The following report about the Distracted Driving Summit is prepared Adam Hopps, a transportation whiz, who participated virtually over the past 2 days (September 30 & Oct 1, 2009), tirelessly taking notes while observing the Summit proceedings online.  Shortly after the event finish, Adam e-mailed his observations for sharing it with the rest of the community.  Please note that these are Adam’s thoughts and by no means should be considered as a summary of the event.  Thanks, Adam for helping us stay informed.

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Thanks to the US D.O.T.’s efforts at opening up participation in their Distracted Driving Summit, I spent the last two days as one of 5,000 online viewers who watched industry reps, academics, legislators, and policy experts discuss what Secretary LaHood describes as, “the epidemic of distracted driving.”

For those of us not in the building the department also provided an online “chat and tweet room” so that every expert, novice, and personal advocate could give their two cents in response to what was being said live. It’s a perfect symbol of democracy in the Web 2.0 ear, where on one computer screen you can see live a public servant of 20 years desperately trying to convince people to adopt legislation to allow police to enforce drivers who text, while reading “Mark K” write: “We have too many cops. They like things orderly. Freedom is chaotic, so too many cops affects society.”

It’s also a reminder of how transportation is truly a democratic issue – perhaps one of the few issues that affect every individual daily. We all go places every day. We have loved ones who go places. We are doing this constantly, and as the summit pointed out of course, we move dangerously and with reckless behaviors.

The summit drew on a wide variety of people to make this point:

1. Victims of distracted driving reminding us of the end results
2. Transportation researchers informing us our risk of accident increases 2300% when we text
3. Law enforcement officials telling us the type of distraction doesn’t matter – all distractions are deadly
4. Legislators preaching to us that we need laws to prevent these behaviors
5. AAA reporting that people do it even though they know it’s dangerous
6. Wireless companies ensuring us they want to help as much as anyone
7. Teens sharing with us the life changing effects of their distracted driving.

. . . . And many more people from all areas of the transportation field reminding us that distracted driving kills.

The value of the summit was in the substance of the presenters and the nature of the experience. Even though Secretary LaHood ended the summit by announcing policy changes and an executive order from the President banning all federal officials from texting while driving, these two days were more about the U.S. DOT engaging academia, industry and public officials on an extremely important topic. Sure, there were plenty of Mark K’s commenting wildly in the chat room, but there were also thousands of people discussing the best way to enforce a texting law, or how to really educated teens on driving or even debating the nature of federal transportation laws.

So the people are engaged, we know we need to end distracted driving, but how do we do it? Two major solutions were presented: Do we create a society where law enforcement is responsible for punishing us when we fall to the temptation to text while driving? Or do we make our technology safer and more intuitive and design systems to prevent distractions?

In his closing, Secretary LaHood laid out the end goal: “Driving while distracted should just feel wrong – just as driving without a seat belt or driving while intoxicated.”

Click here to read the Secretary’s blog about the summit and to replay the proceedings.

Note: Please register your comments/kudos below for Adam in the comments box below.

(Source: USA Today; Carkeys, UK)

Image Courtesy: USA Today

Automobile technology has exploded over the past two decades and todays cars are far more “intelligent” than the cars of the 70 and 80s.  These days there are more computers and sensors (collectively captured under the term Intelligent Vehicle, a terminology that is more familiar to those involved in Intelligent Transportation Systems) operating side by side with the driver to ensure that the vehicle operates at optimal efficiency while managing the safety of the vehicle by avoiding or alerting/warning about impending collisions.   The state of the art technology deployed in some cars can even slow down the vehicle by applying brakes without driver’s assistance, just to minimize the impact of the crash.  Now, that will soon become yesterday’s technology, thanks to vehicle safety pioneers at Volvo who are hard at work to deploy “full auto brake” and “pedestrian safety” functions.   USA Today reports on this latest vehicle technology development at the Volvo shop.

By now, collision avoidance systems that automatically apply the brakes to a speeding car have become pretty common. But while cars will suddenly slow if they detect an accident is about to happen, automakers have been hesitant to bring them to a sudden and full emergency stop.

