Hollywood-esque presentation of Los Angeles traffic – Awesome image gallery captures infamous rush-hour traffic buzz

April 29, 2009 at 10:59 am

(Source: Good Magazine)

The French writer and philosopher Jean Baudrillard once wrote of the freeways of Los Angeles as being “ideally suited to the only truly profound pleasure, that of keeping on the move.” Indeed, nowhere is the pleasure of keeping on the move more profound than in a city whose freeways rarely offer it.

Fortunately, there is the architecture photographer Benny Chan, whose Traffic! series depicts the scale of overcrowded lanes of rush hour traffic from high overhead. Shot over a few years during various helicopter trips, the photographs now stand eight feet high and six feet wide, and convey, quite effectively, the enormity of the problem—as well as the need to get things moving.

Traffic! will show at the Pasadena Museum of California from May 31 through September 20.   Visit the “Good” magazine article to see other such awesome images. 

Streetsblog Special – What’s Wrong With SAFETEA-LU — and Why the Next Bill Must Be Better

April 27, 2009 at 2:25 pm

(Source: Streetsblog)

Ultimately, SAFETEA-LU’s greatest failing may have been its failure to articulate a truly multi-modal vision for the nation’s surface transportation network. Essentially a continuation of 1950s-era policies, it repeated the same-old same-old about a need to complete the Interstate highway program, directing billions of dollars to state DOTs to pour asphalt and expand roadways. Nowhere did the legislation suggest a need to adapt to a future in which American dependence on automobiles and fossil fuels must be dramatically reduced. That’s the challenge faced by Congress today.

Less of this...

 Transportation funding from Washington has been heavily weighted toward highway spending ever since President Eisenhower first proposed the Interstate Highway Act in 1956. SAFETEA-LU, 2005’s federal transportation bill, was no exception. It provided $244.1 billionover five years, its revenues raised by the federal gas tax and directed to the Highway Trust Fund, which has both highway and mass transit accounts. $40 billion a year went to highways, most of which was used to expand and upgrade the Interstate highway system; some $10 billion went annually to mass transit.

The $10 billion in public transportation funds is distributed by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) for a variety of uses. The FTA administers the urban areas program, which allocates money to metropolitan areas for transit system capital expenses, as well as a rural areas program that helps states pay for rural transit. SAFETEA-LU also included a fixed-guideways formula, aimed at keeping mostly older rail transit systems like those in Chicago or Boston in working condition. Finally, the New Starts/Small Starts program allowed the FTA to fund competitive grants for major capacity expansion such as new subway or bus rapid transit lines.

More of this...

 SAFETEA-LU provided for $40 billion in annual funding from the highway account, the traditional federal source for financing Interstate highways. But under the law, money from the account could actually be spent on more than just roads. Roughly $6.5 billion per year was allocated to the “Surface Transportation Program.” States were allowed to use this money to fund transit and “bicycle transportation and pedestrian walkways.” The “Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program” — about $1.7 billion a year — went to projects likely to reduce pollution, and specifically forbade funding “a project which will result in the construction of new capacity available to single occupant vehicles.”

There’s one problem, though. The federal government may allow such funds to be spent on non-auto uses, but that’s rarely the case.

That’s because, while each metropolitan area has a federally-mandated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) whose role is to establish priorities for transportation investments, state departments of transportation have ultimate discretion over how national highway funds are used. The inevitable consequence? Asphalt-happy DOTs usually choose to invest highway funds in roads, even when MPOs advocate for improved transit or bikeways. According to Transportation for America, only five states — California, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Virginia — have taken advantage of the flexibility of these funds. The rest have spent the vast majority on auto infrastructure.

What’s more, SAFETEA-LU made it easy for states to build roads and hard for them to build transit projects. While funds for new roads were simply distributed to states based on a formula, new transit lines had to undergo the rigorous New Starts process — competing with other projects from all over the country — before winning a share of federal dollars. There was no such required audit for road projects.

Click here to read the entire article.

Grinding to a halt! ITDP brings to fore key transportation issues facing Jakarta, Indonesia

April 27, 2009 at 12:50 pm

(Source: Institute for Transportation & Development Policy)

Activist Says Jakarta Current Vehicle Growth Leads to Transportation Failure

If the vehicle growth rate in Jakarta continues to hover around tens of percent annually without any breakthrough in transportation and traffic management, the city will be paralyzed by total gridlock by 2014, a nongovernmental organization said Wednesday.

