(Source: Times of India & Central Chronicle)

Times of India report on this topic:

The Supreme Court on Thursday left no option for the Centre and states but to speedily implement the policy on installation of high security registration plates (HSRP) in 9 crore vehicles across the country.

A Bench comprising Chief Justice S H Kapadia andJustices K S Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar slammed the states for their lethargy in implementing the court’s 2008 judgment upholding the Centre’s 2001 notification on mandatory HSRPs for vehicles.

Writing the judgment for the Bench, Justice Kumar said the executive must implement the court’s order within the stipulated time, especially when the issue concerned safety of citizens, which was of paramount interest for the governments.   It lamented non-implementation of the court`s May 8, 2008 judgment pronounced on a petition filed by Maninderjit Singh Bitta and issued contempt notices to the transport secretaries of Delhi, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.

Some of the interesting aspects of the ruling include:

• If officials are found guilty of not implementing GPRS-enabled high security number plates they would not only be punished for contempt but also be liable to personally pay heavy cost.
• States which have initiated the process are directed to complete it in six weeks.
• Defaulting state transport secretaries are to file affidavit in four weeks.

click here to read the entire article.

Editor’s note: Given the constant security threats facing the nation, the swift implementation of high security registration plates makes a lot of sense. How on earth can they track rouge/unsafe elements on the road amongst a burgeoning vehicle population of 90 million that is continuing to grow leaps and bounds with each passing day? If anything, this should be a top priority at the Ministry of Transportation.

(Source: NY Times)

U.S. Doctors Say Biofuels Could Kill Over 192,000 Per Year in Developing Countries

Image courtesy: via NYTimes.com

The food vs. fuel debate has intensified a little more with the ever growing demand for bio-fuels.  Many of the world’s hungriest people are going to bed without a morsel to eat, as more of the conventional food crops such as corn are diverted towards making biofuels that power the vehicle fleets. This above graphic from the NY Times article shows an alarming increase in the way we have change the consumption from food to fuel starting at the dawn of this 21st century.

Each year, an ever larger portion of the world’s crops — cassava and corn, sugar and palm oil — is being diverted for biofuels as developed countries pass laws mandating greater use of nonfossil fuels and as emerging powerhouses like China seek new sources of energy to keep their cars and industries running. Cassava is a relatively new entrant in the biofuel stream.

But with food prices rising sharply in recent months, many experts are calling on countries to scale back their headlong rush into green fuel development, arguing that the combination of ambitious biofuel targets and mediocre harvests of some crucial crops is contributing to high prices, hunger and political instability.

This year, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization reported that its index of food prices was the highest in its more than 20 years of existence. Prices rose 15 percent from October to January alone, potentially “throwing an additional 44 million people in low- and middle-income countries into poverty,” the World Bank said.

On a related note, the following was published on TreeHugger.com:

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) has released a warning that U.S. and European policy to increase the production of biofuels could lead to almost 200,000 deaths in poorer countries. How? Mostly through higher food prices. Most biofuels are made using food crops like corn at this time, and diverting corn to ethanol refineries not only increases the price of corn, but it also encourage farmers to plant more of it, leaving less space for other types of crops, driving up their price too. This is a big deal if you live on $1-2 a day…

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source:  Thecityfix.com)

SeeClickFix, an online forum created to engage residents with community leaders to resolve neighborhood complaints, today announced the launch of a Facebook application. The Facebook application, similar to the SeeClickFix website and smartphone application, empowers citizens by giving them a chance to report issues in their communities directly through their Facebook accounts. Once reported, local authorities receive alerts on the complaints and can respond to issues accordingly.

“When the App is installed, the user’s location is pulled either directly from his or her current Facebook profile location or entered manually if no location is given,” reports the SeeClickFix blog. “Once the location is set, the user can start reporting issues, creating watch areas, discovering problems reported by neighbors, and, most important, advocating for an issue to be fixed. Users can automatically post reported issues to their walls, allowing friends to comment on the issue or vote for a fix.”