Volvo is about to change all that. With the launch of the S60 next year, Volvo will introduce a “full auto brake” and “pedestrian safety” function. Cars will come a full stop at speeds less than about 15 miles an hour if their radar systems detect they are about to strike a car or a person. If the car is going faster, the car will try to come as close to a full stop as possible.

“If the car is traveling faster, the aim is to reduce the impact speed as much as possible. In most cases, we can reduce the collision force by about 75%,” says Thomas Broberg, Volvo’s safety expert. “Considering the large number of pedestrian fatalities that occur, if we manage to reduce the fatality risk 20 percent, this new function will make a big difference.”

Carkeys.com, a British website reports that this effort is part of Volvo’s 2020 vision, which has two goals – firstly, that nobody will be killed or injured in a new Volvo and, secondly, that the average CO2 emissions of the entire range will be below 100g/km. As part of addressing this first goal, the first step forward from the current situation regarding safety is the introduction of Collision Warning With Full Auto Brake and Pedestrian Safety, both of which will be introduced in the new S60, due to be launched next year, and Volvo is also upgrading its Adaptive Cruise Control so that it now maintains a gap to the vehicle in front at speeds right down to zero, rather than the present 18mph minimum.

Further development depends on vehicles being able to communicate with each other – the idea being that they recognise it and take steps to avoid a collision regardless of what the drivers are doing – and this in turn will require a suitable infrastructure. “We believe that the key is to use systems that are already available for other purposes,” says Jan Ivarsson, Volvo’s Head of Safety Strategy. “The air around us is already charged with communication, most of it used for pleasure or convenience.

“Adding traffic safety communication to this existing architecture is a far more sensible route than trying to invent and agree on a completely new ‘language’ for communicating in the traffic environment.”

Fifty years ago, Volvo introduced seat belts, which are now a “standard” in all vehicles entering the market(s) and has been credited for saving millions of lives world over since its introduction.  Hope this new introduction can repeat the magic for the 2nd time and further cut the vehicle-related fatalities and crashes.  Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: New York Times)

Image Courtesy: American Van via Google Images

Crisscrossing the country, hundreds of thousands of long-haultruckers use computers in their cabs to get directions and stay in close contact with dispatchers, saving precious minutes that might otherwise be spent at the side of the road.

The trucking industry says these devices can be used safely, posing less of a distraction than BlackBerrys, iPhones and similar gadgets, and therefore should be exempted from legislation that would ban texting while driving.

“We think that’s overkill,” Clayton Boyce, spokesman for the American Trucking Associations, said of a federal bill that would force states to ban texting while driving if they want to keep receiving federal highway money.

The legislation will be discussed at a conference on distracted driving in Washington, starting Wednesday, organized by the Transportation Department.

The issues raised by truckers show the challenges facing advocates for tougher distracted-driving laws, given that so many Americans have grown accustomed to talking and texting behind the wheel.

The trucking industry has invested heavily in technology to wire vehicles. Satellite systems mounted on trucks let companies track drivers, send new orders, distribute companywide messages and transmit training exercises. Drivers can also use them to send and receive e-mail and browse the Internet.

After videotaping truckers behind the wheel, the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that those who used on-board computers faced a 10 times greater risk of crashing, nearly crashing or wandering from their lane than truckers who did not use those devices.

That figure is lower than the 23 times greater risk when truckers texted, compared with drivers simply focused on the road, according to the same study. However, the Virginia researchers said that truckers tend to use on-board computers more often than they text.

The study found that truckers using on-board computers take their eyes off the road for an average of four seconds, enough time at highway speeds to cover roughly the length of a football field.

Richard J. Hanowski, director of the Center for Truck and Bus Safety at the Virginia institute, said videotape monitoring of 200 truckers driving about three million miles showed many of them using the devices, even bypassing messages on the screen warning them not to use the devices while driving.

In recent years, fatalities caused by large trucks have risen slowly, despite many safety advances like air bags and antilock brakes, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In 2007, large trucks caused 4,808 deaths — or 12 percent of all driving-related fatalities — up from 4,777, or 11 percent, in 1997.

