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When the place you live becomes Macan unfriendly !

7K views 32 replies 21 participants last post by  Gra 
#1 ·
My neighbours voted for this lunacy ! Our new suburb-wide speed limit. 30 km/h = 18.64 mph folks :( Does cruise control even work at that speed to avoid a speeding fine ? Just feather the pedal in sport or sport plus and you're gone :eek: … and the majour Porsche dealership in town is at the end of the street, turn left. Test drive anyone ?
 

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#5 ·
Grim I was asked that question by a flat earther once !

It's the very first 30 km/hr zone in Australia and it's being used as a test to try and reduce pedestrian accidents. Unfortunately everyone is constantly looking at their speedos instead of the road and drug affected pedestrians on their mobile phones are still getting hit crossing the road from everywhere but designated crossings. Cyclists now actually break speed limits.

We even got a mention on that very funny automotive youtube site.

https://youtu.be/1K4wgtjgR4M
 
#6 ·
So 30KM is 18 MPH. I've seen 30 mph zones all my life and not just in the inner cities but density populated residential areas. In fact, 30 mph is like the de facto standard. They also like to set up radar traps in those areas until you hit the 25 MPH school zones where they become photo radar! Since I've always seen such low numbers in some areas, its not surprising they want to go to 20 MPH.

If its near schools, and the area is dense with kids, I can understand this. If it just because of bicycles, that will end. Many drivers hate "sharing" the road and those things comes and go with the changing seasons.
 
#7 ·
My street and most of the streets in my neighbourhood are 30km/h limit and I don't mind it at all... they are mostly densely packed one way city streets with houses lining both sides and often there are kids playing in front yards/on sidewalk. I tend to have a bunch of taxis come bombing down my street and it is annoying + dangerous... even 40 or 50 feels fast but again depends on the street setup. Our major roads are mostly 50km/h with some school zones set at 40.
 
#8 ·
These kids today / speed limits

I have to drive by a skate park to and from my residence, and the speed limit is 15 mph (as are school zones in my neck of the woods). Anyway, not that every skateboarder is low-IQ, but sometimes a skater will flash across the road directly in front of on-coming traffic (seemingly) on purpose. There have been too many instances to count where if I'd been driving even 20 mph, there is *no way* I could have avoided creaming some kid.
Part of me says "Get 'em out of the gene pool," but it's my instinct to slam on the brakes rather than to say that it was their fault anyway. I don't need the guilt and the hassle. . .

*disclaimer: I wrote "kids," but many skaters appear to be in their mid-20s and up. Further, I must admit that I did my share of skateboarding in my youth, but it was up and down the sidewalk in front of my house (obviously well before the advent of the dedicated skate park)
 
#10 ·
There is a growing attitude that pedestrians and bicylists have the right away over cars anytime, anywhere. I live close to a university and its very prevalent here. Stepping into the street without needing to look occurs more often than not. Bicycling down the middle of a 30 mph traffic lane at a <10 mph leisurely pace results in a line of angry drivers behind the cyclist when a road doesn't have a bicycle lane. Is it an intentional disruption of the evil Trump petrochemical industrial facist dictatorship or else trust fund babies who have never lived outside a gated community?
 
#15 ·
Common sense can be uncommon among all of these groups. In the absence of a bike lane or an alternative/quieter route, I’ll sometimes “take the lane” on my bike. It’s a matter of self-preservation when there are cars parked on your right ready to “door” you and cars behind willing to pass far closer on your left than the safe/legal 3 foot minimum (often despite oncoming traffic). But when forced to do that, I kick my speed up to 20 mph or more and get back to the side as soon as possible. I once chatted with a local bike cop whose arm was in a cast after being doored. No problems with the police in my town if you ride well left of parked cars. Many folks just kick the door open without looking. Assume each door is about to do that!

Meanwhile in my subdivision we have a 25 mph limit, with cars on the main road doing 35-40 mph or more. A speed cam there would actually be nice. They also run stop signs and sometimes flip you off if you dare to honk when you have to brake your own car to avoid hitting them when you have the right of way. Don’t get me started about drivers who can’t navigate a curve or turn without dropping into the adjacent lane. Or running red lights. Lots of careless incompetence out there.

