Texans Think They Can Solve Traffic With Retimed Traffic Lights

Dallas police are the worst at clearing accidents.  I watched while they managed to bollux up all of downtown traffic during rush hour over a slight fenderbender and the car was on the sidewalk.  I asked one of the officers about accident clearing training and my recollection is that he told me they don't get any. Well that sure is evident. 

[Tweaking traffic signals wasn't the only congestion cure respondents overwhelmingly endorsed. Their second favorite was "doing a better job of managing accidents."]

This is a MAJOR sore point with me.  We keep talking about this congestion/capacity problem--- yet a significant part of that congestion is associated with the incredibly lethargic approach DPD takes to accident clearance on the highway network.

Several times each day, there are several mile long backups that trigger thousands of man-hours in lost productivity and huge pollution problems due to one of two things:

1)  Waiting on tow-trucks; or

2)  DPD or DFR closing too many lanes, or being slow to open lanes up as the accident scene is cleaned up.

For a nominal sum, DPD could contact with towing companies to pre-position tow trucks along the highway system (NTTA does this from time-to-time).  Also, they could experiment with a DPD-operated tow truck fleet that was equipped with red-and-blue lights, etc, that would facilitate their ability to navigate through the stalled traffic to reach the accidents.

With respect to DPD, they could be sent to train with Houston PD, who are GREAT at clearing accidents quickly (at least they used to be). 

Why does the rest of the civilized world (i.e. most of Europe) have speed limits of 100kph (66 mph)  on urban area multilane divided highways and ours are 60mph?  Why does the rest of the civilized world have speed limits on interurban multilane divided highways of 130kph (83mph) and ours are 70 mph?

Why do our law enforcement officials usually just sit around and chit-chat at accident scenes instead of effectively redirecting traffic?

My Uncle Joe was a  good 'ole boy Southern Democrat County Judge in East Texas (who worked to get LBJ elected to state wide and federal office repeatedly)  and he would be raising a fit if he saw just how just lazy and inefficent county governments are in North Texas!  He had no problem with a little graft here & there- but being lazy & inefficiencent he wouldn't abide!

People might be in favor of more funding for transportation infrastructure if the government was not pissing away the funds it already gets for that on either moronic things or items having nothing to do with transportation!

It would be interesting to see a demographic breakdown of the survey.

To be overly cynical, we have plenty of other ways to deal with traffic issues in this town that technically won't cost a dime, and will have a much better effect on traffic congestion. Of course, it means offending the hell out of the people most likely to scream "Do you know who I am?" when they get busted for it. For instance, the soccer moms who feel compelled to get out of their cars in the middle of the road by their kids' schools and walk their little zygotes directly to the front door, apparently terrified that some big black guy is going to swoop down, abduct them, and raise them in a loving, caring family? Big fine. the jerks in downtown who'd rather block off a whole intersection when their light goes red rather than not tailgate the person in front of them? Fine. Alter kokkers strolling along at 35 mph in the fast lane of the highway, only speeding up when they realize someone's trying to pass them? Confiscate the car and let 'em walk home. Critical Massholes who think traffic laws only apply to them when it's to their benefit? Make sure that traffic laws really DO apply to cyclists as well as motorists. Oh, and with the goofballs who use the center lane of any road as their personal texting lane, and who are flipping off the drivers behind them at a green light because they just have to finish that last Facebook post? Don't even bother arresting them or fining them: just put them on the side of the road, put a shotgun in their mouths like Bill Hicks's famed "big black cock of death", and leave the bodies on the side for the buzzards. Once you have a few cairns of yuppie corpses along the side of George Bush Tollway near North Dallas Tollway, maybe the others will learn, eventually, that It Can Wait.

Capricious? Possibly. Vindictive, definitely. Dealing with Dallas drivers, especially the ones racing to get back to Allen or Frisco, definitely brings out one's inner Judge Dredd. However, since nothing but shame and threats of physical violence seem to make an impression, why not go whole hog and make some money off people too stupid or too self-obsessed to be trusted with a Big Wheel?

Here's another approach to squeezing that last bit of efficiency out current capacity:

http://gizmodo.com/audis-traffic-light-assistance-ensures-you-never-hit-a-1498707861

They're not wrong. This was like when Obama caught blowback for suggesting people inflate their car tires to the correct pressure to get better mileage. Also, these are things that can be handled at the municipal level and don't require state or national intervention. Until you can make the suburbs disappear, convince offices that having everyone meet in a set location is an outdated mode of working, or make a break through in self driving cars, this is just going to be the way it is. 

Better timed traffic lights make a huge difference.  Why not go for the low hanging fruit first?

@holmantx  Why replace stop lights with stop signs? Why not roundabouts? Make drivers pay attention to each other rather than bet the other motorist is paying attention.