SeeClickFix has 14,000 registered public officials and more than 50,000 reported issues have been resolved through the website and its mobile application’s open forums. A Facebook application further encourages public empowerment by linking citizens with public officials through a familiar interface.

Click here to read more.

(Source: TheCityFix.com)

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced a 3 percent decrease in road fatalities between 2009 and 2010, which still adds up to 32,788 deaths. According to LaHood, last year’s traffic fatalities fell to the lowest levels since 1949, despite a 0.7 percent increase in the number of miles Americans drove—about 20.5 billion extra miles—and an 11 percent increase in congestion in the country’s 100 biggest metropolitan areas, making the decrease in traffic fatalities especially noteworthy.

Here is the USDOT’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Press Release:

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced that the number and rate of traffic fatalities in 2010 fell to the lowest levels since 1949, despite a significant increase in the number of miles Americans drove during the year.“Last year’s drop in traffic fatalities is welcome news and it proves that we can make a difference,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “Still, too many of our friends and neighbors are killed in preventable roadway tragedies every day. We will continue doing everything possible to make cars safer, increase seat belt use, put a stop to drunk driving and distracted driving and encourage drivers to put safety first.”

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) early projections, the number of traffic fatalities fell three percent between 2009 and 2010, from 33,808 to 32,788. Since 2005, fatalities have dropped 25 percent, from a total of 43,510 fatalities in 2005. The same estimates also project that the fatality rate will be the lowest recorded since 1949, with 1.09 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles traveled, down from the 1.13 fatality rate for 2009. The decrease in fatalities for 2010 occurred despite an estimated increase of nearly 21 billion miles in national vehicle miles traveled.

A regional breakdown showed the greatest drop in fatalities occurred in the Pacific Northwest states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Alaska, where they dropped by 12 percent. Arizona, California and Hawaii had the next steepest decline, nearly 11 percent.

“The decrease in traffic fatalities is a good sign, but we are always working to save lives,” said NHTSA Administrator David Strickland. “NHTSA will continue pressing forward on all of our safety initiatives to make sure our roads are as safe as they can possibly be.”

The Department of Transportation (DOT) has taken a comprehensive approach to reducing roadway fatalities by promoting strong traffic safety laws coupled with high-visibility enforcement and through rigorous vehicle safety programs and public awareness campaigns.

In 2009, Secretary LaHood launched a national anti-distracted driving campaign modeled on other successful NHTSA efforts to reduce fatalities, such as its “Over the Limit. Under Arrest.” and “Click It Or Ticket” campaigns to curb drunk driving and increase seat belt use. The U.S. DOT has launched a dedicated website, Distraction.gov, to provide the public with a comprehensive source of information on distracted driving. DOT has also hosted two national summits devoted to the issue, crafted sample legislation which states can use to adopt distracted driving laws, and initiated pilot law enforcement programs in Hartford, Conn., and Syracuse, N.Y.

NHTSA has also taken action to improve vehicle safety. The agency has urged automakers to swiftly and voluntarily report safety defects to keep the driving public safe. NHTSA has also encouraged the development and use of technologies to prevent crashes, such as electronic stability control, forward collision warning and lane departure warning systems. The agency also unveiled an updated 5-star rating system in 2010, which established more rigorous crash-test standards and began providing consumers with improved information about which cars perform best in collisions.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) has also been encouraging the use of Safety Edge technology — which reduces drivers’ risk of running off the road by shaping pavement edge — on new road and highway projects. FHWA has also promoted the use of rumble strips and cable median barriers to separate opposing directions of traffic to reduce the incidence of crossover head-on collisions.

To view NHTSA’s latest statistical projections of traffic fatalities in 2010, including regional estimates, click here.

(Source: Street Films)

This nice video from StreetFilms provides a brief overview of the concept of traffic calming and highlights some examples from cities across the country.  Do check out the other videos from the Moving Beyond Automobiles series. Have you ever observed such “calming” measures in your neighborhood?  Now that you have seen this, the next time you step out onto the streets you may notice a few of these measures deployed in your neighborhood.  If you don’t recognize them, would you like to share with us what traffic calming features work well in your neighborhood?