Beyond the dispatch computers, truckers said they relied heavily on an array of technologies to stay productive, entertained and connected on the road. Their cabs become like home offices, wired with CB radios, AM/FM and satellite radios, weather band radios, GPS devices, electrical outlets, laptops and even computer desks. And, of course, cellphones.

Click here to read the entire article.  Also, while you are on the NY Times page, don’t forget to try the awesome interactive graphic (which can be found embedded on the left hand panel of this NY Times article) to gauge  your distraction.  It does that by measuring how your reaction time is affected by external distractions in a nice little game.

Note:  Another New York Times article on this issue of driver distraction notes that the general public overwhelmingly supports the prohibition of text messagingwhile driving, the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll finds. Ninety percent of adults say sending a text message while driving should be illegal, and only 8 percent disagree.   More than 80 percent of every demographic group say sending text messages while driving should be illegal, but some are more adamant about such a prohibition than others. Parents, whether or not their children are adults, are more inclined to support a ban than people without children. Women are more in favor of outlawing the practice than men.  Click here to read more details on this interesting poll.

(Source: You Tube)

The Norwegian Motorcycle Union has made this hard-hitting PSA that aims to promote an awareness among car & truck drivers who often don’t look out for motorcyclists on the road.  Starting from the fact that 8 out of 10 collisions are caused by drivers that never see the motorcycle.  The “Motorcycle Accident Cause Factors and Identification of Countermeasures,” was a study conducted by the University of Southern California, with funds from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, researcher Harry Hurt investigated nearly every aspect of 900 motorcycle accidents in the Los Angeles area. Additionally, Hurt and his staff analyzed 3,600 motorcycle traffic accident reports in the same geographic area.  Some of the study findings listed below, among a grand total of 53, are directly attributed to the negligence of motorists:

• Approximately three-fourths of the motorcycle accidents involved collision with another vehicle, which was most usually a passenger automobile.
• The failure of motorists to detect and recognize motorcycles in traffic is the predominating cause of motorcycle accidents. The driver of the other vehicle involved in collision with the motorcycle did not see the motorcycle before the collision, or did not see the motorcycle until too late to avoid the collision.

(Sources: Reuters & The Detroit News)

Major automakers today endorsed a ban on texting and using hand-held mobile phones while driving, ahead of a Transportation Department summit next week on distracted driving.

“Clearly, using a hand-held device to text or call while driving is a safety risk,” said Dave McCurdy, president and CEO of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. “The alliance supports a ban on hand-held texting and calling while driving to accelerate the transition to more advanced, safer ways to manage many common potential distractions.”The alliance represents 11 automakers, including Detroit’s Three automakers, Toyota Motor Corp., Daimler AG and BMW AG.

McCurdy said using a mobile phone without a hands-free device or scrolling through a cellular phone’s list of phone numbers may put drivers at risk.

But the industry strongly supports allowing hands-free devices to make calls. Some states ban the use of cell phones by drivers without using a hands-free device. “You have to minimize the eyes off the road time. That’s critical,” McCurdy said.

This announcement is a boost for the Obama administration’s efforts to curb this growing problem.  Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood plans to hold a summit next week on distracted driving and address the issue of texting.

“If it were up to me, I would ban drivers from texting,” LaHood said in August. “But we’ve learned from our efforts to get people to wear seat belts and to persuade them not to drive drunk that laws aren’t always enough. Often, you need to combine education with enforcement to get results.”

The wireless industry — including cellphone manufacturers, carriers, and some Internet companies represented by the CTIA-Wireless Association — also believes texting “is incompatible with safe driving.”

The trade group supports state and local efforts to ban texting and driving as well as public education and aggressive enforcement.

There were more than 1 trillion text messages sent and received on wireless devices last year, including cell phones and smart phones, the association said. There are no statistics on how many people drive and text, the group said.  A Virginia Tech Transportation Institute study released in July said drivers of heavy vehicles using a hand-held text messaging system had 23.2 times as high a risk of a crash than drivers who weren’t.

The National Safety Council, a research group, is pushing for a full ban on cell phone use and texting while driving.

