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...
Tropical Storm Alex is the first named cyclone of 2010.
From CNN International:
Tropical Storm Alex could strengthen into a hurricane Monday but is heading away from the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the National Hurricane Center said. The storm could become a major hurricane and .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 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...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...
The headline in USA Today reads, “Traffic deaths down, but not low enough.” But what else can be done?
The approach is called Toward Zero Deaths, based on a philosophy that even one road death is morally and ethically unacceptable. The goal: to alter behaviors that cause fatalities, such .Read more...
The group Next Generation Healthcare created this attractive graphic illustrating World Health Organization statistics on road traffic accidents by region.
According to Jodie Humphries at NGH:
The WHO global status report on road safety makes for shocking reading. Over 3000 people die on the world’s roads every day. Tens of .Read more...
Law enforcement in New York have added to their arsenal in the battle against distracted driving with a new, barely marked, Ghost Car.
Michael Wilson of the New York Times writes:
The car, a 2009 Crown Victoria, joined the fleet two months ago. It is not an unmarked police car, but .Read more...
The World Health Organization has an impressive Global status report on road safety describing the need for more attention to road traffic injuries and fatalities.
Approximately 1.3 million people die each year on the world’s roads, and between 20 and 50 million sustain non-fatal injuries. The Global status .Read more...
