[trailrunner]

@Steve O 210424 wrote:

My bumper sticker is accurate: The simulations “completely avoided or mitigated” 100% of the crashes. I do not take responsibility for how the journalist wrote the article, but I did read the study itself (well, skimmed), and the study, IMO, is fair in how it characterizes what they studied, how they carried it out, and their results.

Sorry, but I disagree. The bumper sticker (and headline) clearly implies that autonomous vehicles can eliminate all accidents. Apply the reasonable person standard.

If I had put that bumpersticker on one of my briefings, I’d be in big trouble (understatement) because it’s misleading and doesn’t tell the entire study. (OTOH, I’m an engineer, not a marketer.)

Companies have been overselling autonomy for a long time. It’s not there yet. I’m listening to a company presentation right now. It’s not there yet.

@Steve O 210424 wrote:

Depending on what you mean by “automotive safety,” I do believe that widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles will result in “at least some significant decrease in accidents altogether and across the board,” yes. Particularly as a bike rider, this makes me feel good.

Autonomous vehicles terrify me, and not because I fear skynet. I have developed hardware and software for autonomous vehicles and I know how hard it is, and I know how what the current state of the art is.

I agree that distracted driving, impaired driving, road rage, and speeding are major human factors leading to car crashes. Autonomous vehicles presumably wouldn’t have these problems, so they have that potential advantage. Someday we may get there, but the timeline is not measured decades, not years.

[trailrunner]

@Steve O 210423 wrote:

Which part of that are you skeptical of?

Quote:

Waymo says autonomous cars could have prevented most fatal Chandler crashes in 10-year period

…..

[trailrunner]

Quote:

“The simulated Waymo Driver completely avoided or mitigated 100% of crashes, aside from the crashes in which it was struck from behind, including every instance (20) that involved a pedestrian or cyclist,”

@Steve O 210417 wrote:

The authors do not claim that autonomous cars will not crash, only that when they recreated this particular set of fatal crashes, no one died in the simulations.

The bumper sticker you posted in your first post implies something different — that there is at least some significant decrease in accidents altogether and across the board. “Completely avoided”! Yes, this is the click-bait internet we live in, and details, nuances, and caveats matter, but that quote would lead the reader to believe that autonomous vehicles are the way to automotive safety.

If their only standard is to decrease fatalities, I can do that by driving 5 mph. Or completely stopping whenever I detect something, but can’t classify or identify it.

We are a long way from unleashing autonomous vehicles on our roads.

[trailrunner]

I’ve spent some of my career in autonomous vehicles and simulation.

I’m extremely skeptical of their claims.

[trailrunner]

“We were told that there’s a hot tin roof somewhere around here. Do you know where it is?”

[trailrunner]

Ah, so you’re the one who decided that the bike lanes along I-66 should be next to the freeway. Away, away with you!

[trailrunner]

@Sunyata 202876 wrote:

“Improvement” = Paved. 😡

Yeah, I have mixed feelings about that also. I wasn’t happy when they paved the trail south of the lake to Old Keene Mill since a muddy single track trail was perfectly adequate for me, but it does contribute to the network of paths, and I wound up using it for commuting.

Most of the section that they are now improving is actually in great shape, except for the steep hill by the dam I mentioned, and the hump just to the west of where the trail from Carrleigh Parkway enters. A couple of years ago they paved a section on the north side which was overkill IMHO, but I figured now the goal was to pave the entire path.

[trailrunner]

It’s good to see these improvements. I used to live in that neighborhood and remember having to walk my bike across the train tracks before they installed the bridge from Carrleigh Parkway. I’ve run and biked many miles on that trail and it used to be my commuting route.

I hope this work will reduce the grade by the dam. It’s very steep, and I often see people struggling to make it up, and going downhill isn’t too safe. They’ve improved just every other section on this path, and the section by the dam is long overdue for improvement.

[trailrunner]

They have done a fair job adding bike lanes to that area, so you could probably come up with some good routes that don’t cross Route 1 and stay close to home. They’ve also added some good bike infrastructure to the south to get you past Fort Belvoir. You could easily do a longer ride to Mason Neck on the weekend.

ETA: There’s also Fort Hunt Park. If you work your way there, you could do a couple laps there to get in some mileage.

[trailrunner]

I powder coated a frame at a industrial place in Manassas, probably 10 or 15 years ago. They did an ok job. I think they missed a spot, and were a little overzealous on some of the holes, but the price was low. Not too many choices of colors and won’t do anything fancy, but very practical and durable.

Another frame I had painted I sent off to a mail-order place. Price was right, but the quality wasn’t so great. The paint started bubbling within a couple of years.

When I decided to repaint that frame again, I found a guy in Richmond who paints for a hobby. He had a little shed in the back that he converted to a shop. He used automotive paint, and I told him to choose a color and surprise me. I was pleased with the result (see photo). If you’re interested in him, let me know and I’ll dig out his name.

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[trailrunner]

IMHO, you may not need 36 spokes just because of your weight. I weigh about the same and have plenty of bikes with 32 spoke wheels.

For spoke lubricant, I used motor oil. In theory, a properly tensioned wheel does not need thread lock. I found that to be true for all the wheels I built, but I realize that most people use thread lock. YMMV.

As much as I enjoyed building wheels, I concluded that I could buy wheels, even custom wheels, cheaper than I could build them. That was only for parts, and didn’t include my time. Because of that, I haven’t built a wheel in a decade.

[trailrunner]

I’ve ridden many parts of that route many times, but I’ve never done that exact loop.

[trailrunner]

I’ve ridden my cross and gravel bikes dozens of times on the Power Station loop without any issue (except for fallen trees).

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[trailrunner]

@chris_s 197618 wrote:

Typically US governments are required by law to hire the lowest bid contractor. This helps avoid corruption, but also often forces them to hire a company they are pretty confident is going to screw it up, cut corners, or go out of business mid-project. We need a better system.

Actually, it depends. I have been allowed at times to choose the contractor that offered the best value.

Regarding your second sentence – Other times I had to choose the contractor with the lowest price that met the minimum requirements. Meeting the minimum requirements should prevent the problems you cite.

[trailrunner]

OK, since I work at the Pentagon or Crystal City, let me add another suggestion: The Pentagon transit center really, really needs a Capital Bikeshare station there. Make it a double-wide station because business would boom. I know this is an old idea, and the blame is usually placed on some agency at the Pentagon, and it gets extra weight just because they think they’re special. I know it’s not a security issue, and I hope that’s not the reason they give because it’s hard for civilians to argue against that and sometimes they just throw that out there to stifle the conversation. There is a lot of pedestrian traffic around the transit center (when I ride my bike there to catch a bus home, I walk it when I get close), and a lot of car and bus traffic, but with just a little planning, and a well-placed bike lane to get the bikes in and out of the area, it would work spectacularly, beyond all expectations. I’d probably locate the station near the corridor 2 entrance where there are already bike racks, and designate one of the parking lot lanes special for bikes to get to Pentagon City, but that’s just me thinking about it for 2 minutes. Add another station on the north side in the small parking lot by the wooden bridge over the pond near the path, and it’d be convenient to the trail network and DC, and close to the Pentagon Athletic Center for people to shower.

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