About a dozen U.S. states have passed laws banning texting while driving. A handful have made cellphone use illegal while behind the wheel, a practice that automakers do not oppose in all circumstances.

Legislation proposed by Sen. Charles Schumer of New York would withhold 25 percent of federal highway money from states that do not ban texting while driving and the provision is similar to one that enticed states to adopt a 0.08 percent blood alcohol level limit for drunken driving.  A text-while-driving ban has also been proposed in the House of Representatives.

Click here or here to get more details on this story.

TransportGooru.com is proud to share this insightful presentation on market-based road pricing in the U.S. prepared by Mr. Glenn Havinoviski, a long time supporter of TransportGooru.com, for his recent discussion with the Public Policy program students at George Washington University in Washington, DC.

When Glenn updated his status message on LinkedIn after the classroom discussion, TransportGooru jumped on the opportunity to get a glimpse of his briefing material prepared for the class and wrote to him seeking permission to publish the briefing materials.  Glenn graciously agreed to share this excellent presentation and sent along a PDF version (shown in the PDF viewer below).   Please feel free to leave your comments/questions in the “Comments” section below and they will be brought to Glenn’s attention right away.   Thanks for sharing the presentation, Glenn.

About Glenn Havinoviski: Glenn currently serves as an Associate Vice President (Transportation Systems) at Iteris in Sterling, VA and is a registered PE.   Until recently, he was an Associate Vice President and ITS Group Director for HNTB Corporation in the Arlington, Virginia office. His 27 years of experience (25 in consulting, 2 in the public sector) include serving as both a practice builder and a practice leader, providing project management and technical leadership for ITS and traffic management projects in the US and abroad.Glenn N. Havinoviski, PE joined Iteris in Sterling, VA on July 6 as Associate VP, Transportation Systems, after serving as Associate Vice President and ITS Group Director for HNTB Corporation in the Arlington, Virginia office. His 27 years of experience (25 in consulting, 2 in the public sector) include serving as both a practice builder and a practice leader, providing project management and technical leadership for ITS and traffic management projects in the US and abroad.

(Source: New York Times)

The Senate voted on Wednesday to allow Amtrak passengers to carry unloaded and locked handguns in checked baggage, even though Amtrak officials had raised concerns that the proposal could present “numerous challenges.”

Amtrak used to allow passengers to check licensed guns, but ended the practice after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

The provision, which was introduced by Senator Roger Wicker, Republican, as an amendment to a housing and transportation spending bill, is the latest in a string of Senate votes aimed at expanding gun rights. It passed 68-30, with a group of 27 Democrats and one independent, mostly from states where gun rights are widely supported, joining all 40 Republicans in voting for the measure.

The Senate has already approved separate provisions this year that would allow properly permitted gun owners to carry in national parks and would loosen gun laws in Washington. Additionally, a July proposal that would have allowed permitted gun owners in one state to carry concealed weapons in another fell just two votes short in the Senate.

Under the Wicker amendment, Amtrak would lose the funds earmarked for it in the must-pass spending bill if it did not comply with the new regulations. In a statement released after the amendment passed, Mr. Wicker stressed that the guidelines laid out in the provision — which would also insist that a passenger notify Amtrak that he or she is transporting a handgun and that only that passenger could unlock the secure container holding the gun — are roughly the same ones used by airline passengers.

“Americans should not have their Second Amendment rights restricted for any reason, particularly if they choose to travel on America’s federally subsidized rail line,” Mr. Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, said in the statement.

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: Greenwire @ New York Times)

According to a Center for Public Integrity report released yesterday, there are nearly 1,800 special interest groups lobbying Congress on the transportation bill, ranging from local officials and planning agencies to real estate companies, construction firms and universities. In the first half of this year, the groups employed more than 2,000 lobbyists and spent an estimated total of $45 million on their transportation lobbying.

The road to reforming the nation’s transportation systems looks to be a long and winding one.

Once lawmakers decide when to move forward with the sweeping overhauls they promise, they will need to find a way to pay for it. And once that difficult task is accomplished, the debate will only grow more complicated.

