12-Foot Traffic Lanes Are Bad for Safety and Should Be Replaced (2014)
I&#x27;m reading a lot of comment from people complaining that this article is wrong and we shouldn&#x27;t make roads less safe.<p>Question: what are you talking about? A 10-foot road is wide enough for a car or truck to drive safely at urban speed limits. The maximum vehicle width under Federal law is 102 inches, or 8 feet and a half. And this is for trucks. Cars are around 80 inches. This means over a foot per side for cars and more than half a foot for trucks. If it is not enough for you at city speeds, please give up your driver license, you are not good, and you shouldn&#x27;t drive.<p>Yes, I agree, I don&#x27;t want to drive 50 miles an hour next to a truck on a 10-foot wide lane, but that&#x27;s not a city or a suburban speed, that&#x27;s highway speed. On the opposite, no problem at driving at 15 or even 25 MPH on a 10 feet lane. Yes, probably I need to give up texting and driving, and I need to be focused on the road. Guess what: I need to do it anyway.<p>Honestly speaking, I have enough of our politicians of disregarding scientific studies and expert analysis, but this is somewhat accepted. But a community like Hacker News should have the smartest people, not the dumbest ones that fail to understand reality.