Guide to UNITED STATES

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Truvelo
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Re: Guide to UNITED STATES

Post by Truvelo »

ScottB5411 wrote:Someone mentioned upthread about UK immigration staff being worse than USA staff and I agree, I've never had an issue coming into the USA by land or air, always a pleasant greeting. The UK always seem to have a miserable attitude, I found Gatwick staff have been the most miserable.
I always use the electronic gates when returning to the UK. Robots don't give you any hassle :)
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Re: Guide to UNITED STATES

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Truvelo wrote: I always use the electronic gates when returning to the UK. Robots don't give you any hassle :)
You obviously never been at the self service tills in Tesco!
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Re: Guide to UNITED STATES

Post by Glenn A »

It's interesting since the 55 mph speed limit was abolished and states were allowed to set their own speed limits again in 1994, how much variation there is. Apparently you can drive at 80 mph on a freeway in Wyoming, probably due to the wide open spaces and sparse traffic, but in congested New Jersey, the speed limit is 65 mph and heavily enforced. Also some states have different speed limits for daytime and night time.
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Re: Guide to UNITED STATES

Post by Truvelo »

It makes sense really. The same should apply over here instead of a blanket 70mph limit. Quiet motorways like the M45 and A74(M) can then be 80.
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Re: Guide to UNITED STATES

Post by c2R »

It certainly is the case;but really doesn't make sense.... roads like the I-88 in New York State are rural with very low traffic volumes, but have the same speed limit as some of the more congested roads nearer the city.

That said, it certainly was nice in states like Wyoming, Utah and Nevada to be able to do 80 without fear of being pulled over.

there's a nice map here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_lim ... risdiction
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Re: Guide to UNITED STATES

Post by Glenn A »

c2R wrote:It certainly is the case;but really doesn't make sense.... roads like the I-88 in New York State are rural with very low traffic volumes, but have the same speed limit as some of the more congested roads nearer the city.

That said, it certainly was nice in states like Wyoming, Utah and Nevada to be able to do 80 without fear of being pulled over.

there's a nice map here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_lim ... risdiction
Quite like how in Alabama how driving too slowly can be illegal( might get rid of the 30 mph pensioners over here), or how Colorado has lower night time speed limits for wildlife. Quite often in the western states, you can see interesting roadkill like cougars on freeways and occasionally bears have been totalled by trucks on rural roads.
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Re: Guide to UNITED STATES

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One of our coaches was written off when a driver hit an elk a few years ago. Bent the subframe on the front end :o
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Re: Guide to UNITED STATES

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ScottB5411 wrote:One of our coaches was written off when a driver hit an elk a few years ago. Bent the subframe on the front end
Canada, not USA, but a family friend had his large Chevy written off by a moose. And he had come to a stand at the time - he had seen it ahead, stopped, and then the moose charged, head down. Sounds like a Mickey Mouse cartoon but he said it was certainly not at the time. He said the saving moment was that the radiator was punctured and there was a huge escape of steam, the moose was frightened and ran away.
Also some states have different speed limits for daytime and night time
Normally signed with black-on-white text in the upper half of the sign, and then again NIGHT and the reduced limit in reverse, white-on-black text in the lower half.

What seems to have disappeared is the equivalent signs I remember from first visits to the USA, where the daytime limit appeared in daylight, but when you picked it up with headlights at night the same area of the sign now showed the night limit. It was some clever technique with overlaid reflective paint that I never quite understood the technicalities of. If you looked at the sign closely you could just see the ghost of the opposite message.
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Re: Guide to UNITED STATES

Post by Glenn A »

ScottB5411 wrote:One of our coaches was written off when a driver hit an elk a few years ago. Bent the subframe on the front end :o
Interesting, and I know moose, bears and elk present a big hazard in rural Canada and America in the dark. Also it's not unheard of for a cougar to crawl into the back of a pick up truck or a rattler to get into your car.
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Re: Guide to UNITED STATES

Post by bothar »

Some good North American snow clearance videos on youtube.
There was heavy lake effect snow along I-90 near lake Erie in Xmas day and Boxing day. Buffalo is noted for this, but the worst in this case was an hour further south in Erie, PA. With up to a metre and a half of snow, it does cause problems even if you are organised for it.



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Re: Guide to UNITED STATES

Post by KeithW »

There was a similarly cold and snowy winter in January 96. I was a week late getting back (to Columbus Ohio) from London after the New Year as JFK was closed by heavy snow. They were clearing the runways and taxiways using JCB's after 26" of snow fell. When I flew back after it finally reopened I caught the shuttle bus to the American Airlines terminal to catch the 8 PM flight to Columbus only to find it was delayed several hours. While waiting in the bar I was chatting to a guy who had been trying to get back to Buffalo for 3 days as the airport was closed by 8 feet of Lake Effect Snow. It was starting to look as if his only option was to catch the Amtrak train from Penn Station.

