http://www.terrapass.com

however, it seems to me that one significant part of the problem we confront regarding our care of and concern for the earth’s environment is somehow similar in nature to the problem we ttac posters have even reaching a concensus on this particular topic – and that is, acknowledging the realities that confront us and taking appropriate action thereafter.

let’s face facts. human beings – as a species – are greedy, aggressive and self-centered. these traits are among the qualities that have enabled us to evolve into the top predator on this planet, and unfortunately, these very same qualities will most likely be responsible for our eventual demise. people just ‘want to do’ what they ‘want to do,’ whether or not it is actually in their – or anyone’s – best interests.

how sad. for all of us.

I have run fast on the autobahns quite often, and they are quite safe.

Just so you know.

I know you shouldn’t always trust Wikipedia, but the link that ref gave us looks solid and the numbers are:

Killed per 1 Billion Veh·Km on Motorways:
Germany 3.8
United States 5.2

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road-traffic_safety#Motorway

I know this is not the same as “per capita” but I doubt that Germans travel that much more in order for them to have twice the deaths per capita.

Just so you know.

I think you’re partially right, but mostly wrong. It’s true that if you are on the wrong German Autobahn at the wrong time it is a pain in the ass. But that’s mostly because of the increasing number of trucks. Germany is in the middle of “old and new Europe” and on the main routes (e.g. A1, A2) the far right lanes are usually truck only. Switzerland has less transit routes and less industry that needs this amount of truck traffic. Plus it’s just less convenient to travel through because of the alps and the less developed highway system.

No matter where you’re from and where you’re going to in Europe, you usually have to cross Germany. Again, it’s mostly trucks, but private traffic as well. In France and Switzerland everyone has to pay to use the Freeways. In Germany it’s only heavy commercial trucks and even that’s a very recent development.

If you’re on a German Autobahn you’ll not only see a lot of German cars and heavy trucks but also heaploads of vehicles fromm all over Europe and since eastern Europe joined the EU, we get an increasing amount of trucks and cars from that area as well.

Also, I think your logic is flawed. No matter if you have a limit or not, if someone passes a truck with 65 mph on a two lane road you obviously can’t go faster than 65 mph. But again, the problem is the amount of traffic at certain times, not the speed limit respectively the lack thereof. A speed limit will not make the traffic go away. Also, and this might have escaped you, not having a speed limit doesn’t mean that you can travel as fast as your car allows you to, but that you can drive as fast as the conditions allow you to. So if there’s a lot of traffic, bad luck to me and I can only drive 65 mph, but if the conditions are better, great, 155 here I come.

So where is the point in a speed limit again? If there’s traffic I can’t go faster than 65 anyway and if there’s no traffic you want to take my freedom away for my own good so that I can go faster by driving slower…? Doesn’t sound very believable…

And there is nowhere, neither in France nor in Switzerland where you can legally drive 90 mph, so you might be able to drive smoothly, but not fast. And to be honest, I don’t even think that you can drive smoothly in Switzerland. There are too many curves and altitude differences to be relaxed. And if you’re in Switzerland during the winter you have a whole new problem to cope with.

In France however I agree that you can travel quite relaxed. But if you want to have both, fast and smooth, you have to go to Germany at night…

the truth about autobahns… is that they do not work so well.

if you want to drive quick and smooth, then try a French or Swiss freeway. you will be able to do a constant 70-90 mph (slower in muni, faster in rural areas) without too much stress.

In Germany, you have a choice of taking the slow right lane at truck’s speed (i.e. 55 mph) or adapting to the hectic, stressful and inefficient pace of the left lane.

driving on the fast lane is characterized by constant accelerating up to at least 100mph (which is the speed the bossy executive-car crew has chosen) and then braking down to 65 mph whenever some family person has summoned the nerves to switch from slow-lane to fast.

it is ecologically inefficient, what with all the speed changes. it gets on my nerves because i like a good fast cruise and i do not find the accelerative urge so satisfying as some might.

and this may be my most important point: traffic scientists have proven that it wastes valuable freeway space. you get less cars-per-road-mile when all the speeding-up and slowing-down is taken into consideration, and this helps explain why autobahns are clogged so often — something you get less often in speed-regulated France and Switzerland, by the way.

