h a l f b a k e r yWhy not imagine it in a way that works?
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This idea speeds up traffic flow without
anybody having to break the speed limit.
Simply make a giant conveyor belt over
the top of the existing roads that travels
at, say 50mph, then drive along it at
70mph and you are actually travelling at
130mph quite legally and safely.
This has
the added advantage that if there
is a traffic jam you will still be moving at
50mph. Once the people get used to the
idea you could ramp up the belt speed to
80, 90 or even 100mph.
To get on or off the conveyer you just
drive onto a seperate concrete section and
down the usual ramp at the side.
The whole enterprise could be funded by
tolls as businessmen in a hurry and rich
people would definately want to use this
instead of the old road.
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//Simply make a giant conveyor belt// |
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This is the part of the process that you might need to describe just a leeeetle more. |
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So hole mess could be funded by pay per view as the crashes would be spectacular. Tires smoking as they go on or off the ramp. The fun moments of terror when your left tires are on and your right tires are off and your differentials and anti-skid computers are screaming like a pig in a slaughterhouse. The excessively exciting bumps when the road has to turn slightly and you go from a straight belt to one with a slight curve and since the road belt rides on huge rollers there would be a crazy gap between those big rollers. Hmmm, quality entertainment. |
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Ah, but what about magnets? Instead of
an actual conveyer belt made of rubber or
whatever, the 'road' is made of some kind
of electro-magnet which produces a
pulsing current. |
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(Though this may be a completely
different idea) |
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There's no need for the tarmac (US:
"blacktop") itself to move: people very
rarely actually crash into the road
surface, so its relative speed is
irrelevant (US: "not important"). |
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No no no. I have much better idea. |
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First, you take all the traffic signs,
roadside telephones (US:
[untranslateable]), trees, wild animals
(US: "vermin") and other crash-into-able
objects, and you mount each of them
on the back of a lorry (US: "truck"). |
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Second, you get all these
paraphernalia-carrying trucks to drive
at, say, 50mph in the same direction as
the motorists (US: "traffic"). |
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Now, you can drive at 130mph (US:
"105mph") whilst only doing 80mph
(US: "55mph") relative to anything that
might actually harm you, and the
problem is solved. |
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50mph + 70mph = 120mph, not 130mph. |
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<pedant> Your arithmetic is very good, but M-B says that 80+50 is 130. |
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The more relevant point is that our limit is 70 not 80, sure. </p> |
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Yes, but even more relevantlier, everyone actually drives at 80mph |
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More relevantlierlier... no, just wanted to get a longer word in. |
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Good idea Maxwell, but how about
instead putting two big walls along the
side of the road with stuff painted on
like buildings, trees and signs etc. and
then have that moving towards the
traffic (US: "traffic") at 50mph so people
naturally think they are going faster.
This will work along the same principle
as sitting in a railway carriage and not
knowing if you're moving or the train
next to you is. |
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Going back to my original proposition,
however, I would overcome MisterQED's
objections with the following; |
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Instead of the conveyer belt being
rubber and wobbly, it is made of metal
plates like the ones at airports (only
bigger - 4 or 5 lanes wide.) You could
then have the conveyer belt driven by a
maglev system and some way could be
devised to have the plates travelling in
one direction return on the conveyer
coming back in the other direction, so
you don't need the 'wrap-around'
system of a normal style conveyor 'belt'. |
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Corners would be a bit more tricky but
there should be a way of tilting the
whole thing up so that it's banked into
the turn enough that a slight curve in
the conveyor isn't significant. |
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Robert Heinlein wrote about conveyor-belt roads back in 1940. H. G. Wells did it first, back in 1899. I don't recall that either suggested driving along them, though. Driving on and off would be tricky as hell. |
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The differential speed between vehicles and the roadway surface is not a limiting factor in most automotive situations. It is certainly not the factor that leads to traffic jams. |
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If 40 cars per minute have gotten onto a highway with the intention of getting off at a particular road, and if that road can only handle 30, there is going to be a traffic jam in advance of that exit. The only way traffic could keep moving at 50mph would be if many of the motorists that wanted to get off at that exit instead stayed on the highway. |
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I'm about to leave work and go get on the 15 freeway going north. Thank you for this reminder of what it will be like. |
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//travelling at 130mph quite legally and safely.// |
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Sp. //safely// -> "Extremely dangerously" |
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It's not the road that hurts, [mecot], it the trees, obstacles and vehicles going the other way. |
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I want to hear what kind of a horrific noise my differential makes when suddenly one wheel is going 50mph faster than the other. |
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I'm betting it'll sound like money burning. |
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//wild animals (US: "vermin")// sp. varmints |
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I once saw a demonstrator for a solid-tread (as opposed to a belt) travelator that had slow-moving on and off sections, with a faster-moving central section.
The only problem, as I recall, was that the central section was narrower.
Scale this up to highway sizes, and the on and off ramp problems are solved by running on and off ramp travelators parallel to the main travelator highway. |
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What about simply demanding a strict multilane system ala the historic autobahn with impact absorbing barriers and impeding median? The fact is that american drivers are not psycologicaly or automotively prepaired for these speeds. Remember that no matter what the mechanism for the speed the limit in cornering is still the adhesion of the tires. This design is just as dangerous if there is any curve or lane change situation because the centripical forces are still those of a car traveling at 130 mph. I for one would park at the edge of the "road" (train) and ride my lazy ass there asleep giving my car, my wallet, and my sanity a rest. 80 mph for free is to good to pass up. |
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