Sister’s western roundabout, which isn’t tiny, it is possible to take a semi, and any RV through properly and safely. But NOT if don’t properly slow down. Should be by then. Speed does drop from highway speeds (55) to slower (30) gradually, west of there … then it drops to 20 for the roundabout and through town. But, guess what? Drivers do not slow down enough. Guess why they had the roundabouts put in. Don’t think the roundabout could be any bigger without moving buildings. Which should not have been needed.
Hmm. Might be a “BSASWP” – Between Seat And Steering Wheel Problem.
LikeLike
There’s a highway off-ramp not far from where I live that’s marked 25 MPH.
We get drivers who think the speed limits are a suggestion, not a law.
Not for that curve it’s not….
LikeLike
We have a number of clover leaf on/off ramps that way too. Some bad ones within miles of the others. South bound I-5 to east hwy 126. *Beltline east to north I-5. Washington/Jefferson bridge to north Delta. The **”improved” north Delta to Beltline west. Most passenger vehicles can take them at some speed, not the freeway speed, but faster than posted, if pavement is dry. Anything else, including any RV? Not a chance.
(*) The new off ramp actually made that curve much tighter than it was originally. OTOH now not mucking up east bound Beltline because not backing up traffic on beltline to take the old curve (new off ramp actually off beltline is the same as the south bound one, then the lane goes to two lanes which splits for south and north.
(**) North Delta to Beltline off ramp drivers have to slow because of the “improved” metered traffic flow lights anyway. Not that they help any. Beltline is still sludge through there at the usual times (between 7 – 9 AM, and 2 – 6 PM, usually) without accidents.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Off Ramp of Doom in the Familiars books is based on a real traffic feature. Entering traffic is blind, through traffic is blind, entering traffic has a steep, accelerating descent and then … “Hi there!”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Usually those are yellow signs, not white ones, so technically they indeed are suggestions. Now admittedly a suggestion of 25 mph probably means 65 is a bad idea, certainly for a truck. It might be ok for a Porsche. My experience is that yellow sign speed + 50% is perfectly safe in a Tesla.
LikeLiked by 1 person
In this case it IS a white sign.
LikeLike
Not the ones locally. They are white signs, not suggestions. OTOH near as I can tell those seem to be “suggestions” too.
Although I get a kick out of the one from west Beltline to Division. It is 30 MPH. People were complaining that too often vehicles were taking off ramps too fast. To be honest taking the ramp onto Division, slowing down to 30 MPH screws with traffic speed on Beltline itself. If one is going straight onto Division itself, you can take it faster, but if taking the turn (calling it a cloverleaf would be an exhilaration even if technically it is) to go back under Beltline to Silver Lane, 30 MPH is too fast. But during the “sludge” hours (commuting) one actually speeds up to take the exit at 30 MPH. Until then the traffic is crawling at maybe 20 MPH, or less.
LikeLike
Least anyone think I’m whining about Eugene traffic (I am, but …). Please note, our commuting traffic is a slight PIA sludge (unless there is an accident) of 10 minutes, maybe. Nothing, I mean Nothing, compared to Portland. Portland is nothing compared to Seattle, or what the commuters deal with in California. Or why are people willing to commute from say Drain/Yoncolla, Curtin, Cottage Grove, Creswell, etc., a 40 – 50 mile commute to Eugene or Roseburg? Because it is only a 35 – 50 minute commute. Less if the drive doesn’t require taking Beltline, Jefferson/Washington, or Coburg, bridges to get over the Willamette, either direction.
LikeLike
I know. The traffic circles are large. Vehicles aren’t slowing down. OTOH they weren’t slowing down before, until forced. Trust me Sisters main street is such they are forced to slow down. No racing through there, speed traps or no. Seriously. No racing through town. It is a wild west tourist destination with tourist shops lining both sides of the two lane highway (20 MPH highway). Pedestrians just cross the highway, plus bumper to bumper traffic.
LikeLike
“New roundabouts, if properly designed, are a vast improvement on standard four-way stops.”
Ew, no. Roundabouts are only useful if there’s too much traffic for a 4-way stop to work well, but if there’s that much traffic, you end up with more than one lane in the roundabout, which is *STUPID* and horrible.