Of course now many people have doubts if the IPCC publishes anything again, even if it turns out to be right this time. Personally I believe that climate changes constantly since earth came into existence, but I also don’t doubt that mankind also plays a role in this process. The question remains if it is reasonable to put all the energy into CO2 reduction or if there might be better, more efficient ways to deal with it.

Here is a critical article. It’s quite long, but if you have 10 minutes to spare, I advise you to read it. It’s humorous and can give you some new perspectives on an old issue:

http://www.maxeiner-miersch.de/piece_of_the_action.htm

-The only good science is the science that concurs with your position

-A scientific view that is widely held is less credible than a view that is unusual and atypical

-Peer reviewed studies in scientific journals are not relevant, while articles in right-wing political journals are relevant

-A conclusion reached by numerous scientific bodies and held by the vast majority of the scientific community is negated because a UN organization also holds that view.

I apologize if I look at that chain of thought, and can only doubt what possible logic or merit it might have. The conclusions are not supported by fact or reason, and require a willingness to ignore virtually all of the available evidence that has been subject to rigorous review, in favor of a political diatribe that was not subject to same.

In other words, accepting your thesis makes it necessary to embrace the very same politics-above-science approach that you repudiated in your earlier posts. I do hope that you can see the irony and inconsistency inherent to your position.

I was merely responding to a previous comment which seemed to label skeptics of global warming as on the lunatic fringe. I presumed that posting points from this article would place the formation of the belief of global warming within context. I think that article illustrates the lunacy, wishful thinking and egomaniacal grabs for power that pushed this belief into mainstream thought.

I also thought it might be prudent to not neglect the worrisome state of our current society where most of the public (voting & non voting age) do not question the credibility of scientists. Especially when large and significant portions of their science which supports their theories are either unknown (i.e. clouds), exaggerated, ignored or worse yet, fudged. I would like to think that notion might cause some healthy doubt about the “consensus” of this belief.

Equates an article in a politically-motivated journal (the Cato Institute is a political libertarian thinktank, not a scientific organization) with literally hundreds of peer-reviewed studies that reach a vastly different conclusion.

And the UN’s IPCC is NOT a politically-motivated organization?

The CATO institute is a political organization, not a scientific one. The mentioned journal is not a peer reviewed document. It is political opinion.

You would be hard pressed to find any reputable scientific organization with an interest in this area who will deny that we are having a problem with co2 as it realtes to global warming. What you will find is varied opinions on why it is happening.

And even if you could find such a scientist, remember there are “scientists” who think evolution is a myth, the holocost never happened, and that the earth is flat.

Perhaps “lunatic fringe” is a bit strong. I’ll let you decide what an appropriate term is for one who:

-Takes a minority opinion, and presumes that it negates the prevailing majority opinion of his peers.

-Equates an article in a politically-motivated journal (the Cato Institute is a political libertarian thinktank, not a scientific organization) with literally hundreds of peer-reviewed studies that reach a vastly different conclusion.

It is not difficult to find some scientists who dispute the notion of climate change. What is difficult to find is a substantial number of scientists who share these beliefs. They are vastly outnumbered by others who disagree, and who have studied the subject in depth, subject to peer review.

Not all opinions are created equal. As of today, the climate change skeptics do exist, but they are in a rather tiny minority. Pretending that their view is a prevalent view is, at the very least, inaccurate. Perhaps they will be ultimately proven right, but given the vast support for the opposing view by those who have studied it, I’m not willing to bet the farm on the underdog.

“Computer climate models have grown much more sophisticated over the years. But there are still problems modelling some atmospheric processes, notably heat convection within clouds. ”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4495463.stm

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Jerseydevil writes: also, denying the co2 is an atmospheric problem – wherever it comes from, is kinda silly. Defending your personal use of cars that produce too much of it will not help the cause. Co2 IS a problem, we need to face it, and do what it takes to address it. Denial only pushes us to the lunitic fringe, not to be paid attention to in any serious discourse. We are seeing problems with the ice caps now, the oceans are heating up, this is not good. We may have discussions about why that is, but dismissing it as (amazingly) a way to get more taxes, for instance, makes me wonder about one’s ultimite motivation. Hardly helpful. Kinda funny, in a scratching your head sort of way.

