Speeding ticket in Bethesda with DC license

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, I live right off that road and cross it regularly to get to/from the T2 or 29 bus and also to get to activities at the school. I cross at the light. I recognize when I am both driving and walking that driving 45 mph is not unsafe. If someone blows a red light or drives at 100 mph, that is an entirely separate issue that won't be helped by this change.

That's good that you have a traffic signal you can use to cross the road to get to and from the bus. (The people who use the bus stops that don't have traffic signals aren't so lucky.) But the fact is that driving 45 mph around pedestrians is unsafe.

Right - and there are in fact lots and lots of signalized intersections along River and there are crossings at those intersections. There may not be many pedestrians but there are some but there are also many cars.

But here's the thing - there may be stretches of River where there are no crossings or pedestrians but they are regularly intermixed with intersections and at those high speed you quickly hit those intersections and then as a driver have a hard time stopping and you don't have variable speed limits - 45MPH between intersections and 25MPH around them - you should aim for an average speed that accounts for both zones.

The driver who killed the family was probably ably to safely drive 100 MPH on River along some stretches of it. But it was an unsafe speed through the intersections and congested areas. And as a driver you don't magically fly over those areas - you enter them at unsafe speeds.

The really stupid thing about the people protesting is that River is fairly congested most of the time and all you are doing by speeding is getting to the red lights faster where you just sit and wait.

Most drivers are too dense to understand this (and too enamored by car commercials or in the case of River Road Range Rover and BWM commercials) but setting the speed limit closer to the average speed on the road as a whole (which again accounts for dwell time at intersections) does not reduce the carrying capacity of the road nor the average travel times for drivers but can make the road safer.

I use River all the time and usually hang out a bit below the speed limit and coast up to the red light as it changes to green behind the a$$hat drivers who rage accelerated around me half a mile behind but at least during the extra time they were waiting at the light it was reasonably safe for them to be on their phones.