It’s a crazy, angry, impatient, distracted, and self-important world. Patience and situational awareness are rare but critical. Be safe!
 
#11 ·
Last sentence of previous post made me think of the lunatic voters referred to in OP's first sentence. Evidently there are lunatic voters all over the world!
 
#12 ·
Politicians are going crazy with overregulation. Here in Geneva the speed limit on main roads going into the city was 60 kph (the speed limit goes down to 50 kph once inside the city). Since they couldn't demonstrate that this speed was causing accidents, now they have invented that traffic at 60 kph is much noisier than traffic at 50 kph, so they have already reduce the speed to 50 kph in a few test areas. Well, now you have some cars revving up at shorter gears, which is noisier.

We also have some areas with 30 kph limits, and in some of them it makes full sense. In others, not.

In France earlier this year the general speed limit on open roads was reduced from 90 to 80 kph. There's even talk about reducing the speed limit on highways in some European countries, at present 130 or 120 kph).

We are at the mercy of politicians –one time they decide that diesel is the solution to all problems, and they push it spending humungous amounts of taxpayer money. Some years later they finally have to admit that people are getting poisoned by fine particles from millions of Diesel engines (occurence of asthma has increased a lot in the last years), and now they want to ban them from cities in a few years. Here in Geneva the left and the greens are proposing to put mandatory badges on cars depending on their CO2 emissions and progressively prohibiting them for circulating depending on air pollution (which as you may imagine is anyway extremely low over here since there's almost no polluting industry around here and we receive flows of clean air from the Alps and the Jura which surround the city)

Some others like the socialist Spanish government (unelected by the Spanish people, in addition) go as far as wanting to ban all ICE cars by 2040. Well, I'll be 68 by then; I'll enjoy my Macan GTS, 911 and whatever sports car may still be part of my life until then.
 
#17 ·
Hate to say it, but somebody done pissed somebody off that makes those decisions.
 
#21 ·
Here its just the opposite . There is a speed limit but no one follows it except myself and a handful of others . What one ends up with are crappy cars like Camry's and Volvos blasting through the neighborhoods . What's even worse is they dont care . Lowering the speed limit would not matter . Even fines and points would not deter them . Some might even drive if they lost the license making it even harder to find them.

Cyclists ? Pedestrians ? Ha .. I used to ride bike and train for triathon when younger . Many cyclists try to go to the safest areas like Key Biscayne and they still get hit .
Look at this recent bike incident where they guy drove home with the cyclist in his windshield https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/deadline-miami/article7852698.html

Australia ? Rules ? Ha . They nearly killed Jonny Depps dogs for ruining their ecosystem. https://www.mnn.com/family/pets/blogs/why-australia-is-going-nuts-over-johnny-depps-dogs

Granted he should have left them home but my point is the laid back "g-day mate" is much like the Hollywood version of Miami where the real story is like yours or mine when one lives in a place.

Hang in there . I would chuckle seeing a few of my neighbors driving 18 mph.
 
#24 ·
Well @Hi-Toro, I am not long back from an 11400 km trip in the Macan through the Northern Territory and I can assure you there is no free limit anywhere, it's now 130 km/h max. There was a change of Government a few years back (now the same flavour as Vic) and they decided that anything over 130 was too dangerous, but the odd thing is that the road toll went up after they reduced it!
Rarely saw any Roos in the NT, but more cattle and no self respecting Dingo would be seen in public let alone wearing someone's clothes ...

Merry Christmas all :)
 
#30 ·
I can remember when NT had no speed limit. Went on a holiday from Vic. to Alice Springs and Ayres Rock etc. I recall crossing the border from SA to NT and going as fast as I felt safe to do. That was early 90s.

The only thing that slowed my speed was how quickly the fuel gauge fell.

The road, sooo long and sooo much —- nothing. And corners barely detectable from a straight road.
IMO the road toll probably went up with the lowering of the speed limit because people went to sleep from boredom.
 
#25 ·
IDK...my average speed going to work is 18mph most days. If I’m lucky I’ll get it up to 24mph. I can sure get a lot of reading done in my audiobooks while driving 8 miles.

I live on a 20mph road and find it relaxing. Oddly we’ve had a couple of fatal car wrecks, but something tells me they were going 3 or 4x the speed limit.