The only time I’ve ever seen a roundabout be vaguely reasonable is in cases where several streets come together (basically, a failure of city planning) – you can have a large roundabout with several ins and out that gets the job done better than several multi-plex traffic lights, in about the same amount of space, and much nicer to look at.
Other than that, you’re wasting a huge amount of space for something that is no better than a 4 way stop.
LikeLike
One of the ones that was an improvement had a single lane in each direction, but the flow of traffic varies by time of day as to which direction it’s coming from. So in the afternoon, there would be a huge backup on one leg, and people would get frustrated, and frustrated drivers are stupider than the regular bad drivers. By doing a roundabout, the flow of traffic is much faster and clears out the one side that is feeding at that time of day.
More to the point, the number of accidents sharply decreased at that location with the roundabout, which was the real goal.
LikeLike
Trump, Putin, Clinton
The good, the bad, and the ugly.
LikeLike
So when that little girl gets arrested for brandishing Excalibur, does that constitute a coup?
LikeLiked by 2 people
She’d probably do a better job of ruling the U.K. than the current royals and parliament.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Probably?
LikeLiked by 3 people
She can’t do worse …
LikeLike
You mean that if I put cream in my coffee, it smiles?
Not worth it. [Crazy Grin]
LikeLike
I thought that one was just 3 Jewish girls practicing yoga.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Quantum superposition dog lives at my house.
Coal-powered sheep for the win!
Best sign: STOP! … Get down!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve got cats who do that superposition thing. One as a kitten would have her hind feet on a 6 inch box while eating from a bowl on the floor. She still prefers having her butt higher than her head.
I try not to judge.
LikeLiked by 1 person
https://imgur.com/a/IBxU3JV
LikeLike
I’ve got cats who do that superposition thing. One as a kitten would have her hind feet on a 6 inch box while eating from a bowl on the floor. She still prefers having her butt higher than her head.
I try not to judge.
LikeLiked by 2 people
STOP! Jump Back!! Slap Myself!!! Houh!!!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I read the sign beneath the stop sign as “Hey, what’s that sound? Everybody look what’s going down.”
But that assumes the pair of signs is posted in either Buffalo or Springfield.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I am the 1975-50-years meme. Except in 1975, I was 26 and wondering if I would see the new century in 2001. (Celebrating on the ‘ 0 ‘ year and the ‘ 1 ‘ year gets you 2 good parties; the first, with everyone, and the second with the subset of ‘everyone’ that remembers it was once educated.)
My local field animals are actually solar-powered balloons. The ones sitting down are not yet fully charged and inflated.
Middle name? LOL LOL LOL! Miss you, Mom.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And, a carp and a cat? What name does she use when she posts here?
LikeLiked by 2 people
SFBS!
LikeLike
I’ve been chuckling every time I read about Vehicular Manslaughter.
(I will note our son just named his and his girlfriend’s kitten, “Squish.”)
LikeLiked by 1 person
My cousin named her cat Peeve.
LikeLike
SFBS! Indeed.
Wicked Witch of the West Fly Over. 🤣+🍿
–
Agree. Never will be able to remember it, let alone pronounce it. Great word.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Not sure if I clicked the button.
LikeLike
It sounds like fear of Japanese robot dogs. :-)
LikeLike
The “public service announcement” is on display up in Dayton (or maybe Fairborn).
LikeLike
“Ground Bork” — what if Moslems buy it, not knowing what it is? 😆
LikeLiked by 1 person
The reason that’s in is that older son and I found this in the store, looked at each other and went “bork, bork, bork” at each other, like the Swedish chef.
LikeLike
In the Asian country where I live, people will usually put the local language and English on signs, to help all the foreign tourists and foreign workers not be completely lost. But the English signs are not always correctly spelled, as the people making them are usually not native English speakers and don’t always notice typos. The local supermarket, for the longest time, could sell you frozen chicken, frozen pork, or frozen “beep”.
The signs were in capital letters, so at some point someone took a pen in the background color of the sign and colored in part of the letter P so that it looked almost like a letter F, fixing the sign. Then a few months later they reorganized the layout of the store, and this time the frozen beef sign was correctly spelled.