I finally got back to my apartment at 3 AM after a very hairy flight with American Eagle in small twin engine turboprop that took over an hour longer than usual due to extreme headwinds. On final approach the pilot gave us the good news as that there was only 3" of snow on the runway we would be OK to land.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATR_42

I was supposed to be in the office at 8 AM, that was not a fun propspect given the 3ft of snow that the plough had piled up in front of the driveway , it was -12 F at the time. Fortunately the building janitor took pity on me and got out his snow blower. The car also started first time after nearly 2 weeks standing half buried in snow.
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Re: Guide to UNITED STATES

Post by bothar »

meanwhile, it does rain in Southern California, presumably they warn you beforehand.
This is the US101 near Montecito where a mudslide came from the areas burned in the earlier forest fire and more or less cut off Santa Barbara to the south.

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Re: Guide to UNITED STATES

Post by ScottB5411 »

Glenn A wrote:It's interesting since the 55 mph speed limit was abolished and states were allowed to set their own speed limits again in 1994, how much variation there is. Apparently you can drive at 80 mph on a freeway in Wyoming, probably due to the wide open spaces and sparse traffic, but in congested New Jersey, the speed limit is 65 mph and heavily enforced. Also some states have different speed limits for daytime and night time.
Interstate speed limits are rising too. Large sections of I-90 in Montana are now 85mph, South Dakota recently went up to 80mph, a number of Midwest states are considering 75 and 80mph limits, Michigan has raised some stretches to 75mph. Florida I have been told is also considering raising some sections above 70 also.
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Re: Guide to UNITED STATES

Post by KeithW »

ScottB5411 wrote:
Glenn A wrote:It's interesting since the 55 mph speed limit was abolished and states were allowed to set their own speed limits again in 1994, how much variation there is. Apparently you can drive at 80 mph on a freeway in Wyoming, probably due to the wide open spaces and sparse traffic, but in congested New Jersey, the speed limit is 65 mph and heavily enforced. Also some states have different speed limits for daytime and night time.
Interstate speed limits are rising too. Large sections of I-90 in Montana are now 85mph, South Dakota recently went up to 80mph, a number of Midwest states are considering 75 and 80mph limits, Michigan has raised some stretches to 75mph. Florida I have been told is also considering raising some sections above 70 also.
In the case of Montana that's a downgrade, last time I was there (1998) there were no fixed daytime speed limits :)
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Re: Guide to UNITED STATES

Post by ScottB5411 »

It's rumoured they are discussing bringing that back in :-)
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Re: Guide to UNITED STATES

Post by Bryn666 »

The reason they got rid of Reasonable and Prudent was it couldn't be enforced.

Who defines R and P? In a notoriously litigation happy country it is doomed to fail.
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Re: Guide to UNITED STATES

Post by ScottB5411 »

Bryn666 wrote:The reason they got rid of Reasonable and Prudent was it couldn't be enforced.

Who defines R and P? In a notoriously litigation happy country it is doomed to fail.
No it wasn't, the feds wouldn't subsidise the interstates if they didn't put in a speed limit.
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Re: Guide to UNITED STATES

Post by Bryn666 »

That was a condition of the 55 national maximum speed limit. Federal funds were reliant on the speed limit being in place.

After abolition of that it was reintroduced in the 90s, then the Montana courts struck it out as unenforceable.
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Re: Guide to UNITED STATES

Post by Glenn A »

ScottB5411 wrote:
Glenn A wrote:It's interesting since the 55 mph speed limit was abolished and states were allowed to set their own speed limits again in 1994, how much variation there is. Apparently you can drive at 80 mph on a freeway in Wyoming, probably due to the wide open spaces and sparse traffic, but in congested New Jersey, the speed limit is 65 mph and heavily enforced. Also some states have different speed limits for daytime and night time.
Interstate speed limits are rising too. Large sections of I-90 in Montana are now 85mph, South Dakota recently went up to 80mph, a number of Midwest states are considering 75 and 80mph limits, Michigan has raised some stretches to 75mph. Florida I have been told is also considering raising some sections above 70 also.
It makes sense as states like South Dakota are sparsely populated. Also American cars since the mid eighties have become as powerful( although with smaller engines) as they were before the energy crisis. The days when a V8 struggled to beat 100 mph and speedometers weren't allowed to show speeds over 85 mph are long gone.
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Re:

Post by KeithW »

Sabrista wrote:Richie333: <<Any other road features that make the Severn Bridge, the A55
tunnels and the Tongue causeway look positively mundane by comparison?>>

I can remember going to New Orleans on a coach trip with my parents in 1993.
Going across from Lafayette to New Orleans proper we crossed a 24 mile long
bridge across Lake Ponchotrain (spelling?).

You couldn't see one side from the other - it was like a bridge across the
English Channel! Astonishing piece of engineering I thought!

Serena
Lake Ponchartrain is all of 14 ft deep and the causeway is built on piles driven from barges, fairly prosaic stuff actually. Its certainly not a technique you could use to cross the channel.

The US bridge that I always find impressive is the San Francisco Bay Bridge which actually consists of 2 bridges and a tunnel. As originally built there was a double span suspension bridge from SF to Yuerba Buena Island and then a multi span truss bridge to Oakland. The Truss bridge has been replaced due to its poor earthquake performance. originally the bridge carried both rail and road traffic .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Franc ... Bay_Bridge
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