Cell phones shouldn't be able to work in moving cars, experts say. The only sure-fire way to keep drivers from dialing or texting when they're… (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles…) Thousands of people die in car crashes each year because drivers were too distracted by their cellphones to pay attention to the road.
A pair of researchers from West Virginia University have a radical proposal for reducing that death toll – equip cars with devices that make it impossible to send a text message, check your favorite traffic app or dial home while the car is in motion. “Simply stated, handheld portable devices must be rendered unoperable whenever the automobile is in motion or when the transmission shaft lever is in forward or reverse gear,” they wrote in a Viewpoint essay in Wednesday’s edition of the Journal of the American Medical Assn. “Automobile and cell phone equipment manufacturers have the engineering capabilities to implement these safeguards and they should be required to do so.” Sound extreme? Officials Urge L.A. County Drivers to Share Lanes With Bicyclists - Culver City, CA Patch. A Metro bike safety campaign message calls out to drivers to share the road.
Locals begged city to add safety measures to Queens strip where teen was killed. Residents and community leaders in Long Island City, Queens, had begged the city for years to institute traffic-safety measures on the busy street where a teenage boy was struck and killed by a minivan this week, officials said yesterday.
It’s unclear whether the improvements requested could have saved the life of 16-year-old Tenzin Drudak, who was run down by an allegedly distracted driver, but community members say his death highlights dangerous conditions on Thomson Avenue. “It’s impossible to spend any amount of time here and not think it could be safer,” said City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer. The cluttered stretch — which features several schools, a public library and the busy 33rd Street subway station — feeds into the Queensboro Bridge.
Community Board 2 and Van Bramer had asked the city to consider safety improvements. Trucking Industry Says Fatigue Rule Based on Bad Data. The largest U.S. trucking group asked federal appeals judges to throw out limits on driving time that would cost the industry $470 million a year, arguing the Obama administration exaggerated data on fatigue-caused crashes.
American Trucking Associations Inc., during arguments today in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, accused the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration of using research that favored the agency’s preferred outcome while setting driver- fatigue rules that it claims would add substantial costs without any safety benefits. Is I-91 rotary any safer? GREENFIELD — It has been about three years since upgrades to the Interstate 91 rotary on the Mohawk Trail were completed, but it is still a little too early to tell if those improvements are making a significant difference in how many accidents occur there each year. According to an early study done by the Franklin Regional Council of Governments, the number of accidents there each year has been slightly reduced.
In the study done the year after improvements were completed, the FRCOG reported that the average number of crashes on the rotary between 2005 and 2007 was 13, and the first year after improvements were made there were eight crashes there. Stacy Metzger, transportation engineer for the FRCOG, said crash data is limited, because there is no data for “fender benders.” So, the data only comes from crashes that involved $1,000 worth of damage or injuries or fatalities. Metzger said that study will begin sometime between October of this year and September of 2014. Greenfield Police Lt. Teen driver's license laws curb fatalities, but they're no cure-all.
March 17, 2013|By Lisa Black, Duaa Eldeib and Andrew Grimm, Chicago Tribune reporters The statistics are sobering: Teenagers are more likely to die behind the wheel than adults, and the risk of a fatal crash increases with every additional teen in the car.
That was the motivation behind Illinois' 2008 graduated license law, which is credited with helping save hundreds of lives since then by easing teens into full driving privileges. In fact, the number of teen motor vehicle deaths in Illinois dropped nearly 60 percent from 2007 to 2012. Campaign targets DUI, seat belt use. NH State police hope to ramp up bus inspections. Distracted driving? There’s an app for that. Every day in the U.S., 9 people are killed and more than 1,060 are injured in crashes that involve distracted driving, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Using a cell phone, texting, and eating are all forms of distracted driving, but so are in-vehicle technologies such as navigation systems. Maryland court to consider whether bars should be liable in drunk-driving crashes. From left, the Rev.
William Warr, his wife Angela and granddaughter… (Steve Ruark / BALTIMORE…) March 11, 2013|By Andrea F. Arizona highlights ‘Move Over’ law in March. Tests Expose Weakness of Trucks' Underride Guards - National News. Las Olas Boulevard traffic signals have been tweaked for the next 30 days to allow an all-red cycle, when only pedestrians can move. March 13, 2013|By Michael Turnbell, Sun Sentinel.
Graffiti on traffic signs costing taxpayers $30,000.