That’s not an American thing that’s a movie/TV making 101 thing, it’s for lighting reasons at night, I guess it’s this person’s first day watching movies.
Anon watches an American flick
Submitted 4 months ago by Early_To_Risa@sh.itjust.works to greentext@sh.itjust.works
https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/88aaeae4-e5a9-4c36-8210-e42a80fe2f87.jpeg
Comments
BetaBlake@lemmy.world 4 months ago
WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
I was literally in a movie recently with inexplicably wet streets, and the director said it was because the extra reflected light looks great on film.
JokeDeity@lemm.ee 4 months ago
Yeah, and it does. It’s WAY more eye catching.
pewgar_seemsimandroid@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
by film do you mean vhs, betamax and video2000 or something else
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
Also, Americans are too poor/cheap to spend money on proper infrastructure, so they use old closed asphalt and have poorly designed and maintained roads where the water just pools on top.
spujb@lemmy.cafe 4 months ago
Pretty dramatic oversimplification that appeals to predetermined biases.
Here is a resource detailing the different types of asphalt mix and their appropriate use cases.
Particularly note the following:
[Open-graded] mixtures should only be used on high- or medium-traffic volume roadways with posted high speeds only.
Which directly refures the idea that using dense-graded asphalt is purely due to “Americans are too poor/cheap.” The benefits of open-graded asphalt mixtures are lost if you apply it to low speed roadways.
No argument against the poor maintenance part though. Cheers 🥯🥛☀️
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
That source has a pretty significant bias itself. It being from 2001 might be a clue as to why: before polymer-modified bitumen, there were many more downsides to using open asphalt mixes on anything but long, straight highways. That’s probably also why it only mentions hot-mix asphalt, which the Netherlands is basically banning next year for environmental reasons in favour of warm-mix. I REALLY hope this isn’t the latest version of this book.
It’s true that high-speed roadways more greatly benefit from open asphalt, but it’s very much not true that open-graded mixtures don’t have benefits at lower speeds. They still reduce road noise by 5-7 db even at 50kph speeds, and of course the benefits of less water on the road is substantial. The downside is that there is more fraying, so using it at traffic lights or roundabouts is not a great idea. Even with modern PMB mixes and SAMI treatmeants that reduce fraying pretty effectively (which didn’t really exist in 2001 when that source was composed), a stone-mastic asphalt is still the go-to for areas with a lot of turning or braking.
But most of all, it’s more expensive to build and to maintain, and since maintenance is already pretty crap in a LOT of places (having 6 or 7 lane accessroads doesn’t help there) using open asphalt is probably a bad idea.
Source: Married a Dutch engineer, worked on a lot of roadbuilding projects myself (admitedly not in the design phase, I do know what gets put where here in the Netherlands).
BetaBlake@lemmy.world 4 months ago
What? You just made that up that has nothing to do with the question at habd
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
huh? which part did I make up?
This being a closed-asphalt mix? That’s pretty obvious, since there’s water pooled on top. That the road was poorly designed? It’s a 6 or 7 lane accessroad, by definition that’s poorly designed. That the maintenance is bad? There’s water pooling in dozens of places because either the road sagged from the weight of waiting cars (the lengthwise puddles) or from ripples caused by braking cars (widthwise puddles). Or that the US doesn’t spend money on infrastructure? I guess that’s debatable (6 lane accessroads don’t come cheap after all).
Wetstew@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I’m a bit sleep deprived and the comment was only half on my screen.
I expected this to read “Americans are too poor/cheap to spend money on proper infrastructure, so they use old wet roads instead of new dry ones.”
mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
Continuity. You can’t make wet streets dry, but you can make dry streets wet.
Plus it makes for nice reflections.
YourPrivatHater@ani.social 4 months ago
You can dry streets, its just absolutely not worth the afford.
FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 4 months ago
Best answer
Kcs8v6@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Water fall from sky
BananaOnionJuice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
The streets are wet so it’s easier to perform stunt driving.
Ibuthyr@discuss.tchncs.de 4 months ago
It’s the only way to make these godawful stroads look somewhat nice.
spujb@lemmy.cafe 4 months ago
same reason it’s always raining during funerals
Nobody@lemmy.world 4 months ago
That’s sadness. American cinema is not subtle.
lessthanluigi@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Seattle
ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.ml 4 months ago
That road is in way too good of shape to be Seattle
lessthanluigi@lemmy.world 4 months ago
That is true. Seattle roads are shit
morphballganon@lemmy.world 4 months ago
… it rained recently?
lol_idk@lemmy.ml 4 months ago
The top voted answer is a half answer. They mentioned in desert climates. The other half of the answer is because there’s not enough rain to keep the streets clean and you get all kinds of oil spots and those look terrible in an expensive movie
FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today 4 months ago
That’s just the road dew, don’t worry about it.
Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
Your guys’ roads don’t sweat?
Dorkyd68@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Because most major us cities water the plants in the medians after sunset
setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Image
Wet night time streets show up better on film.
Habahnow@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
Whoa mind blown
festnt@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
street wet, mind blown… door stuck? is that what comes next?
CodexArcanum@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Wow, what a trip. There’s a but further down the interview where they discuss Jean-Luc Godard’s “anti-semitism” which I’d never heard about. Looked it up and actually, he’s extremely anti-zionist, go figure. The more things change the more they stay still.