“Total traffic failure is an unbearable risk caused by the city’s failure in transportation and traffic management,” the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy said in a statement sent to The Jakarta Post.

“Traffic jams have degraded the environment and people’s health due to excessive vehicle emissions. They also halt residents’ mobility that, in turn, cause economic losses,” it said.

Jabodetabek, a large-scale metropolitan area with a population of 21 million, consists of Daerah Khusus Ibukota/DKI (Capital Special Region) Jakarta, as the capital city of Indonesia, which is the center of politics, economy and social activities, and 7 local governments (Bodetabek) in the surrounding areas covering Kota (municipality) Bogor, Kabupaten (regency/district) Bogor, Kota Depok, Kota Bekasi, Kabupaten Bekasi, Kota Tangerang, and Kabupaten Tangerang.

Traffic congestion is a chronic problem faced in the Jabodetabek region and the situation is expected to worsen should there be no improvement of any kind made on the existing transportation system. According to a 2005 study,  the economic loss caused by traffic congestion in the region could be as much as $ 68 million per year due to traffic congestion – and this estimate excludes the impacts of traffic congestion and pollution on human health.

Jakarta’s Paratransit Network Still Stuck In Slow Lane 

Focussing on plans for modern subways, rapid-transit buses or express trains, while Jakarta delays overhauling its Metro Mini, Kopaja, angkot and mikrolet networks, the administration is just sweeping dirt under the rug.

At a recent meeting with city councilors, Governor Fauzi Bowo proudly reported Jakarta’s priority program of continuing to develop the BRT (rapid transit buses) network as well as the proposed subway, but nothing was said about the existing semi-formal modes of public transportation – the “paratransit” system.

Well, pardon me governor, the key to overhauling the city’s transportation system lies not in modern technology alone: It is about the addressing the system as a whole, while slowly introducing a new transportation backbone. This involves harmonizing existing means into a working network – not an overlapping one.

Sure, the paratransit system is meant to act as feeder lines for the BRT network, but how?

Jakarta’s last effort to synchronize existing microbuses and public minivans involved trying to introduce a single-ticket system for the feeder and BRT buses – an approach that failed not long after its introduction, and which has never been replaced with other initiatives.

They do say that transportation issues have more to do with political tendencies than technicalities.

But what makes it so hard to deal with the existing paratransit system and why does the Jakarta provincial government rather focus its energy in developing the new BRT and subway projects?

Transportation in Jakarta is so tied up with conflicting interests that overhauling it has become extremely complicated.

Officially, it seems non-physical projects such as integrating Kopaja and angkot benefit no one (financially that is) and this is a large part of the reason that the paratransit system is being ignored.

Turning back the clock a little to when the government chose to focus on building roads and highways (one of the consequences of Indonesia becoming a Japanese automakers’ production hub), our city buses and angkots were left on their own.

Jakarta Wants Less Cars, More Days 

The city administration has expanded its controversial car-free day program from just once a month to twice monthly.

The Jakarta Environmental Management Board, or BPLHD, announced on Thursday that it had scaled back the ban on vehicles on the main Jalan Sudirman-Jalan Thamrin thoroughfare during the last Sunday of every month, but would now bar traffic from other parts of the city on the second Sunday of every month.

“We received many complaints from people whose activities were disrupted so we gave up and reduced [the closure] by two hours,” said BPLHD head Peni Susanti.

Speaking at a press conference to outline the changes, Peni said traffic would now be barred from Sudirman-Thamrin between 6 a.m. and noon, bringing forward the previous finishing time of 2 p.m.

On a rotational basis, the second Sunday of each month would see traffic restrictions enforced during the same hours in areas such as Jalan Rasuna Said in South Jakarta, the Kota area of West Jakarta, Jalan Danau Sunter in North Jakarta, Jalan Pramuka in East Jakarta and Jalan Soeprapto in Central Jakarta.

During the car-free days, only the TransJakarta busway would be allowed to use the main roadways, while other public transportation and private vehicles must use the slow lane.

Peni said the aim was to improve air quality by reducing pollution from traffic, and to encourage more efficient use of cars.

Air-quality evaluations conducted during car-free days have shown significant drops in pollutant concentration levels, with dust particles reduced by 34 percent, carbon monoxide by 67 percent and nitrogen monoxide by 80 percent.

“Those three parameters are the primary pollutants from motor vehicles,” Peni said. “Motor vehicles are still the biggest polluters in Jakarta.”

Slamet Daryoni, the interim director of the Jakarta branch of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment, or Walhi, however, said that the car-free day program was ineffective.

