Hacker News Reader

Comment by TheRealPomax | Hacker News Reader

Sure, but if the title of the site is "slow roads" and it's billed as "slow and chill", then careening down a road with half your car in the oncoming traffic lane at 80 miles an hour by default is not a good default.

It's a bit like a "ambient study music" site that plays darkstep with flashing lights when you press "just play me something to study to" =)

View on HN

Ha, true. I'll see to making it a little less reckless, and probably give a setting to have it follow a lane, if it isn't too difficult. The idea of a "slow road" is more about taking the scenic route - back roads like these tend to have some of the highest speed limits, at least in the UK.

i found the bus averaging 80km/h pretty realistic. what felt wrong was the acceleration. it would go to max speed on a straight road even if there was a curve just a few hundred meters ahead. perhaps reducing the acceleration when autodrive is on will help.

maybe you can add a self learning component. every time the vehicle bumps the barrier, it was going/accelerating to fast.

> maybe you can add a self learning component

Basic physics is also pretty applicable here. ;)

acceleration = velocity^2 /radius

with a simplified

max friction force = coefficient of friction * car weight

And to tie them together

force = mass * acceleration

Here in Canada 80kph is the maximum for back roads, but when it's twisty by nature, or it's straight with a few turns but has a cliff to one side, that road is a 60kph road. Add most of the time anything S-bend or hard turns will be on a 40kph advisory.

No going 115+ in a blind corner over a road that will launch you off the side of a mountain if you steer poorly =D

Don't know whereabouts you are in Canada, but in BC and Alberta all speed limits are excruciatingly low. So much so that it's a norm to drive 20km/h over the limit on the highways and the police won't bother at all until it's an excess of that.

This also makes for an excellent emergency budget fill-ups at the end of the quarter - just set a photoradar in the 50 zone where everyone everyday go 80 and, voila, - no deficit.

> back roads like these tend to have some of the highest speed limits

I assume that's because there are some roads still left where they're trusting drivers' common sense to not try to drive as fast as they're theoretically allowed to.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com