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Tuned Motorway Lanes

or Freeway lanes if you prefer...
  (+14, -6)(+14, -6)
(+14, -6)
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Tyre manufacturers spend a lot of time and money ensuring that their tyres are quiet and comfortable (ie: keeping road noise to a minimum). Also making sure that they have a low rolling resistance to improve performance and fuel economy.

By "tuning" the surfaces (I'm guessing mainly by making them less smooth, although I'm sure you could get a lot more sophisticated than that) of motorway lanes, you could make each lane slightly louder than the next to drive on. This would have the side-effect of increasing rolling resistance, which would hurt (albeit by a small amount) the fuel economy of the car - and presumably increase tyre wear too.

This would then (hopefully) lead people to stay in the innermost lane they could, only pulling into the next lane to overtake, and then pulling back in again - ie: forcing them to drive the way they should on motorways, instead of hogging the outside/middle/whichever lane and annoying all those stuck behind them.

kmlabs, Nov 17 2005

Road Tunes Road_20tunes
Similar without the, annoy outer- lane users, mentality. [hidden truths, Nov 18 2005]


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Annotation:







       You could make the fast lane play "I will always love you" incessantly.
wagster, Nov 17 2005
  

       Perfectly logical, with the slight problem that all it would take is one outer lane hog to annoy everyone.
hidden truths, Nov 17 2005
  

       [hidden]?
moomintroll, Nov 17 2005
  

       I was wondering too, [moomintroll]. I was going to respond that that's currently the problem. I wonder if [ht] means that someone hogs the outside lane because they like that song...
kmlabs, Nov 17 2005
  

       //This would then (hopefully) lead people to stay in the innermost lane they could, only pulling into the next lane to overtake//
The innermost lane is the slow lane? England is surely a weird place to drive.
ldischler, Nov 17 2005
  

       And driving is just the beginning of the weirdness.
bristolz, Nov 17 2005
  

       [kmlabs], another method would be to simply not repair the fast lane. Oh, I forgot, they already do that.
Ling, Nov 18 2005
  

       //The innermost lane is the slow lane? England is surely a weird place to drive.// Well, why not solve this problem by simply repatriating those drivers who insist on hogging the left/right hand lane to the country which will tolerate them best?
Fishrat, Nov 18 2005
  

       [bristolz] is right, driving is just the start...   

       To clarify:   

       When I say innermost lane, I mean the lane on the far left. You pull into the next lane on the right to overtake. I guess calling the lane the furthest away from the central reservation (divider) the 'innermost' lane is a bit perverse...
kmlabs, Nov 18 2005
  

       Sorry. I didn't really explain myself very well there. What I meant was that there might be some people who would have their stereo's on loudly enough that they could ignore the problem, and the noise they generate would serve only to annoy the people in the surrounding lanes.   

       Also (linky).
hidden truths, Nov 18 2005
  

       This idea is just about as bad as speed humps. Too much stick, no carrot. I don't condone inefficiency. Fishbone.
kinemojo, Nov 23 2005
  

       They have someting like this, only not for driving regulations. Some scientists built a bunch of balsa wood panels, had them built into the road, and play a song depending on how fast you drive. If you go to fast, it makes a horribley annoying noise. However if you drive at the set speed limit the song plays nicely.
EvilPickels, Nov 23 2005
  

       ummmm but people that flich away from negative reinforcement might get trouble ever leaving roundabouts
beanangel, Oct 11 2007
  

       More access to lanes is always better. You'd know that if you were an American. [-]
quantum_flux, Oct 13 2007
  


 

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