Lunatic fringe indeed:

The following is excerpted from: “Global Warming: The Origin and Nature of the Alleged Scientific Consensus”- by Richard S. Lindzen (Vol.15 No. 2, Spring 1992

“Most of the literate world today regards “global warming” as both real and dangerous. Indeed, the diplomatic activity concerning warming might lead one to believe that it is the major crisis confronting mankind. ….I must state at the outset, that, as a scientist, I can find no substantive basis for the warming scenarios being popularly described. Moreover, according to many studies I have read by economists, agronomists, and hydrologists, there would be little difficulty adapting to such warming if it were to occur. …..The crude idea in the common popular presentation of the greenhouse effect is that the atmosphere is transparent to sunlight (apart from the very significant reflectivity of both clouds and the surface), which heats the Earth’s surface. The surface offsets that heating by radiating in the infrared. The infrared radiation increases with increasing surface temperature, and the temperature adjusts until balance is achieved. If the atmosphere were also transparent to infrared radiation, the infrared radiation produced by an average surface temperature of minus eighteen degrees centigrade would balance the incoming solar radiation (less that amount reflected back to space by clouds). The atmosphere is not transparent in the infrared, however. So the Earth must heat up somewhat more to deliver the same flux of infrared radiation to space. That is what is called the greenhouse effect……The simple picture of the greenhouse mechanism is seriously oversimplified. Many of us were taught in elementary school that heat is transported by radiation, convection, and conduction. The above representation only refers to radiative transfer. As it turns out, if there were only radiative heat transfer, the greenhouse effect would warm the Earth to about seventy-seven degrees centigrade rather than to fifteen degrees centigrade. In fact, the greenhouse effect is only about 25 percent of what it would be in a pure radiative situation. The reason for this is the presence of convection (heat transport by air motions), which bypasses much of the radiative absorption….. Many studies from the nineteenth century on suggested that industrial and other contributions to increasing carbon dioxide might lead to global warming. Problems with such predictions were also long noted, and the general failure of such predictions to explain the observed record caused the field of climatology as a whole to regard the suggested mechanisms as suspect…..Indeed, the global cooling trend of the 1950s and 1960s led to a minor global cooling hysteria in the 1970s. ……The present hysteria formally began in the summer of 1988, although preparations had been put in place at least three years earlier. That was an especially warm summer in some regions, particularly in the United States. The abrupt increase in temperature in the late 1970s was too abrupt to be associated with the smooth increase in carbon dioxide. Nevertheless, James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in testimony before Sen. Al Gore’s Committee on Science, Technology and Space, said, in effect, that he was 99 percent certain that temperature had increased and that there was some greenhouse warming. He made no statement concerning the relation between the two….Despite the fact that those remarks were virtually meaningless, they led the environmental advocacy movement to adopt the issue immediately. The growth of environmental advocacy since the 1970s has been phenomenal……In the spring of 1989 I prepared a critique of global warming, which I submitted to Science, a magazine of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The paper was rejected without review as being of no interest to the readership…..At the same time, political pressures on dissidents from the “popular vision” increased. Sen. Gore publicly admonished “skeptics” in a lengthy New York Times op-ed piece. In a perverse example of double-speak he associated the “true believers” in warming with Galileo. He also referred, in another article, to the summer of 1988 as the Kristallnacht before the warming holocaust…..The notion of “scientific unanimity” is currently intimately tied to the Working Group I report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued in September 1990. That panel consists largely of scientists posted to it by government agencies. The panel has three working groups. Working Group I nominally deals with climate science. Approximately 150 scientists contributed to the report, but university representation from the United States was relatively small and is likely to remain so, since the funds and time needed for participation are not available to most university scientists…..Methodologically, the report is deeply committed to reliance on large models, and within the report models are largely verified by comparison with other models. Given that models are known to agree more with each other than with nature (even after “tuning”), that approach does not seem promising. In addition, a number of the participants have testified to the pressures placed on them to emphasize results supportive of the current scenario and to suppress other results……..As Aaron Wildavsky, professor of political science at Berkeley, has quipped, “global warming” is the mother of all environmental scares. Wildavsky’s view is worth quoting. “Warming (and warming alone), through its primary antidote of withdrawing carbon from production and consumption, is capable of realizing the environmentalist’s dream of an egalitarian society based on rejection of economic growth in favor of a smaller population’s eating lower on the food chain, consuming a lot less, and sharing a much lower level of resources much more equally.” In many ways Wildavsky’s observation does not go far enough. The point is that carbon dioxide is vitally central to industry, transportation, modern life, and life in general. It has been joked that carbon dioxide controls would permit us to inhale as much as we wish; only exhaling would be controlled. The remarkable centrality of carbon dioxide means that dealing with the threat of warming fits in with a great variety of preexisting agendas–some legitimate, some less so: energy efficiency, reduced dependence on Middle Eastern oil, dissatisfaction with industrial society (neopastoralism), international competition, governmental desires for enhanced revenues (carbon taxes), and bureaucratic desires for enhanced power…. Regulatory apparatuses would restrict individual freedom on an unprecedented scale. Here too, however, one cannot expect much resistance to proposed actions–at least not initially. Public perceptions, under the influence of extensive, deceptive, and one-sided publicity, can become disconnected from reality…..Public misperceptions coupled with a sincere desire to “save the planet” can force political action even when politicians are aware of the reality.
….What the above amounts to is a societal instability. At a particular point in history, a relatively minor suggestion or event serves to mobilize massive interests. While the proposed measures may be detrimental, resistance is largely absent or coopted. In the case of climate change, the probability that the proposed regulatory actions would for the most part have little impact on climate, regardless of the scenario chosen, appears to be of no consequence. ”

