BajaNomad

HIgh speed driving lanes to Baja

thebajarunner - 2-20-2019 at 11:37 AM

The worst part of the drive to Baja from up here in Central California is the long boring grind to Bakersfield.
So, an Orange County state senator introduced a bill yesterday to build two dedicated lanes, each direction on 99 and 5 WITH NO SPEED LIMITS!!

Yahooo...... can't wait.
Drove the Autobahn a few years ago in a turboAudi and cruising (briefly) at 250 kph was awesome!! And still the big black Bimmers and Benzes were ripping up behind me with lights flashing to pass.

So, two questions....
1. How do we extend it on through LA and San Diego County?
2. How do we keep the mentally disabled drivers who love the fast lane to keep out of the way?

Push this through and I will spend every weekend down in Guadalupe.

mcnut - 2-20-2019 at 12:28 PM

+1 on the extra lanes!
But instead of no limit how about 75 for cars and 70 for trucks.

The trucks cruising at 60-62 in 1 of the 2 lanes really kills traffic flow.

Bruce

P.S. Never going to happen, way to many $$$ to add the lanes...which is what they should have done instead of starting the High Speed Rail boondoggle.

John Harper - 2-20-2019 at 12:40 PM

Quote: Originally posted by thebajarunner  

1. How do we extend it on through LA and San Diego County?
2. How do we keep the mentally disabled drivers who love the fast lane to keep out of the way?


1. Utilize some of the toll roads through Orange County? I read somewhere that most of them lose money. Diamond/HOV lanes perhaps?

2. I wish I could solve that one for you, but you just can't fix stupid. It would only take one marooon to cause a major accident.

Seems a lot more fun than riding the bullet train, for sure.

John

BajaBill74 - 2-20-2019 at 02:01 PM

Simple solution, post minimum speed limit signs on the new lanes.

thebajarunner - 2-20-2019 at 04:51 PM

Two out of three responses say.... great idea, how about speed limits?
HuhuH????
The idea is NO SPEED LIMIT folks
John, you are so correct
Wouldn't this beat snoozing on a train to nowhere.

Right now my personal speed limit to Baja down the Valley is 85
That give me plenty of "rabbits" outrunning me if the cops are watching

This fall I was driving in Nebraska and So Dakata
Love those "80 MPH" signs on the interstate

Of course they have far better roads back there (and far cheaper gas- you gotta love this goofy California)

bajadogs - 2-20-2019 at 05:04 PM

I don't know what you all have against trains. I freakin love flying through intersections at 80 mph looking at all those idiots in their cars stuck in traffic. - NEXT STOP, SAN DIEGO SANTA FE STATION WOO WOO

thebajarunner - 2-20-2019 at 05:14 PM

Train from here to San Diego is a death march
Chugs through all the Valley villages, then you get off in Bakersfield and ride the bus for a few hours,
Then wait in downtown LA for another one to chug through SoCal towns.

WOO HOO indeed

John Harper - 2-20-2019 at 05:28 PM

Quote: Originally posted by thebajarunner  

That give me plenty of "rabbits" outrunning me if the cops are watching


Funny, that's the same term I always use in that context.

John

[Edited on 2-21-2019 by John Harper]

dorado50 - 2-20-2019 at 06:11 PM

No speed limits on Calif. freeways? I can see the carnage now..lol

4x4abc - 2-20-2019 at 06:24 PM

Germany is just about to end the high speed sections of the Autobahn

Please cite your source on this

thebajarunner - 2-20-2019 at 07:26 PM

Quote: Originally posted by 4x4abc  
Germany is just about to end the high speed sections of the Autobahn

California (Delusional) Dreaming

MrBillM - 2-20-2019 at 10:35 PM

Setting aside all of the many other reasons why the idea is unworkable, right at the top would be $$$$$$$ !

At a time when highway construction funds are a constant battle and no help would be forthcoming from the Feds, the astronomical cost of adding the Zip Along lanes in both directions to 99 and I-5 is realistically unattainable. After getting burned by the (now dying) rail project, any attempt to raise the funds via legislation or a bond issue would meet with hostility from the voters.

AND, if funding could be had, the construction congestion resulting would continue until everyone here is dead or confined to a Pampers care facility somewhere.


[Edited on 2-21-2019 by MrBillM]

mxracer50 - 2-21-2019 at 06:48 AM

Quote: Originally posted by thebajarunner  
Quote: Originally posted by 4x4abc  
Germany is just about to end the high speed sections of the Autobahn


I saw a news article about that a couple weeks ago.

elgatoloco - 2-21-2019 at 08:18 AM

Do we what we do. Live 26 miles from the border with a Sentri pass and visit the Valle for the day and sleep in your home that night if you want. :saint:;):P

Left lane is for PASSING only! :lol:

caj13 - 2-21-2019 at 11:03 AM

The real issue in my opinion is the large # of trucks, and some of those jerkoffs like to fly in formation! professional my arse!

The solution is at hand. Self driving trucks will soon be forming caravans, running in the right lane only, at 55 mph (california law BTW) Those trucks can run for 24 hours, no limits on drivers holding you down to 10 hours per day.
Keeps the left lanes clear, elimininates idiot truckers with micro penii running on speed and red bull, and gets goods delivered quicker and cheaper. only down side, long haul truckers will be out of a job! (of courde the union will require (or the state) that they are on board, so they will be sitting in their sleeper cabs looking at porno movies as the truck hauls down the road!

thebajarunner - 2-21-2019 at 11:38 AM

No, the Autobahn is not imposing speed limits
That idea went up, and then down faster than a Baja bottle rocket earlier this year.