Many in the transportation community agree the next multi-year surface transportation bill needs to significantly boost federal funding for the nation’s roads, rails and bridges. But the consensus soon begins to crumble when the issue turns to how to pay for the overhaul — with lawmakers loath to tell Americans they will need to foot the bill and the rest of the transportation community agreeing that is the only option to pay for it (E&E Daily, Sept. 15).

But even off the Hill, where key players agree massive reform is needed to make the system more performance-based and effective, there is no consensus on exactly what that new system would look like and what those performance goals should be.

Many of the goals discussed at the invitation-only event are conflicting by nature. The usual suspects include the funding ratio for highways and transit systems, and the rate of return that individual states see from taxes they pay to finance the nation’s road and rail work.

Robert Atkinson, who chaired one of two congressionally created blue ribbon panels to examine transportation investment needs, said his panel, the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission, did not even broach the subject of where the increased investment should be spent in its report.

According to government estimates, the transportation sector accounts for roughly a third of U.S. carbon emissions, and Democrats have vowed to recast the nation’s roads and rails in a “greener” light.

But many state highway departments that had previously voiced support for the new environmental focus are now worrying that the emissions goals may grow overly ambitious and threaten to deliver another blow to both the economy and their efforts to repair and replace crumbling roads and bridges (Greenwire, Aug. 27)

Congress must also decide whether or not to welcome the private sector into the transportation field by giving firms long-term leases on public roads and bridges, effectively turning public infrastructure into a private product.

Click here to read the entire article.  For those wondering what is in the minds of our lawmakers drafting the reauthorization bill, here is congressman Oberstar’s handwritten scrap-paper version (pulled right from the House T&I Committee website, which has a lot of interesting materials to read on this subject).  Though it is not very detailed, it offers a general sensing of the direction he is taking (e.g., consolidating the existing behemoth (108 programs) into 4 categories to simplify the mgmt. structure, adding Office of Livability & Office of Expedited Project Delivery to the FHWA, etc.)

Image Courtesy: USDOT

(Source: USDOT Press Release)

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced the agenda  for the Distracted Driving Summit on Tuesday (shown below), September 30 and Wednesday, October 1. Over 200 safety experts, researchers, elected officials and members of the public will gather in Washington, D.C. to share their experiences, provide feedback and develop recommendations for reducing the growing safety risk that distracted driving is imposing on our nation’s roads.

The Distracted Driving Summit will bring together respected leaders from around the country for interactive sessions on the extent and impact of the problem, current research, regulations, best practices and other key topics. The two day Summit will feature five panels – on data, research, technology, policy, and outreach – with a range of experts discussing each topic.

• The Summit will begin with a context setting panel where participants will examine the scope of the issue and the various distractions that exist, followed by a panel that will review currently available research.
• Day one wraps up with an examination of distractions caused by technology and efforts made to assess and reduce negative effects caused by current and planned devices. Panelists will also consider technology that can prevent the consequences of driver distraction.
• Day two features a review of legislative and regulatory approaches for dealing with distracted driving; evaluations of the impact of such measures; and enforcement issues. Members of Congress and their staff will also have the opportunity to contribute to the discussion.
• Day two concludes with a discussion with teens about their experiences with distracted driving followed by an examination of various public awareness initiatives and research regarding the effectiveness of these efforts.

To accommodate the strong response, the Summit will be available live by webcast and members of the public will be given the opportunity to submit questions online for each individual panel discussion. The complete agenda and additional information about the Summit can be found at http://www.rita.dot.gov/distracted_driving_Summit/ .  Also, you can follow the latest developments via twitter @ distractdriving

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Distracted Driving Summit
September 30 – October 1, 2009
Renaissance Hotel, 999 9th Street NW, Washington, DC

Agenda Is Subject to Change

Wednesday, September 30

DOT Welcome and Summit Opening
Peter Appel, Administrator
Research and Innovative Technology Administration

Opening Address
Ray LaHood, U.S. Secretary of Transportation

Panel: Driver Distractions and Inattention – Definitions and Data
A context-setting panel on the definition of distracted driving (what it is and what it is not), data on the extent of the issue, the types of distractions across surface modes of transportation.