@Lorlee  Dallas Police won't even show up to an accident unless someone is injured to the point of needing to go to the hospital.  My car was totaled by a wasted driver by the fire station in Deep Ellum.  The fire dept. Shrugged their shoulders because no one was injured and when I called the police they refused to respond because there were no injuries even though my car was disabled blocking traffic with all 45 air bags deployed after the lady hit me so hard she almost flipped my car.

I thought Dallas agreed to that a few years ago. Houston has been doing that for many years.

Your speed conversions are DISD quality.

Geez.

@BIAPBOB I believe most of the cars in Europe are smaller causing less damage when in a wreck.

As for police officers at wreck scenes....why don't we contract that work out to trained sub contractors so the police can do actual police work? 

@BIAPBOB The rest of the civilized world uses mass transit if you want to get all rhetorical.

Our highway speeds use to be set at 55mph because that was found to be the best speed to maximize fuel efficiency.

@JSSS  Voters approved a constitutional amendment requiring 25% to go for education, so blame the voters. Of course, this was done decades ago, so it's not the cause of the problem. The problem is we tax volume rather than sales, so the tax doesn't keep up with inflation.

@stuffedbuffalo  The issue isn't that such suggestions are wrong. Rather, given the scale of the problem, it's that they're silly.

@doublecheese  Because lights timed for traffic on one street means they can't be times for all of the streets it's crossing. The real problem is American traffic engineer's preference for signal lights over alternatives in place elsewhere in the world.

@ThePosterFormerlyKnownasPaul  Shortcomings to synchronization include:

1) Synchronizing for traffic on one road pretty much eliminates the chance it can be synchronized on all the other roads it intersects, and

2) Traffic moves at different speeds depending on time of day.

@andypandy @Lorlee Well they showed up for this one -- no injuries and virtually no damage to the cars  -- I think they showed up just because they could.  -- Maybe because it was downtown. 

@fred.garvin.mp.713 I think they (DPD) did, but there wasn't any follow-through.  The Dallas County Sheriff clears highway accidents in a fraction of the time required by DPD.

Don't blame me- blame the VW speedometer gauge for being off 2.5 mph on those conversions! (Less than 0.25 standard deviation!) ;)

@riconnel8  Any other misinformed comments?

@Montemalone  "Waiting an hour for the parking spot next to the door when there's plenty empty 3 spaces away."

This is hardly a trait I'd associate with old people. I blame stiletto heels.

Ok. I read about it in the DMNews at the time, guess nothing's changed.

I also notice that most people--no matter how small the accident--will leave their cars as is at the accident scene. I thought there was a law against that, but it must not be enforced.

I do a ton of driving with my work, and it gets my goat to see a minor fender bender (or no visible damage, even), and the drivers are talking on their cell phones, the two cars are in the middle lane, and traffic is backed up for miles.

Using math was too much to ask....

@kduble  Please enlighten me.  Other than the massive vehicles driven in North America I believe the majority of the rest of the world drive economical vehicles along with the luxury models like Mercedes, BMW, Audi etc This is what I find regarding Germany's autobahn

Certain limits are imposed on some classes of vehicles:

• Buses carrying standing passengers
• Motorcycles pulling trailers

• Vehicles with maximum allowed weight exceeding 3.5 t (except passenger cars)
• Passenger cars and trucks with trailers
• Buses

• Passenger cars pulling trailers certified for 100 km/h
• Buses certified for 100 km/h not towing trailers

I could be wrong but this is what I've been told and research seems to bear out that most of the world doesn't have a need for the humungous, gas guzzling tanks we drive on a whole.  Of course there are always exceptions like the suburbans used in place of limos etc.

@ScottsMerkin @Lorlee @andypandy So guys -- I saw this with my very own eyes.  several police cars and a fire truck or two and an ambulance -- what can I say.  And the disabled car ended up on the sidewalk -- out of the way with the guy walking around.  On Elm by 901 Main building.  And all of downtown was completely messed up.  But more importantly, every accident I see is mishandled seemingly to try and create the maximum mess. Other areas have protocols in place to trying and reduce the problem.  Why can't Dallas.

@riconnel8  I agree completely. It's the notion we should privatize law enforcement functions that strikes me as daft.

@DonkeyHotay  It's true transmissions are far more efficient, but wind resistance is still a factor.

@kduble I am not suggesting privatizing the police force.  I am not a fan of privatizing on a whole.

What I am suggesting is creating a position where trained individuals investigate accidents, write tickets and get traffic moving while freeing up officers, who have trained for months and receive a good salary, to do the actual work of protecting our communities.  

They would work like a teacher's aide does to a teacher.  How much sense would it make to have two or more teachers, earning what they do, in a classroom? 

 My goal is to get the officers on the streets, working with the public.  It's not like DFW doesn't have enough crime to keep them busy.