Web Engineering

I can't find the pointer now for the article, but there was a study done of traffic in a south american country (gawd, that's a vague reference - heck I read the article then went surfing, and that just washed all brain cells away :). Anyway, the gist of the article was that there was about 30% higher flow rate for traffic in that country. The study discovered that extremely aggressive driving and almost zero spacing between cars attributed to the increased flow. The side effect of these two elements was a much higher accident and fatality rate.

I learned how to drive in LA. If you've ever seen the movie LA Story, it's actually pretty close to the driving style there... I like to call it "consistently aggressive". It's a lot closer to racing - if you're the passing person, you're responsible for getting around safely. If you're being passed, drive your line and let the other guy figure it out.

It drives my wife crazy tho - I take different routes to the store until I get the one with the best time. Even then I'll experiment every once in a while just to make sure things haven't changed. And I'm still a bit aggressive on the freeways. It's a lot more challenging to be so here in Northern California though. For some reason we have what I like to quantify as the worst combination of drivers anywhere. I've driven all over the USA, I have a pro racing license from NASA and I've driven all over europe and the UK. Here in Northern California, we have the passive drivers that let everyone in, the aggressive/psycho drivers that close up all spacing between cars to make sure you can't get in (you know the ones that see your blinker and speed up!), and everything else in between.

Give me the racetrack or LA any day.

Safe driving everyone!