One Project At A Time Keeps Congestion Away, Experts Say (Jakarta)

Jakarta’s administration should focus on one public transportation project at a time, to avoid projects being half completed and unsuccessful, like the waterway and monorail projects, urban planning experts said Wednesday.

Despite worsening traffic conditions in the city, the administration has not yet managed to develop any form of efficient public transportation, said urban planning expert Yayat Supriatna.

“The administration is inconsistent in developing transportation systems. It should prioritize and focus on completing one project before starting another,” he said, citing several unfinished projects.

Despite the monorail project not being completed, the administration went ahead with building the waterway, which has been considered a failure.

“Existing modes *of transportation*, such as the Transjakarta bus, have yet to be optimized by the administration. To some extent, they only create new traffic problems,” Yayat said.

The administration has been planning to build the monorail project since 2003, erecting pillars in the middle of several main streets. However the project is now in a deadlock due to legal and financial problems.

Yayat said the project was still feasible, but needed stronger commitment from the administration and the company consortium.

Furthermore, he warned administrative uncertainties in transportation projects could lead to stakeholder distrust and hamper the improvement of the entire system.

The Institute of Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) said the city’s infrastructure could not catch up with the growing number of vehicles.

The group estimated that if vehicle growth rate continued to hover around an annual two-digit percentage without any breakthrough in transportation and traffic management, the city would be paralyzed by 2014.

Successor for SAFETEA-LU taking shape; Congress, interest groups gear up for the next highway bill

April 24, 2009 at 11:09 am

(Source: AP)

It was an ironic start to legislative efforts to tackle the nation’s transportation woes.

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James Oberstar completely missed a news conference on innovative transit programs Thursday because his car was stuck in traffic, behind an accident in a congested commuter tunnel.

The Minnesota Democrat has another news conference scheduled Friday with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, who estimate Congress needs to spend $470 billion to get the nation’s transportation system back on track.

 That event, and Thursday’s gathering organized by the Environmental Defense Fund, are two of several being staged in coming weeks as interest groups try to influence the shape of a six-year highway and transit construction bill expected to total roughly a half-trillion dollars. Oberstar hopes to introduce the legislation in May and win swift House passage.Already lined up on both sides of this heavyweight Washington lobbying contest are the trucking and construction industries, environmentalists, “smart growth” advocates, labor unions and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. To pass a bill of the sweep and size he envisions, Oberstar said everyone involved will have to first sell the plan to the public.

There is a consensus in Congress that something major needs to be done about the transportation mess. People are spending more time in their cars trying to get to work — or anywhere, for that matter. Transit systems are carrying record numbers of riders and, in some cases, are cutting back service. Freight delays, both highway and rail, are costing industry and consumers billions of dollars. An alarming share of the nation’s highways, bridges, tunnels, and train cars have aged beyond their intended life and are in disrepair.

“It is clear we need more revenue in the system, more investment dollars, but we can’t just say to people, ‘do this, do that.’ We have to show what we’re going to do with this program, how we are going to make it more responsive to their needs,” Oberstar said in an interview. “If people see that, then they’ll support it.”

Still unclear is where Congress will find the money to pay for such a gargantuan plan — it would be nearly double the current $268 billion highway construction program, enacted in 2005. That program, which Congress debated for two years before passing, expires on Sept. 30.

The federal Highway Trust Fund, which pays for the program, is expected to run out of money some time this summer. The fund depends on gas taxes, but revenue has dropped dramatically because people are driving less. Congress had to transfer $8 billion from the general treasury last fall to keep highway programs going.

TransportGoooru Exclusive from Dr. RoadMap: Why we gawk

April 23, 2009 at 5:38 pm

Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, when questioned one night on a television talk show about what makes her so popular, responded: “I’m like a bad car wreck on the freeway. You know you shouldn’t stare but you just can’t help it.” 

We can’t help it, can we? While hardly unique, an accident that brought the State Route 60 in Rowland Heights, California to a crawl one afternoon provides a perfect example. Just past the State Route 57 interchange, three crumpled compact cars limped to the right shoulder and died. The respective occupants and a highway patrol officer surveyed the situation, rounding out the classic picture of an accident scene. For a few miles in either direction cars passed by at the speed of a funeral procession so their drivers could ogle the unfolding scenario. 

Admit it. Most of us do stop and stare — with costly consequences, too. The statisticians at the some urban traffic-safety centers calculate that rubbernecking causes more unnecessary traffic congestion than any other behavior.  