The entire article can be found here: http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html

Yes, this was written in 1992, but do we know how clouds work? Are there still fudge factors in the models? Please look at the big picture and then ask, where is the lunatic fringe?

“Nevermind that some cities actually have heavier traffic and yet cleaner air than in prior decades…”

That scenario actually proves a point for environmental regulation. Vehicles in prior decades were operating without catalytic converters, variable valve timing, exhaust gas recirculation, etc. Smog related emissions were designated as “criteria pollutants” by the EPA (over the strenuous objections of most auto manufacturers) and emissions of those pollutants per vehicle-mile driven have decreased dramatically.

Regarding CO2, vehicles (or “mobile sources”) represent the low hanging fruit in a nation’s effort to reduce emissions. Fossil fuel power plants typically acheive percent efficiencies (ratio of energy output to energy input via the fuel) in the high 30s to low 40s. A vehicle is very efficient if it breaks 15%. It’s much easier (not to mention less expensive) to double efficiency when you’re dealing with such a low figure.

I’m of the opinion, however, that we’re beyond the global warming break point and that the only way to avoid a death spiral of increasing temperatures is to engineer our way out, rather than conserve our way out. We’ll need to improve upon today’s methods of carbon sequestration and actually remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

Until then, conservation can’t hurt.

Nevertheless, a strange mixture of pompous asses in politics and media and people who cannot see anyone having fun ore are simply envious, ore cannot drive properly are trying again and again to bring this topic on the aganda. Thank God they are still a minority here.

Apart from that, in a few years time we’ll all be driving with BTL Fuels (Biomass To Liquid). Those fuels combined with filtering techniques like in Mercedes BluTec Diesels mean that not too long from now, we’ll be driving 0-emission cars.

Perhaps you’re not familiar with the financial Random Walk Theory — long-term trends are predictable, but short-term trends are not. The short-term changes are subject to variability, but these inputs are smoothed out over the long-term and can be forecast with some accuracy.

The irony is that it is the polticians who dispute global warming, not the scientific community. The Bush Administration has consistently sought to spin a story that there is some dispute or disagreement about climate change, when there is actually near-universal consensus on the topic. The political games are being played by the naysayers who make unsubstantiated claims, not by those who are actually conducting the research.

Given that a large percentage of greens complain about the ‘true cost’ of carbon fuels and the ‘effects’ of CO2, you’d think they’d be all for a reasonable expansion of nuclear fission generation.

