The New York Times uses the Deepwater Horizon disaester to illustrate the principle of learning from engineering disaesters.
While that idea may sound paradoxical, it is widely accepted among engineers. They say grim lessons arise because the reasons for triumph in matters of technology are often arbitrary and invisible, .Read more...
The New York Times hosted an online debate over the question “Do we tolerate too many traffic deaths?”
Adrian K. Lund:
Compared with the Toyota controversy, there is no clamor for Congressional action calling for tough enforcement against speeding. There is no victims’ advocacy group urging installation of speed .Read more...
New York designer Tina Roth Eisenberg profiles photographer Arnold Odermatt:
Swiss police officer and photographer Arnold Odermatt became famous in his retirement on the publication of Karambolage, his photographic journal about the traffic accidents that were part of his professional life in the Swiss canton of Nidwalden.
Arriving at .Read more...
The Transport Research Laboratory in Wokingham, England studied the effect of listening to sports radio on driving habits. UPI.com reports ‘Radio Sports can Distract Drivers‘:
Reaction times were slowed by up to 20 percent when drivers were listening to sports, adding nearly 20 feet of additional stopping time for a car .Read more...
Advertising Age has an interesting article about the declining percentage of teen drivers on the road:
In 1978, nearly half of 16-year-olds and three-quarters of 17-year-olds in the U.S. had their driver’s licenses, according to Department of Transportation data. By 2008, the most recent year data was available, .Read more...
Our friends at the MSCRecon Blog highlight a recent study of commercial truck seat belt usage:
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) released a study showing seventy-nine percent of commercial truck drivers in the Western US were using their safety belts in 2009. This region has the highest .Read more...
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill continues to dominate the headlines. The Wall Street Journal adds:
Earlier Thursday, undersea robots completed a second cut of the fractured pipe connected to the deep-water oil well, paving the way for engineers to install the containment device that officials hope will send .Read more...
The Allstate Foundation recently conducted a new survey, Shifting Teen Attitudes: The State of Teen Driving 2009.
Texting is teen’s biggest distraction behind the wheel:
More than 49% of teens report texting as a distraction, up from 31% in 2005 82% of teens report using cell phones .Read more...A landslide in Keelung, Taiwan on April 25, 2010.
Photo credit.
The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion continues to dominate the headlines:
Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana declared a state of emergency Thursday afternoon, saying that the vast oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico “threatens the state’s natural resources.” Federal officials were concerned that the slick could reach the .Read more...
USA Today has an article on Oprah Winfrey’s new public service campaign:
Today is Oprah’s national “No-Phone Zone Day,” a grassroots campaign that is asking all Americans to be kind and save lives by not using their cell phones — texting or dialing by hand — while driving. She .Read more...
The Winnepeg Free Press reported on initial findings from the International Luge Federation (FIL) investigation of the tragic luge accident during the Vancouver Olympics.
The report said Kumaritashvili exited the 15th curve in the 16-turn course too late, causing him to take a less-than-favourable line into the final curve. .Read more...