So why do we do it? Are we really that morbid? Do we really revel in the misfortunes of other people? 

“Not at all,” answered Mark Rafter, former assistant professor of psychology at Chaffey College in Rancho Cucamonga, California. “We stare because that’s the way we are built. It is perfectly normal for us to respond to unusual stimuli with an increased level of attention. In fact, having a sense of curiosity is healthy.” 

Rafter also said that this “novelty interest” increases our chances of survival. Instinct

dictates that we examine any unnecessary phenomenon — such as the brightly flashing blue and red lights of an emergency vehicle — lest it be a threat to our own safety. 

“There are other factors as well,” Rafter added. “Freeway wrecks provide us with the rare opportunity to double check our best guess as to the cause of the delay.” 

Goodness knows that we are granted plenty of time to wonder what happened when stuck in a long backup. When we finally arrive upon the accident scene, we are usually presented with conclusive evidence of just what the problem was. Then there is the frustrating fact that the very slowing of traffic that a collision creates lends us the perfect chance to really get a good look at it. Evidently our voyeuristic tendencies tend to complicate matters.

However, being the individuals that we are, not all of us stare with the same intensity, according to Rafter. 

“Each person strives to maintain their own optimal level of arousal,” Rafter pointed out. “Extroverts need to seek out exciting events to get to normal, so they really stop and gawk, whereas introverts require much less stimulation and tend to look away from tragic occurrences.”

In the final analysis, there’s really no need for us to feel too guilty about where we cast our eyes, at least according to one expert. On the other hand, traffic would certainly move a lot smoother if we elevated ourselves above our basic instincts and just kept our eyes on the road.

©2009, Dr. Roadmap® 

_________________________________________________________________________________________ 

David Rizzo, better known as Dr. Roadmap,  a Commute Management expert who writes about issues such as improving gas mileage (mpg), alternate routes, traffic congestion, ridesharing, commuting behavior and intelligent transportation systems on California’s Orange Country Register.  He is well known for his comprehensive guide ever written on off-freeway commuting in Southern California, published in 1990.  Two years later he became the first traffic reporter to offer daily alternate routes in real time over the air on one of the most popular morning radio shows in Los Angeles.  His bi-weekly columns appear exclusively for TransportGooru.  This is copyright-protected content.  Please contact Transportgooru if you like to use this article or portions of this article. 

Legal blow to Police! Supreme Court Limits Searches of Suspect’s Car After Arrest

April 21, 2009 at 7:58 pm

(Source: Washington Post)

The Supreme Court today sharply limited the power of police to search a suspect’s car after making an arrest, acknowledging that the decision changes a rule that law enforcement has relied on for nearly 30 years.

 In a decision written by Justice John Paul Stevens, an unusual five-member majority said police may search a vehicle without a warrant only when the suspect could reach for a weapon or try to destroy evidence or when it is “reasonable to believe” there is evidence in the car supporting the crime at hand.  Stevens was joined by two of his most liberal colleagues — Justices David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg — and two of his most conservative — Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

The court noted that law enforcement for years has interpreted the court’s rulings on warrantless car searches to mean that officers may search the passenger compartment of a vehicle as part of a lawful arrest of a suspect. But Stevens said that was a misreading of the court’s decision in New York v. Belton in 1981.

“Blind adherence to Belton’s faulty assumption would authorize myriad unconstitutional searches,” Stevens said, adding that the court’s tradition of honoring past decisions did not bind it to continue such a view of the law.

“Police could not reasonably have believed either that Gant could have accessed his car at the time of the search or that evidence of the offense for which he was arrested might have been found therein,” Stevens wrote.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the four dissenters, said the court’s insistence that its precedents had been misinterpreted was simply a cover for getting rid of a decision with which it disagreed.

Click here to read the entire article. 

Eco-Motorists Slow Down, Coast, for Big Mileage Gains, but Their Strategies Might Drive Others on the Road Crazy

April 16, 2009 at 11:49 pm

(Source: Wall Street Journal)

Efficient Drivers Cut Emissions, but Stir Up Hot Air

Cruising around this desert metropolis in her four-door pickup truck, Morgan Dresser doesn’t look like an environmental trendsetter.

Recently, though, the 26-year-old did something revolutionary. She began “eco-driving” — a technique that combines a racecar driver’s skill with the proverbial grandmother’s pace. By learning to drive all over again, Ms. Dresser estimates she has boosted her truck’s fuel economy to 21 miles per gallon from 15, a jump of 40% that surpasses the mileage advertised by its manufacturer, Toyota Motor Corp. With that shift in behavior, she has done more to curb oil consumption than most people zooming around in the latest hybrid cars.