Yes, it will cost a ton to build these lanes, but a whole lot less than a train to nowhere. Worst part of a train, or flying to SoCal......when you get to the station you are still far from where you need to be. With dedicated speed lanes you have your car immediately available.

And yes, clearing the left lane for us fast track guys is always helpful
But, we still have dedicated marooons who swoop to that lane and stay there for the duration
And, when there are only two travel lanes, the right lane is not only clogged with trucks but also (in California) hammered into rubble and really hard on nice fast cars.

Turn us loose!!! We promise not to crash....

and Matt, I would love to live 26 miles from my beloved Baja. But, man, the price you pay, having to live down in TrafficTownUSA. No thanks. I like my wide open spaces.

No HUNger for Limits

MrBillM - 2-21-2019 at 11:46 AM

Krauts sour on the idea.

Katrin Bennhold
The Independent19 February 2019

It seemed like a no-brainer: lower Germany’s embarrassingly high carbon emissions at no cost, and save some lives in the process.

But when a government-appointed commission in January dared to float the idea of a speed limit on the autobahn, the country’s celebrated motorway, it almost caused rioting.

Irate drivers took to the airwaves. Union leaders menacingly put on their yellow vests, hinting at street protests. And the far-right opposition used the opportunity to rage against the “stranglehold” of the state.

A speed limit was “contrary to every common sense”, the transport minister, Andreas Scheuer, swiftly declared, contradicting his own experts. And that was that.

As far as quasi-religious national obsessions go for large portions of a country’s population, the German aversion to speed limits on the autobahn is up there with gun control in America, whaling in Japan and sovereignty in Britain.

With few exceptions, like Afghanistan and the Isle of Man, there are motorway speed limits essentially everywhere else in the world.

But this is Germany, the self-declared “auto nation”, where Carl Benz built the first automobile and where cars are not only the proudest export item but also a symbol of national identity.

It’s also the country where, in darker times, Hitler laid the groundwork for a network of multilane roads that in the postwar years came to epitomise economic success – and freedom. Call it Germany’s wild west: the autobahn is the one place in a highly regulated society where no rule is the rule – and that place is sacred.

“It’s a very emotional topic,” says Stefan Gerwens, head of transport and mobility at ADAC, an automobile club with 20 million members, which is opposed to any speed limit. So emotional, apparently, that facts and figures count for little.

Germany is woefully behind on meeting its 2020 climate goals, so the government appointed a group of experts to find ways to lower emissions in the transport sector. Cars account for 11 per cent of total emissions, and their share is rising.

An autobahn speed limit of 75mph, could cover a fifth of the gap to reach the 2020 goals for the transport sector, environmental experts say.

“Of all the individual measures, it is the one that would be the most impactful – and it costs nothing,” says Dorothee Saar, of Deutsche Umwelthilfe, a nonprofit environmental organisation that has lobbied for a speed limit. “But when it comes to cars,” Saar sighed, “the debate tends
to become irrational.”

There are already speed limits on almost 30 per cent of roughly 8,000 miles of autobahn, imposed to regulate noise near urban centres and reduce safety risks on roads deemed unfit for unlimited speeding. The number of deadly accidents on stretches of autobahn that have a
speed limit are 26 per cent lower than on those without. In 2017, 409 people died on the autobahn and in almost half the cases, the reason was inappropriate speeding, according to the German statistics office.

But that hasn’t swayed public opinion. About half of Germans remain opposed to autobahn speed limits, a proportion that has not budged in the last decade, according to Michael Kunert, director of the polling company Infratest Dimap.

An autobahn speed limit would make a significant minority of “people take to the barricades”, says Kunert. Or at the very least “it would stop them from voting for a party that passed one”.

Once, during the oil crisis in 1973, a German transport minister took his chances and imposed a speed limit. Road deaths stood at over 20,000 a year at the time (six times today’s level), and with oil prices skyrocketing, Lauritz Lauritzen thought Germans might reasonably see the benefits
of saving some lives and some money on petrol, too. The speed limit lasted four months, and Lauritzen not much longer.

The experiment gave birth to the “freie fahrt fur freie burger” campaign – or “freedom to drive for free citizens” – the car lobby’s most powerful slogan to this day, and one used by political parties and car companies alike, a sort of unwritten second amendment.

“It’s all about freedom,” says John C Kornblum, a former US ambassador to Germany, who first arrived in the counrty in the 1960s, and has been living (and driving) there on and off ever since “In that sense it really is like gun control,” Kornblum added, albeit with far fewer deaths. “All the rational arguments are there, but there is barely any point in having a
rational debate.”




BajaMama - 2-21-2019 at 04:57 PM

Praise the lord and pass the biscuits. I love to fly down the 5, but I am not going to hold my breath - I know the clueless and ignorant will continue to plague the fast lanes!

Out among the Clueless

MrBillM - 2-21-2019 at 05:30 PM

Those frequent freeway fliers are among the reasons that I have both forward and rear-facing camera/DVRs on my primary highway vehicle.

Under most circumstances, I cede the #1 (often the #2) lane only to be tailgated by those using the #3 AND #4 to pass those slowpokes who are (like me) only doing 70-75.

John Harper - 2-21-2019 at 08:25 PM

I thought I'd have a flying car by now.

John

caj13 - 2-21-2019 at 08:30 PM

Quote: Originally posted by John Harper  
I thought I'd have a flying car by now.

John


Im sure fishy buck will be happy to fly you around - problem solved!

BajaMama - 2-22-2019 at 08:26 AM

Quote: Originally posted by John Harper  
I thought I'd have a flying car by now.

John


And jetpacks! What happened to that promise of the future??!!