But no.
Malthusiasts and luddites are not reasonable.
CO2 is now the big focus – modern cars emit 99% less pollutants than cars made 30 years ago – so CO2 is legal elephant gun greens try to use to have us all driving four cylinder bread boxes on 13″ tires.

also, denying the co2 is an atmospheric problem – wherever it comes from, is kinda silly. Defending your personal use of cars that produce too much of it will not help the cause. Co2 IS a problem, we need to face it, and do what it takes to address it. Denial only pushes us to the lunitic fringe, not to be paid attention to in any serious discourse. We are seeing problems with the ice caps now, the oceans are heating up, this is not good. We may have discussions about why that is, but dismissing it as (amazingly) a way to get more taxes, for instance, makes me wonder about one’s ultimite motivation. Hardly helpful. Kinda funny, in a scratching your head sort of way.
And tom, i like france better than germany, in general.

Why would anybody believe “Scientists” (Political?) that claim Global Warming is occuring when they cannot even accuratey predict the weather three days in advance (Hint: Check where their paychecks comes from). There is no way of knowing global warming or cooling is occuring with present technology. It would require Trillions of temp/pressure/humidity sensors placed across the globe to measure aggregate temps. Idiot Box broadcasts of glaciers melting and cute Polar Bears stranded on a piece of floating ice is not science, it is indoctrination.

The Global Warming scam is perpetuated by your Rulers and their Goebbels-loving broadcast media toadies. Its purpose is to rob you.

Of course if I take my dad’s SLK 350 for a trip, I can easyly hit the 155 mph limiter and out accelerate most cars on the road and by doing so get less then 15 mpg. But gas in Germany is already quite expensive (Today it’s around 1.34€/litre regular gas which roughly equals 3.9$/gal). That’s why you see so many Diesels (nowadays diesel cars outsell regular cars here). So that’s the tool our government already works with and it indeed shows some effects.

An aditional 75 mph speed limit is nothing but the revenge of eco-nazis who want to force their views onto everyone else or who are just jealous at people with big engines and instead of working hard for their money rather want to force others into the same misery they’re in.

Thankfully we Germans like our Autobahn and I really doubt anyone could change that from within. The EU is a much bigger threat. They’ve been trying to establish a speed limit here forever, especially the French who begrudge us everything. The Euro for example was the price we had to pay for our Reunification to the French who wanted to have a part of our strong currency.
I still don’t think the EU will succeed on that though. It’s just none of their business. The only problem with logic is that it doesn’t seem to apply in Europe.

So now you’ve transitioned from “some scientists dispute it” to “who cares what those flip-flopping scientists think.” Talk about being unable to stick to a story…

You have to forgive me if that sounds to me like a preconceived conclusion in search of support, a theory that is frustrated by the fact that there isn’t a whole lot of support for it to be found outside of a fringe cable “news” channel.

The science is what it is, and while it is still a moving target, most of it is against you and will likely go increasingly against you as the studies continue. If you wish to differ with the prevailing view from scholarly sources, that’s fine, but then you should offer some compelling reasons to believe that your argument is somehow better.

The lack of a fact-based position leads me to believe that the climate-change-ain’t-happenin’ camp is building its theories largely on wishful thinking. rather than research and scholarship. While I ain’t no Chicken Little, I’m not a Pollyanna, either.

The belief that speed limits impact travel speeds is a common misconception, with many traffic studies concluding that this is not the case. Speed limits, whether high or low, are simply ignored by a large proportion of drivers, and have little or no effect on traffic flow because drivers continue to drive as they like.

For one example, a study prepared by the Federal Highway Administration found that on various roadways on which speed limits were lowered by 5-20 mph or increased by 5-15 mph, the average change in the 85th percentile speed (the speed at which 85% of drivers travel at or below) changed by less than 2 mph. This amount did not vary significantly whether the change in the speed limit was large or small. Other studies have reached similar conclusions.

In the absence of other efforts, such as public awareness campaigns, the only factor that is signifcantly affected by changes in speed limit is the level of compliance. When limits are high, few drivers will violate them; with low limits, violator rates increase as drivers continue to drive at roughly the same speeds,including formerly legal speeds made illegal by the limit reductions. If you impose a 50 mph speed limit in an area with 80+ mph traffic such as an autobahn or freeway, you’ll end up with a lot of 80+ mph drivers who are now classified as violators, while traffic moves at about the same speeds that it did before.

http://www.dot.state.oh.us/dist1/planning/TrafficStudies/2hj01!.pdf

Nonetheless, I hope we develop a reasonable alternative to IC that doesn’t add CO2 to the atmosphere, and I hope we do it real soon, because I think global heating is potentially catastrophic. By that, I mean that it could bring starvation to much of the world.