“Who would have thought a truck could get good gas mileage?” she says. “It’s possible with any vehicle, big or small.”

A new technique to curb fuel consumption is on the rise: “eco-driving.” Eco-driving teaches drivers not to slam the gas pedal and brakes, but rather, learn how to maintain a more constant speed. Jeffrey Ball reports. 

Even without futuristic technologies, drivers can achieve eye-popping fuel economy in their current cars with nothing fancier than their brains and some lighter feet. The idea is to maintain momentum much as on a leisurely bicycle ride: accelerating only gradually, coasting whenever possible and constantly adjusting speed to minimize the need to stop.

The challenge will be to get Americans, who love the open throttle as much as the open road, to ease up instead of variously slamming on the gas and the brakes. In the meantime, as early eco-drivers lower their own emissions, they are certain to raise some hot air from the impatient drivers around them.

 “I’ve been honked at. I’ve been flipped off. I’ve been yelled at: ‘Grandma!'” says Ms. Dresser, a former back-country firefighter. “I just laugh.”Trials in Europe, Japan and the U.S. are finding that drivers commonly improve their fuel economy upwards of 20% after deploying a handful of eco-driving techniques. Among them: Driving more slowly on highways, shifting gears earlier in cities and shutting off the engine rather than idling at long stops.

Click here to read the entire article.

Convenience is King – You can take the train to work, but your office is still a mile away from the station. Might as well drive, right? How we can solve the last-mile problem?

April 16, 2009 at 7:28 pm

(Source: Good Magazine)

A couple of months after the presidential election, and a couple of weeks after Barack Obama signed his stimulus bill, the giddiness among transport advocates was enough to induce a contact high: $8 billion for high-speed trains, and another $8.4 billion for mass transit! They were excited for good reason: For years, the country has starved for any attempt to develop green transit, and finally we had the money.

But what if most mass transit is doomed to fail? It isn’t the mere lack of trains and subways that keep people in their cars. It’s what urban planners call the first- and last-mile problem. You know it, intuitively. Let’s say you’d like to commute on public transit. But if you live in a suburb—and ever since 2000, over half of Americans do—it’s unlikely that you live close enough to a station to walk. The same problem arises once you get to your destination: You probably don’t work anywhere near the closest bus or train station. So even if public transit is available, commuters often stay in their cars because the alternative—the hassle of driving, then riding, then getting to your final destination—is inconvenient, if not totally impossible. “Denser areas don’t have these same problems,” says Susan Shaheen, who heads the Innovative Mobility Research group at the University of California, Berkeley. “The problem is really about land use in the United States.”

It sounds nearly impossible to fix: Our suburbs won’t soon disappear, even if some are withering in the present housing decline. But here’s the good news: For the first time in three decades, solving the last-mile problem seems just within reach, owing to vehicle fleets and ingenious ride-sharing schemes that lean on mobile computing, social networks, and smart urban planning. “To make public transit viable, you have it make it just as easy as getting in a car,” says Shaheen. “It can be done.”

The challenge, according to Dan Sturges, the founder of Intrago Mobility, which creates vehicle-sharing technology, is that “no one’s yet putting these innovations together as a system, and the public doesn’t understand the broader problem. But if implemented all together, the things being invented now will make owning a personal car into a joke.” The enemy is really the car’s unequaled convenience; commuters need multiple, equally easy choices before they’ll give up the steering wheel. Several such choices are in the works.

“Right-Size” Fleets

Zipcar—which is now being copied by Hertz and U-Haul—is a godsend for city dwellers who only occasionally need a car. But it can also be used to solve the last-mile problem, when linked with public transit. “We’re at the tip of the iceberg with those systems,” says Sturges. However, for many commutes, a car is overkill. What if the closest bus is just a mile and a half away? A “right-sized” vehicle, suited to your particular last-leg commuting need, is ideal. These might be anything from a Segway (dorky as it may be) to an electric bike or a high-powered electric golf cart. But the vehicles themselves aren’t the solution, since commutes can change every day (say you’re visiting a client one day, and eating lunch at your desk the next).

Click here to read the entire article.