P.S. My favorite sign was the one that should have been translated “Handicapped toilet”. The English translation was, and this is a direct quote, “Toilet for lamer”.
LikeLiked by 2 people
LOL
LikeLike
I guess they had to do something with him after he passed on.
When people decry “toxic politics” I remind them it goes a long way back.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The last coal-powered sheep – the only one the androids aren’t dreaming about.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Man, this site is still giving me headaches because it confuses my site-specific WordPress account with my actual WordPress account.
LikeLike
Ditto, except I don’t even have a site-specific WordPress account. I just have one, and yet WordPress constantly forgets that I’m logged in here and makes me log in again for every comment I post. Also makes it hard to hit the Like button, as the “please log in” popup appears, goes away immediately since it found a login cookie, and then doesn’t register the click on the Like button because it was apparently the wrong login cookie. Somehow.
WPDE. In theory it’s open-source and I could try debugging the issue myself. In practice, you couldn’t pay me enough to do that, because WP is written in PHP. My job used to involve dealing with PHP, and I am so VERY glad to be out of that project and on another project. ASP.NET Core has flaws (as all software does), but it is light-years better than PHP. You could not pay me enough to take a job dealing with PHP all day.
LikeLiked by 1 person
When mine is making me log in for every comment I can fix it most times by manually logging out under the comment box, then logging back in again.
But also, WPDE.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve been chuckling every time I read about Vehicular Manslaughter.
(I will note our son just named his and his girlfriend’s kitten, “Squish.”)
LikeLiked by 1 person
My sister’s cat had kttens, several of whom were a rather blue-purple-grey. One kitten’s people called it Grape because of its coloring and because it got stepped on a lot. (Mama cat was 2nd or 3rd generation brother/sister mating, and she had two litters by her brother before they got her spayed. A few kittens were OK, but most had mental or physical defects, and Mama was none too bright herself.)
LikeLike
My sister’s cat had kttens, several of whom were a rather blue-purple-grey. One kitten’s people called it Grape because of its coloring and because it got stepped on a lot. (Mama cat was 2nd or 3rd generation brother/sister mating, and she had two litters by her brother before they got her spayed. A few kittens were OK, but most had mental or physical defects, and Mama was none too bright herself.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
All I could think of when I saw that meme of the British Lion was Lucy trying to wake up Aslan at the Stone Table.
And I weep.
LikeLiked by 3 people
The roundabout one… So true.
I am coming to the belief that “traffic engineering” schools are actually on the other side of the Gates to Hell. Only way to explain some of their absolutely insane and evil “solutions.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Free flow intersections. Case in point.
LikeLike
Pretending to be normal. Don’t we all?
Who did this, indeed?
…I do have a substantial trunk. EG
Interesting trash day!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I Like
Big
Trunks,
And I cannot lie…
LikeLiked by 2 people
I have passed for normal. It can be done, but it feels odd.
Trunk? No. Pickup bed, shovel, tarps? Add dirt (or potting soil or other dirt-in-a-sack) and no one looks twice.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The low-grade quality copper one is next-level. Well played by the gentleman.
LikeLiked by 2 people
(I suppose I should label this as a spoiler for anyone who hasn’t read your Christmas short story collection)
I’m going to be picturing R2D2 as Little Guy every year when I read “On Christmas Day In The Morning”
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yes. Us too.
LikeLike
Round abouts can magically transform people into Welshmen. Because “Welshmen do not yield.”
LikeLike
Gandalf, left lane vigilante.
“You shall not pass!”
LikeLike
I saw a bumper sticker a few weeks ago that said “Camp in the mountains, not in the left lane!”
LikeLike
LikeLike
Every single one of these is good, but the Pluto one had me going, “Hmmm.” At least until I read the reply beneath the picture. Now I need to clean coffee off my keyboard.
LikeLike
I’d like to import that reindeer illumination program to Texas for use on deer and feral hogs. The program could be funded by selling videos of game wardens roping and tying the hogs so they could be sprayed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
LOL
LikeLike
You know I read that as, “…so they could be spayed.”
That might bring in even more money.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You made me quite literally laugh out loud.
LikeLike
Good.
LikeLike