Subject: Re: Kenny fails YOUR stats!

From: [email-masked] (KENNY MORSE)
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 1995 09:37:23

In article <1995Aug9.145912.5944@cmkrnl> Jamie Hanrahan, Kernel Mode Systems wrote:
>In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] 
>(KENNY MORSE) writes:
>> In article <[email-masked]> Kevin Atkinson wrote:
>> 
>>>They DO show what really happing.  Ok if a LA freeway speed limit went up
>>>to 85 mph (well above the 85th percentile speed on almost any road) do you 
>>>honesly think most people will do 95-100? (Challenge ONE)
>> 
>> Nope. I don't. Because Americans are NOT trained to be able to
>> handle these speeds safely. A small % WOULD go 95-100.  That's
>> not the point.  There will be NO 85 speed limit in yours or my lifetime.
>> The issue is if raised to 65 or 75, will they exceed.  I say ABSOLUTELY.
>
>Sure, a few will exceed any posted limit.  But how many?  

The answer.....MOST!
>
>>>(Challenge TWO) Ask you students if the limit was raised 10 to 15 mph if 
>>>they would exceed it automatically.
>> 
>> Kev...I DID ask. In TWO classes now (since Jaime asked me to) and
>> the answer was "probably".  And there it is.  
>
>That wasn't the question I asked you to ask.  I asked you to ask them,
>approximately, "what if the posted limit was above the max speed at
>which you feel comfortable on that same road today?  Would you STILL 
>drive 10 or 15 mph over the limit?"  That's a different question 
>entirely. 
>
>

Jaime...

I don't know what happened to the post where I DID answer your
questions about what I posed to clas.

I asked the question as Kevin asked.  I think YOUR question as
asked is moot.  To ask people that if the speed limit was 75,
would they only go 65 if THAT is where they felt comfortable is
obvious.  We already have that in place. People CAN go a minimum
of 45mph (if that is where THEY feel comfortable on the freeway) if
they do it in the exit lane, but they better have a good excuse when the
cop sees them doing it!  People pretty much fall into TWO categories:
1) People who speed because they simply WANT TO for their
own reasons:
                Late
                Fun
                Making money
                Feel comfortable at THAT speed
                Disrespect the law
                Disregard all laws

2) People who speed because they HAVE TO:
                Because going 55 will get you killed since EVERYONE
is going faster!
                To keep up with the flow for their OWN sense of comfort
                Their own sense of personal emergency

Yes, people do what is comfortable for them.....YOU DO!  Since there
will always be set speed limits (at least within yours and my lifetime),
the question is : Is it set fairly, based on SAFETY (which should be the
first consideration) and is it being enforced?  People's personal sense of
comfort should NOT be the barometer by which speed limits are set...
therefore the premise YOU keep trying to assert is irrelevant, and
as far as I'm concerned...NOT the operative concept in drivers in
California.  

> These are average drivers
>> who absolutey reflect a cross section of California drivers who were
>      ^^^^^^^^^
>
>This is called "proof by vigorous assertion".  You'll have to do 
>better than that.  
Nope...I don't have to. In YOUR business....when people
try to tell you YOUR area of expertise, I bet YOU are vigourous
too when you disagree.  I will always assert that which I know to
be true.  So will you.  We can disagree.. That is what
places like this are for.
>>Two problems here.  First, I gave you a list of at least five 
>different groups of drivers who will be under-represented in your 
>classes.  If you gave a rebuttal to that, I didn't see it.  

Sorry you missed it. I answered each class.
>Second, the ones who are "caught" more often (and hence are more
>likely to choose to go to traffic school) tend to be the more
>dangerous drivers

Your premise is faulty...."caught more often?"
Who says they get caught more often just because they are in
traffic school???

.. the ones whose behavior makes them stand out on
>the road, even if they're not speeding.  
If they are not speeding, they don't get speeding tickets.  If their
behavior is "weaving" "tailgaiting" etc....their speed is usuallly
NOT written as a citation.

>I drive faster than posted limits all the time... when it's safe to do so... (and well below
>posted limits, when that's the safest behavior)... but I don't drive
>"conspicuously", so I don't get tickets any more. There are many
>drivers out there like me.  We're underrepresented in your classes 
>too. 
>
No....you are NOT under represented in my classes...you are not
represented at all! And you are the minority!  the California Office
of Traffic Safety did a survey recently that showed that 85% (curious
that it is THAT %) of all drivers in California regularly exceed the
posted speed limit every time they drive.  Well below is a TOTAL
minority position.
>(It's not because no one sees me, either.  Last weekend I was driving
>south on I-5, doing 75-80 in the second-from-the-right car lane. 
>About a mile up the hill, I noticed a Kern County Sheriff's car
>peeking out of my right rear blind spot. I maintained speed.  After a
>few moments he pulled left two lanes and cruised on past.) 
>
You lucked out. Thats all. Mr. Jaime is going to be a future
student doing 75-80. Bet on it!

>In other words, your classes are biased toward those who get tickets 
>more often than most

Nonsense.