Moderator:       Victor Mendez, Administrator, Federal Highway Administration

Speaker:           Dr. John D. Lee, Professor, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Speaker:           Kristin Backstrom, Senior Manager, AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety
Speaker:           John Inglish, General Manager, Utah Transit Authority
Speaker:           Bruce Magladry, Director, Office of Highway Safety, National Transportation Safety Board

Panel: Research Results – How Risky is Distracted Driving?

This panel session will review what various research – experimental research, industry self reporting, collision studies, and observational studies– tell us about the nature of the problem of distracted driving.

Moderator:       Rose McMurray, Acting Deputy Administrator, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration

Speaker:           Dr. Ann Dellinger, Lead, Motor Vehicle Injury Prevention Team,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center of  Injury Prevention and Control
Speaker:           Dr. Tom Dingus, Director, Virginia Tech Transportation Institute
Speaker:           Dr. William Horrey, Chair, Surface Transportation Technical Group,
Human Factors and Ergonomics Society and Research Scientist,
Center for Behavioral Sciences, Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety
Speaker:           Dr. Key Dismukes, Chief Scientist, Human Systems Integration
Division, National Aeronautics and Space Administration Ames Research Center

Panel: Technology and Distracted Driving
This panel will focus on distractions caused by technology and on efforts that have been made (or are needed) to assess and reduce the negative impact of distractions caused by current and planned devices.  It will also consider technology that can prevent the consequences of distraction.

Moderator:       Peter Appel, Administrator, Research and Innovative Technology Administration

Speaker:           Dr. David Eby, Research Associate Professor and Head, Social
and Behavioral Analysis, University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute
Speaker:           Rob Strassburger, Vice President, Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers
Speaker:           Steve Largent, President and Chief Executive Officer, International Association
for Wireless Telecommunications Industry
Speaker:           Michael Petricone, Senior Vice President, Government Affairs, Consumer Electronics Association
Speaker:           Rod MacKenzie, Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of
Programs, Intelligent Transportation Society of America

Thursday, October 1

Congressional Presentation

Panel: Legislation, Regulation and Enforcement of Distracted Driving
This panel session will review legislative and regulatory approaches for addressing distracted driving; evaluations of the impact of such measures; enforcement issues; and public attitudes towards the issue.

Moderator:       Peter Rogoff, Administrator, Federal Transit Administration

Speaker:           John D’Amico, Representative, Illinois General Assembly
Speaker:           Bruce Starr, Senator, Oregon Senate and Executive Committee Member of the National Conference
of State Legislatures
Speaker:           Steve Farley, Representative, Arizona House of Representatives
Speaker:           Major David Salmon, Director, Traffic Services Division, New York State Police
Speaker:           Vernon Betkey, Chairman, Governors Highway Safety Association
and Director of the Maryland Highway Safety Office

Youth Program

Panel: Public Awareness and Education
This panel will review initiatives to increase public awareness of safety issues such as distracted driving, and will review research regarding the effectiveness of such efforts.

Moderator: Ron Medford, Acting Deputy Administrator, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

Speaker:           Sandy Spavone, Executive Director, National Organization for Youth Safety
Speaker:           Chuck Hurley, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer,  Mothers Against Drunk Driving
Speaker:           Ann Shoket, Editor-in-Chief, Seventeen Magazine
Speaker:           Janet Froetscher, President and Chief Executive Officer, National Safety Council
Speaker:           Dr. Adrian Lund, President, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

Secretary LaHood
Closing Remarks and Action Plan

(Source: New York Times)

The Obama administration issued proposed rules on Tuesday that impose the first nationwide limits on greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles and that require American cars and light truck fleet to meet a fuel efficiency standard of 35.5 miles a gallon by 2016.

The government projects that the regulations will raise car and truck prices by an average of $1,100, but that drivers will save $3,000 over the life of the vehicle in lower fuel bills. Officials also said the new program, which is to take effect in 2012, would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by nearly a billion tons and cut oil consumption by 1.8 billion barrels from 2012 to 2016.

The 1,227-page regulation will go through a 60-day public comment period before it is completed early next year.