There have been many reports of motorists using the lack of traffic on the roads during the Covid19 lockdown to flout the speed limits and now with more traffic back on the roads there is a danger that some may continue to drive at excessive speeds even after things are back to ‘normal’.
Behavioural Science in transportation (understanding the behaviour and motivations of transport users such as motorists and rail commuters etc) is a fascinating subject which plays a big part in the engineering and design of roads and their ‘furniture’ in an attempt to gently persuade drivers to modify their driving behaviour to something more appropriate.
There are many such psychological tactics in place to combat speeding but could we be doing more? What other engineering solutions could be implemented to stop excessive speeding? How do different countries tackle speeding on their roads? What could we learn from them?
Thank you, John Beirne. I don't know what has happened here but your post seems to be a simplified version of a post by Benyamin, which I can no longer find.
As I said in an earlier post, the coefficient of friction is key. It is stated here that the braking force is 2 000 Newtons. This is just a bold statement, without explanation of where it was derived. If this were an exercise set by a physics teacher for a student, the coefficient of friction would be given and the student would be expected to calculate the braking force. In the absence of this, let me turn the calculation around and find what coefficient of friction this represents.
The vehicle mass is 900 g, so the downward force of the vehicle due to gravity is 900 x 9·81 = 8 830 Newtons.
Coefficient of friction is force resisting motion divided by perpendicular force between surfaces = 2 000 / 8830 = 0·23
I have to say that coefficient of friction between rubber and asphalt can be typically 0·7 to 0·9. The thinking time of 0·5 s seems optimistically low, too.
However I have no reason to question the arithmetic.
Thank you, John Beirne. I don't know what has happened here but your post seems to be a simplified version of a post by Benyamin, which I can no longer find.
As I said in an earlier post, the coefficient of friction is key. It is stated here that the braking force is 2 000 Newtons. This is just a bold statement, without explanation of where it was derived. If this were an exercise set by a physics teacher for a student, the coefficient of friction would be given and the student would be expected to calculate the braking force. In the absence of this, let me turn the calculation around and find what coefficient of friction this represents.
The vehicle mass is 900 g, so the downward force of the vehicle due to gravity is 900 x 9·81 = 8 830 Newtons.
Coefficient of friction is force resisting motion divided by perpendicular force between surfaces = 2 000 / 8830 = 0·23
I have to say that coefficient of friction between rubber and asphalt can be typically 0·7 to 0·9. The thinking time of 0·5 s seems optimistically low, too.
However I have no reason to question the arithmetic.