 Of COURSE many of them would say "Sure, I'd 
>exceed a posted limit of 65 or 70".  That's why they're there in your 
>class in the first place!

Just like YOU and most drivers going too fast!  75-80. Jaime!!!!
Too fast for what? YOUR comfort? Safety?  No. Obviously
we disagree. For what???? THE LAW! Play or Pay  my friend.
>
>Re 85:  Kenny, we *have* a _de facto_ limit of 85 today -- on I-5 from
>the 99 junction (just south of Bakersfield) to, roughly the 152
>junction.  Slow drivers do 65-70 on that road, fast drivers do 75-80.
>It isn't that there's no enforcement, either; drivers doing 90
>get ticketed -- I've yet to be passed by anyone doing much more than
>85 on that road and NOT see them pulled over a few or even tens of
>miles later.  It works; the accident rate per vehicle-mile on that
>road is very low. 
>
Boy, you don't teach traffic school in Bakersfield.  When you
start doing THAT, give me a call.  You'll change your mind
about your observations.

>As I see it, the real problem with posted limits that reflect the
>actual maximum safe speed under ideal conditions is indeed one of
>driver education -- but not for those conditions; they do just fine
>under ideal conditions. 

I agree.

> I think that what we need is better awareness
>of when the posted speed is *too high*.  There are very few CHP
>officers who will ticket you for 65 or even 70 on the 210 when the
>road is almost deserted

Nonsense.  Stop tell me what cops will do.  Until you
stop getting them in YOUR classes, THEN your assertion
will have some weight.  Cops WILL....cops DO.....

>> but the posted limit of 55 lets them easily,
>without an argument, write you up for 65 or even 60 when you are
>obviously unsafe at that speed (due to heavy traffic, rain, whatever).
>The trouble is that the posted limit of 55 also lets them write you
>for doing 57 under conditions that are safe for 70. 

Never happens. Been teaching for 8 years. Never heard of in class,
or on the air, anyone getting 57 in a 55 unless they were doing somthing
else VERY stupid.

Jaime....look, you are an intelligent and articulate advocate
for your position.  But you make the human mistake in
believing that because YOU do this or that, that this
is the basis for other's behavior.  I only wish it was
(except for that 75-80 bit!).  If I've heard this once,
I've heard it a million times. Learn what happens
to the majority of people who drive, and why it
happens.  I have.  It's been an interesting education,
enlightening and dismaying.  But I can assure you
that these people in class are no different than you
(obviously...75-80!).

Kenny Morse
"Mr. Traffic"
http://www.usbusiness.com/mr_traffic.html

By the way.....what IS a Kernel Mode?  Popping Corn?
>	---

---

From: [email-masked] (KENNY MORSE)
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 1995 09:37:23

The answer.....MOST!

Jaime...

Nonsense.

I agree.

Kenny Morse
"Mr. Traffic"

---

From: [email-masked] (Adam Neil Villani)
Date: 12 Aug 1995 07:59:24 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
>Who says they get caught more often just because they are in

This is one of your points you keep making, Kenny, that is not a matter
of contention because we disagree about why people speed, or what the
law should be, what people's behavior is under different road conditions,
or the behavior of cops. This particular point is under contention
because you do not seem to understand something very essential in
polling and sampling.

Here is the fact: the people you see in your traffic classes are *not*
a cross-section of all California drivers.

Here is why: people who get more tickets will tend to show up in your
classes more. The average person in your classes will have more 
tickets than your average California driver.

Let me illustrate. I don't know what the rate at which people go
to traffic school as opposed to just paying their tickets, but
for the sake of argument, let's say that 25% of all tickets get
their recipient to go to traffic school rather than pay their 
tickets. Let us also say that an equal number of drivers in a given
period of time receive 0,1,2,3, and 4 tickets. Let's say that there
are ten million drivers in the state.

Note that the actual numbers and distributions are unimportant, but
they are just being used to illustrate a point.

OK, back to the illustration. Given these figures, we can calculate
some things about the drivers. What is the average number of tickets
a driver receives in this time period (we'll call it a year)? Two.
There are twenty million total tickets issued. Two million people
each receive 0,1,2,3, and 4 tickets. There are 0 trips to traffic
school from people with 0 tickets. There are 500,000 trips to traffic
school from people with 1 ticket. There are 1,000,000 trips to
traffic school from people with 2 tickets. There are 1,500,000
trips to traffic school from people with 3 tickets. There are
2,000,000 trips to traffic school from people with 4 tickets.
This makes a total of 5,000,000 trips to traffic school. However,
40% of those trips were from people with 4 tickets, 30% of those
trips were from people with 3 tickets, 20% of these trips were from
people with 2 tickets, 10% of these trips were from people with
1 ticket, and 0% of the trips are from people with 0 tickets.
This is *not* a representative cross-section of California drivers!
A representative profile of drivers in this theoretical state would
consist of equal 20% parts people that received 0,1,2,3,and 4
tickets. The average number of tickets received by a person in
a traffic school class is ((.40*4) + (.30*3) + (.20*2) + (.10*1) +
(0*0)) = 3, which is 50% over this theoretical state's average.

