crash factors for all of us to know & why UPS trucks never turn left

[sib]

I recently encountered another bit of new (to me) law enforcement technology.  I was traveling down a 4-lane undivided highway going a bit above the speed limit when a state trooper traveling the other way turned around and stopped me.  He knew exactly how fast I had been going.  He must have had a differential speed radar or laser that automatically deducted his speed from the closing speed to determine my speed.  Clever.  I got off with a warning.

[Triple Jim]

I recently encountered another bit of new (to me) law enforcement technology.

I first heard about that in the 1980s, but I don't know if it was new then.  Until that time, I had always thought that there was no danger of being caught by a cop going the other way.  Luckily I was told about the system, rather than finding out about it the hard way.

[sidecarnutz]

I'm sure they can.   

I know that the last time I entered Canada on a motorcycle, the Canadian border guard punched in my license plate number, and knew ALL about me immediately.   For example, he already knew that I had been issued a Virginia CCW in Appomattox County, and that it had expired a few months back.

He was asking me leading questions about it to see if I would tell him a lie of some kind.   I knew he already knew, though.   I hope he also saw that I had a clean driving record (no convictions) back to 1970.    And THEN he asked me if I had any firearms on my motorcycle.   I wanted to give him a smart answer like "Oh, yeah, like I'm going to pack a pistol across the Canadian line.   Waddaya tink I am, dumb or sumpin'?"   However, knowing from experience that these guys DON'T like a bit of humor or byplay, I answered in Hymie the Robot mode only ....

Amazing what they can get just with a license tag number these days.

Lannis

I find it funny  that is OK for an Officer to drive while typing into his lap top beside him, while it is illegal for regular folks to text and drive.

[oldbike54]

 OK fellas , no politics please .

 Dusty

[redrider90]

You can really tell that news people are all concentrated in cities, where "going around the block" might save a left turn at the cost of 20 seconds or whatever.

Out here in flyover country,  I can't think of a single place in our whole county where you could avoid a left turn by turning right.    I see UPS trucks (like the one that delivers to my house 5 times a week) making left turns across traffic all the time .....

I understand that in a city, it's different, but that's not what the article implies ....

Lannis

80% of the US population lives in Urban areas. It stands to reason that the article was talking about urban areas.

[Lannis]

80% of the US population lives in Urban areas. It stands to reason that the article was talking about urban areas.

According to the Census Bureau, a place is "urban" if it's a big, modest or even very small collection of people living near each other. That includes Houston, with its 4.9 million people, and Bellevue, Iowa, with its 2,543.   Or even the little towns right around me.

Center, Alabama, is an "urban cluster", and counts as an "urban area", with 363 people per square mile.

So you count a town with 2,500 people as a city?   Your statistic does.  Let's say we decided to call places with 20,000 residents or less small towns. Of the 3,573 urban areas in the U.S. (both urbanized areas and urban clusters), 2,706 of them are small towns, by this definition. That's 75 + percent. If roughly 80 percent of our population is urban, roughly 80 percent of our urban areas are actually small towns.

Couldn't you look at that "80% Urban" statistic on the face of it and know that couldn't be true, at least in the context of places where UPS drivers don't make left turns .... ?   All you have to do is travel around a bit.

Lannis

[oldbike54]

 So Kenton OK , pop 17 doesn't count as an urban area ?

 Dusty

[Lannis]

So Kenton OK , pop 17 doesn't count as an urban area ?

 Dusty

If the test is watching to see what the UPS driver does ....

... oops, there's no place to turn in either direction ....

[Rough Edge racing]

OK fellas , no politics please .

 Dusty

 Oh come on, you mean we can't say right and left.....

[redrider90]

According to the Census Bureau, a place is "urban" if it's a big, modest or even very small collection of people living near each other. That includes Houston, with its 4.9 million people, and Bellevue, Iowa, with its 2,543.   Or even the little towns right around me.

Center, Alabama, is an "urban cluster", and counts as an "urban area", with 363 people per square mile.

So you count a town with 2,500 people as a city?   Your statistic does.  Let's say we decided to call places with 20,000 residents or less small towns. Of the 3,573 urban areas in the U.S. (both urbanized areas and urban clusters), 2,706 of them are small towns, by this definition. That's 75 + percent. If roughly 80 percent of our population is urban, roughly 80 percent of our urban areas are actually small towns.

Couldn't you look at that "80% Urban" statistic on the face of it and know that couldn't be true, at least in the context of places where UPS drivers don't make left turns .... ?   All you have to do is travel around a bit.

Lannis

Lannis,
I see you have been doing your research. From that article you quoted
 ( http://www.citylab.com/housing/2012/03/us-urban-population-what-does-urban-really-mean/1589/  )
it ends with this:
 "By contrast, the top 48 urbanized areas account for more than half of the entire urban population.
The country is undeniably urban, and the urban majority is counted by population, not by the amount of urban areas. But with such a wide spectrum making up the definition of the word "urban," maybe it makes more sense to think of the U.S. as majority non-rural."   

[Lannis]

Lannis,
I see you have been doing your research. From that article you quoted
 ( http://www.citylab.com/housing/2012/03/us-urban-population-what-does-urban-really-mean/1589/  )
it ends with this:
 "By contrast, the top 48 urbanized areas account for more than half of the entire urban population.
The country is undeniably urban, and the urban majority is counted by population, not by the amount of urban areas. But with such a wide spectrum making up the definition of the word "urban," maybe it makes more sense to think of the U.S. as majority non-rural."   

Or maybe the urban majority is counted not by population, nor the amount of "urban" areas, but by areas where UPS drivers have to avoid left turns ... which is what we were talking about. 

Better watch out, though.  "Urban" is one of those 'code words' for something else these days .... 

[charlie b]

I recently encountered another bit of new (to me) law enforcement technology.  I was traveling down a 4-lane undivided highway going a bit above the speed limit when a state trooper traveling the other way turned around and stopped me.  He knew exactly how fast I had been going.  He must have had a differential speed radar or laser that automatically deducted his speed from the closing speed to determine my speed.  Clever.  I got off with a warning.

They have had that out here since the early 80's.  AZ state cops were the first I knew to have it (others may have had it sooner).  Both front facing and back facing.  It was also pulsed to mess with some of the radar detectors of the day and could be turned on or off by the officer (it stayed in an idle state, called 'instant on' at the time).

The AZ cops used to like to drive just at the speed limit and use the rear facing radar unit in an instant on mode to catch folks coming up from behind.  They also drove various color units (light blue, and tan were common colors) with no roof lights.

[Kiwi Dave]

He knew exactly how fast I had been going.  He must have had a differential speed radar or laser that automatically deducted his speed from the closing speed to determine my speed.

You were probably nabbed by a Stalker Dual speed detection radar.  This model has three displays.  One concentrates on stationary objects to determine the patrol car speed.  The other two show fasted speed detected and strongest signal detected.  In NZ, police policy says that they will only issue an infringement notice (ticket) if the fastest and strongest signal are produced from the same vehicle (although they don't say how they can determine this).

This speed detection has been keeping the NZ Government in the black for years.  There is no excuse for speeding (quote).