Cars…are still such an important culprit that they must be part of the solution.

Hi, David. “Potentially” and “could” don’t make it fact, and yet it’s so natural for people to take “potentially” and “could” and turn them in to “such an important culprit” and “must.”

As I said in my first post, nobody has been able to actually show me that coffee is bad. Or good. I just know I like it, and that it hasn’t killed me yet!

So where does that leave us with global warming? If we can’t decide on coffee, who’s to say that our Brainiac scientists won’t change their minds in ten years (as I have no doubt that they will) and start saying that oh, oops, we’re really experiencing a decline in temperature? Oh that’s right, that happened once already, and they started calling it “climate change” instead of “global warming.”

Well, when it happens again, what will we do to avoid the coming ice-age; burn MORE oil? Hey, maybe we should just drink more coffee!

Yes, I’m being ridiculous, but I’m trying to make the point that even our best scientists keep changing our minds about things (no, that’s not a typo).

That’s because, in my opinion, we still do NOT have all of the facts. If we don’t know the question, how can we even begin to guess at the answer? At this point, my coffee solution is just about as good as changing our combustion habits. And a lot cheaper, too!

Again, I insist that proper cause-and-effect of human behavior on GLOBAL temperature averages has not been proven. Because of that, we cannot say with certainty (or even moderate confidence) that changing our behavior will make a difference either.

The environmental argument is far too emotional. I hear things like “cars are such a big part of the problem, they must be part of the solution.” Again, we’re making assumptions, and then basing our conclusions on those (I believe flawed) assumptions.

I think there’s a possibility that it’s partly the media mantra that we keep hearing. And for a lot of people, it’s supported by their local experiences or their psychological reaction to the mass-media-hand-wringing-hysteria.

“So-and-so on the news said we’re having the hottest summer EVER. And it’s hot where I live in Houston, so it MUST be hot everywhere.”

Nevermind that we have only been using thermometers since the 1800’s, and not everywhere in the world, either…

“It’s smoggy where I work in LA, so it MUST be smoggy everwhere. And since everybody drives in LA and the 405 is worse than a parking lot, it MUST be the cars creating the smog. And if they create smog here in LA, then they MUST be creating smog all over the world.”

Nevermind that some cities actually have heavier traffic and yet cleaner air than in prior decades…

It’s like reading your horoscope. You can always find something “true” if you let go of reality for a moment and leave yourself open to “mental suggestion.” Global warming is the same thing in a different package. If you just assume that it’s true, then of course everything you hear will just be confirmed in your psyche. It’s human nature.

And it’s also human nature to accuse dissenters as being controlled by “the government” or “big oil” or ” election year politics” or whatever convenient baddie-of-the-day has an evil ring to it.

Fine. But I’m still not buying it, fellas! I don’t accept the first two parts (that we are in an abnormal warming trend and that it’s because of human activity); not from denial, but because the evidence hasn’t been shown, and the scientific conversation has not yet been concluded. So, naturally to me, the third part (that we can fix it by changing our behavior) is NOT a foregone conclusion.

Anyhow, I thank you all for this conversation, but I really don’t want to detract any further from the topic of the great article that Robert wrote…which was the relationship between German society (or maybe just the German car society) and the freedom and safety of the unrestricted autobahn.

PS: Don’t forget to flash your lights and pass on the left. Slowpokes, please keep to the right. And EVERYBODY, please HANG UP THE DAMNED PHONE!

:)

Nonetheless, I hope we develop a reasonable alternative to IC that doesn’t add CO2 to the atmosphere, and I hope we do it real soon, because I think global heating is potentially catastrophic. By that, I mean that it could bring starvation to much of the world. Cars do not produce even a majority of greenhouse gases, but they are still such an important culprit that they must be part of the solution.

On the issue of speed limits, at least one person at the beginning of this thread made the point that lowering speed limits too much will cause traffic jams. This is absolutely true. Imagine a 100 mile stretch of highway with most of hte traffic–say, 1000 cars, traversing it at 50 mph. Each of those cars will occupy the 100 mile stretch for two hours. If the cars are going 100 mph, they will occupy the s tretch for only an hour. Thus, halving the speed limit from 100 to 50mph would double the traffic on the highway. Etc.