The numbers are unimportant, but I hope you see the point I'm
illustrating. People who get caught more are more likely to
show up in your class. Maybe they're not more likely to show up
*for a particular ticket*, but because they receive more tickets,
they are more likely to go to traffic school. Taking extreme
cases, someone who never got tickets would never go to your class,
and some schmuck who got a ticket a week would be pretty likely 
to show up in traffic school.

And I hope we can agree that someone who gets 4 tickets over
a period of time is most likely a very different driver than
one who gets no tickets during that same period, unless you
think tickets are handed out in a purely random fashion. Surely
chance does play a (perhaps major) factor in whether someone
receives a ticket, but averaged out over a large population,
those who receive more tickets will be a different group of
people than those who do not receive a large amount of tickets.

-- 
Adam Villani
[email-masked]
http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~addam
"I was in this prematurely air-conditioned supermarket..."

---

From: [email-masked] (Jamie Hanrahan, Kernel Mode Systems)
Date: 12 Aug 95 08:35:42 PDT

>>Sure, a few will exceed any posted limit.  But how many?  

At ANY limit?

>>drive 10 or 15 mph over the limit?"  That's a different question 

(Could you PLEASE at least trouble yourself to spell my name 
properly???  Mine is the Scottish spelling, not the Spanish...)

> of 45mph (if that is where THEY feel comfortable on the freeway) 

You're avoiding the issue.  Could it be because the answer won't be 
the one you've been promoting?

>                 Feel comfortable at THAT speed

At least you've added that one to your list. 

> comfort should NOT be the barometer by which speed limits are set...

But T&W found that most people's "comfortable" speed (the 85th 
percentile speed) IS within the safest range of speeds.  I don't see 
how you can argue that it isn't a good indicator of where the speed 
should be set.  

> as far as I'm concerned...NOT the operative concept in drivers in

I don't think so.  I'm making just one "leap of faith", that being 
that "comfort" is what sets an upper limit on speed for most people, 
most of the time.  Lots of things go into "discomfort" (including the 
fear of getting ticketed, but given the number of speeders out there, 
this would not seem to be a prime consideration!).  

> Nope...I don't have to. 

You will, if you want to convince anyone that you aren't simply too 
blinded by your own beliefs to open your eyes and see something that 
might be true in spite of them. 

Every indication so far, though, is that you just don't care WHAT 
people think of you in that regard. 

> student doing 75-80. Bet on it!

Not on THAT road.  75-80 is within the range in which you won't get
run over.  

> we disagree. For what???? THE LAW! Play or Pay  my friend.

Safety, yes.  See above.  Much slower and you're in the same situation 
as you are at 55 between SD and LA under "open conditions".  

> start doing THAT, give me a call.  You'll change your mind

Bear in mind that the numbers people are written for (and admit to) 
are often lower than the actual speeds.  

Frankly I trust the evidence of my eyes a lot more than hearsay about 
what people say, in traffic school, that they do.  

> will have some weight.  Cops WILL....cops DO.....

But once again, how many, and under what conditions?  So you get some 
folks in your classes with tickets written under the conditions 
mentioned.  That doesn't give you ANY concept of how many speeders 
under those conditions get ticketed, vs. how many speeders get 
ticketed for the same speeds, same roads, in more crowded conditions.  
I didn't say "none", I said "very few".  Being out on the road and 
using your eyes DOES tell you.  It isn't anything like a complete 
statistical sample, but at least it's an indication of their actual 
behavior, vs. what they tell you they do. 

> or on the air, anyone getting 57 in a 55 unless they were doing somthing

I exaggerate for effect.  (There are places where it DOES happen.) 
However the fact is that you *may* be cited for one or even two mph
over the limit.  Heck, I heard an interview with a CHP public affairs
officer soon after "55" went in, and he said that policy was that they
*must* cite you, no discretion, for 58 and over.  That's the official
policy that he'd admit to.  Obviously their actual behavior at the 
time was different, because even then you frequently saw them pacing 
clumps of cars at 60-65.  

> is the basis for other's behavior.  

No, I'm noting that my behavior is similar to that observed by T&W.  
You keep claiming that one of T&W's conclusion (that people will not 
automatically drive 10-15 mph over ANY posted limit) is invalid, but 
that conclusion was drawn from actual measurement of what people do;
you've yet to offer anything besides hearsay of what people SAY they 
do as a counterargument.  

> By the way.....what IS a Kernel Mode?  Popping Corn?

It's the privileged mode of a protected operating system, vs. user 
mode.  Intel calls them Ring 0 and Ring 3 respectively.  The "drivers" 
in my .signature below does not refer to cars. :-)

(Anyone who pipes up with "One Ring to bind them all..." will be
condemned to a hell with 500 tv channels, each running a different
episode of the old 50's drama, "Highway Patrol".) 

	--- Jamie Hanrahan, Kernel Mode Systems, San Diego CA
drivers, internals, networks, applications, and training for VMS and Windows NT
Internet: [email-masked] (JH645)  CompuServe: 74140,2055  
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