Webinar Alert: Performance Measures – A Case Study in Progress Webinar

April 16, 2009 at 1:28 pm

Webinar Overview

Date:   May 6, 2009 Time:  1:00-2:30 P.M. ET Cost:  All T3s are free of charge

Register On-line
Contact the T3 Administrator

Description

The presenters will describe the reason, vision and process for updating their current performance measures report. A primary motivator for embarking on this endeavor is to support the continual process improvement of Traffic Management Centers’ operations. The intent of this T3 is to share the successes and pitfalls in addition to stressing the importance of a holistic approach to measuring performance.

Audience

The audience for this webinar includes transportation professionals who are responsible for developing and using performance measures that support the improvement of Traffic Management Centers.

Learning Objectives

Participants will be exposed to the following:

  • A reusable framework for development of Traffic Management Center performance measures.
  • An understanding of the difference between Outcome and Output performance measures.
  • An appreciation of the value of traceability between desired Outcomes and operations Outputs.
  • An overview of how performance measures can be used to support continual process improvement.
  • Knowledge of some of the challenges and pitfalls to avoid when pursuing development of performance measures on a shoestring budget.

Federal Host:

Lokesh Hebbani, Federal Highway Administration, Georgia Division Office

Lokesh Hebbani currently works as a Traffic Management/ITS/Safety Engineer at FHWA‘s Georgia Division Office. His past experience includes five years as a Traffic Operations/ITS Engineer at the FHWA Florida Division and eight years as a Freeway Operations Engineer at Wisconsin DOT. Lokesh is an active Board member of ITS Georgia and Georgia Traffic Incident Management Enhancement (TIME) Task Force. Lokesh is also the Task Team Leader of Georgia’s Strategic Highway Safety Plan (SHSP). Lokesh holds several degrees: an MBA from Marquette University, an M.S. in Transportation Engineering from the University of Wyoming, and an M.E. in Geotechnical Engineering from Bangalore University, India.

Presenters:

Hugh Colton, Georgia Department of Transportation

Hugh Colton works for the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) as the Transportation Management Center’s Operations Manager in Atlanta. Currently, he is working on day-to-day operations and is the project manager for the Georgia Regional ITS Architecture update. Previously, he was the project manager for the Statewide ITS Concept of Operations Plan, the Statewide ITS Strategic Deployment Plan, and established a configuration management system for GDOT‘s ITS. He assisted FHWA in the creation of a Configuration Management training course. Soon after joining GDOT in 1999, he graduated from the University of London with a Masters Degree in Geographic Information Science.

Marcus Wittich, Serco Inc.

Mr. Wittich has over two decades of experience working with leading edge technologies and human resources management in roles such as a Management Consultant, a Project Manager, a Systems Engineer, a Business Analyst, and an Entrepreneur. His work spans a broad range of public and private sector assignments including ATMS work on the Development of NaviGAtor Web, Atlanta’s Metropolitan ITS Integration project (MITSI), Maryland Department of Transportation’s Multi Modal Traveler Information System (MMTIS), the Georgia Traffic Incident Management Enhancement (TIME) Task Force, and the development of the Next Generation of the Georgia ATMS. Prior to his involvement in ATMS development, Mr. Wittich led teams in the development of internet-based applications including the development of Cartoon Network’s cartoon orbit site, Nascar.com, NMFN.com, Burger King’s corporate Internet strategic plans and Hewlett Packard’s hp.com. Mr. Wittich holds a B.S. from Carnegie Mellon University.


Reference in this webinar to any specific commercial products, processes, or services, or the use of any trade, firm or corporation name is for the information and convenience of the public, and does not constitute endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by U.S. Department of Transportation

Can’t wait to get home! Police nab Norwegian pair during high-speed sex

April 14, 2009 at 1:45 pm

(Source: Yahoo News via Jalopnik; Photo: Jalopnik)

The unnamed couple, a 28-year-old man and a 22-year-old woman, were caught in the act late on Easter Sunday by traffic police on the E18 highway, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Oslo.

Officers who clocked the couple’s silver Mazda 323 racing at 133 kilometres per hour in a 100 zone realised they were doing more than just breaking the speed limit, police told AFP.

“It was veering from one side to the other because the woman was sitting on the man’s lap while he was driving and doing the act, shall we say,” said Tor Stein Hagen, a superintendent with Soendre Buskerund district police.

“He couldn’t see much because her back was in the way,” he added.

“Why they did it on a highway with such a high risk we don’t know.”

After following the couple for nearly a kilometre, officers pulled the car over at a service station.  He now faces fines worth several thousand Norweigan crowns and a lengthy driving ban for reckless driving. When the case goes to court it should be an open and shut proceeding, as the police recorded the carnal activities with their dash cam for use as “evidence” later on.