On the other hand....there are lots of mountain roads that have 35mph speed limits and 20mph suggestion corners that I like to just set the cruise to 5 over and carve them up.
 
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#26 ·
My neighbours voted for this lunacy !
This might just be the beginning. It can get a lot worse. Years ago I drove down a residential road, wide, maybe 1.5 lanes on each side, sidewalks, one side mostly trees, the other side houses spread apart. This is suburban, not urban. No one parks on the street, the houses on the street face into side streets. Its a bit curvy and minor rises. Its always been 25 or 30 MPH. This is a road where 40 "feels" appropriate. There are no kids playing in the street as the houses don't face the street.

It started with the radar traps. Since its a bit curvy, no way you can see the cop in the bushes and besides, who has a radar detector out in a 30 MPH zone?

When that failed to slow people down, they move onto "traffic calming", that is, circles and concrete islands. All that did was have some people leave their tire rubber on the edges of the curbs as it was obvious people just sped up between the islands.

Then came the speed bumps. Not the small high ones like in shopping malls but wider ones. Lot of good those did.

Last time I saw the radar signs, you know the ones that say "Your Speed 45" ... "Speed limit 30". LOL I guess the ticket just comes in the mail.

IOW, it gets worse. :(
 
#28 ·
I'm 69, and I remember when Florida Highway Patrol would use airplanes to time vehicles between markers on the highway, then radio ahead to have a colleague pull the scofflaw over and write the ticket.
Don't know if that procedure is still operative, but I don't want to find out the hard way 0:)
 
#31 ·
“When the place you live becomes Macan GTS unfriendly !”

Sorry that the news on the link below are in French, but roughly what it says is that the canton of Geneva wants to equip its police corps with “noise radars”, aiming at fighting “noise pollution”, or in other words, fining noisy cars. It doesn’t tell what a noisy car is, but it talks about, ahem, waking up the neighbors. Oops, PSE, anyone? It was perfectly legal in Switzerland when I bought my GTS, so I hope they don’t give me trouble because of its sound.

https://www.rts.ch/info/regions/gen...t-pour-lutter-contre-la-pollution-sonore.html
 
#32 ·
Here in Queensland, Australia , we have some interesting penalties as well. Some years back anti hooning laws were passed ( anti social behaviour in a motor). This can include but not limited to excessive noise, exhaust or music, excessive acceleration, car lowered too far, intentional loss of traction ( wheel spinning) the list goes on.

So excessive noise can be a fine and points or excessive noise- hooning, vastly different fine. An example from government web site, “ Failing to drive without due care and attention “ $130.55 per penalty unit, maximum 40 penalty units -$5222 or 6 months jail. 2nd offence car impounded for 3 months and you pay the storage fee.
3rd offence car seized and crushed.

I haven’t been able to find any determination as to when speeding is just speeding, points and fine depending on speed above the signed limit or speeding/ hooning.
 
#33 ·
Hmm, @Brishoca an interesting speculation on the boredom of long straight roads at slower speeds and one I tend to share. My experience suggests there is more to it, I did note that way out and up there in the north, there are a lot of drivers who like to think they have a priority over others. Many a time I would wait cued up behind the long road train and when it came my turn to go I would look in my mirror to find some 'king or queen of the road' who was already over the unbroken line and coming full steam from up the back of the queue - 'get out of my way fools, I'm comin' through!'

But it's not just that, it's more a state of selfish ignorance. I see it daily, I walk down a windy road to the local shops and 9 out of 10 drivers completely ignores the unbroken centre lines - it seems it's easier to cut the corners, you get there faster and it's less effort. Pity they don't make a detector for attitude and laziness.

As @ABusLux indicated above and @Brishoca commented, governments suggest they are going to chase noise pollution from motor vehicles, a good principle. But, I am yet to see any effective policing of the rule - it might catch the odd young 'hoon' pulled late at night, for being there. But, it misses the other 95% of the cause, because the Police are too short staffed and too busy doing other things around here. There are no automatic 'noise radars' that can do the job, unless the good folk in Geneva have developed one, I am guessing such a device is a noise impulse meter held by a police officer.
 
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