(Source: ITDP & Streetfilms)

Cities worldwide are demonstrating innovation in transport planning by integrating bike, BRT and metro systems, with Guangzhou in China announced as winner of the 2011 Sustainable Transport Award. Guangzhou’s new world-class BRT system integrates with bike lanes, bike share and metro stations, raising the bar for all cities.

Last year the city made major strides to cut carbon emissions and reclaim space for people, opening new bus rapid transit and public bike sharing systems.  It now carries 800,000 passengers a day, seamlessly connecting riders to both the metro system and the city’s new bike-share network.

Editor’s Note: It will be interesting to see how the other mega cities in Asia (New Delihi, Mumbai, Shanghai, Jakarta, etc) will adopt this successful and sustainable transportation option into the existing mix.   With growing prices for petroleum products and rising congestion, the cities will be forced to explore/adopt this model sooner than later.

(Source: Think Progress)

As Montana’s legislators are debating this week on a series of bills related to Driving Under the Influence (DUI) laws, including one that wants to count older DUI offenses against a defendant in sentencing, this gem of an argument was made by a legislator arguing against the bills.  How responsible!

Earlier this week, Republican Rep. Alan Hale took to the floor of the Montana legislature to slam these bills. The legislator — who actually runs a bar in Basin, Montana — declared that the new DUI laws are harming small businesses and destroying a way of life:

HALE: These DUI laws are not doing our small businesses in our state any good at all. They are destroying them. They are destroying a way of life that has been in Montana for years and years.

Editor’s note:  Was he really thinking before uttering these words?  I suspect a DUI (Delivering Under Influence) here.  Come on, Rep. Hale.  You can’t be advocating for your community’s well being only from an economic perspective.

(Source: Gas 2.0)

One of the biggest hurdles for market penetration for the Electric Vehicles (EV) is the charging times associated with the batteries in the vehicles. Some of these batteries take up to several hours (4hrs to 8hrs) for a full charge , a.k.a Top off, and continues to remain a big challenge for the manufacturers to convince their buyers. Looking at the existing fleet of vehicles in the market, some question the wisdom behind the EV charging investments. If you pulled up at a gas station along the way it takes roughly 5 minutes to “top off” or fill up your gas tak and get back on the road quickly. With the existing EVs in the market placethis is not possible, at least at this moment. That’s where Shai Agassi’s Better Place excelled with a marvellous idea. Why not just swap the batteries like you would do in a household device. And do it as quickly as you buy a burger at a drive through. Combining the two ideas results in what you can call the Battery Swap Station. For those who wondered aloud about the viability of a business model proposed by Project Better Place, the recent deployment of its Battery-Swap station in Israel should be worth taking note.

Image Courtesy: Better Place on Flickr

Batter Swap Infrastructure - Image Courtesy: Better Place on Flickr

Gas 2.0 notes the following:

Project Better Place’s Israeli facility released this video of the battery swapper in action, effectively “topping off” the electric car with a simple swipe of a card in about the same time it would take to top-off a conventional ICE car.  The stations themselves are designed to be modular in construction, and compatible with several different EVs – although they are presumably leaning heavily towards batteries powering Renault/Nissan’s EVs.

The Truth About Cars blog reports that 8 more Better Place battery-swap stations are currently in construction, and the company hopes to eventually have 40 similar stations operational throughout Israel.

Click here to learn more about the project.

Editor’s note: Until the battery technology is refined to the point where charging times are on par with the time it takes for filling up a gas tank in the conventional car, this approach seems prudent and better suited for rapid deployment.  Oh, on a related note – if this model were to be deployed in the US, I presume it would have a slight twist.  The stations will be designed to sell you a burger while you swap the batteries, which means you can see an integrated refueling station for the vehicle and the driver, just like how we have it now in the Gas Stations with convenience store options. Wouldn’t that be ironic to have a Better Place  Charging Station co-located with a burger joint like Burger King or McDonalds? Haha!  Oh,  come on.  I know you not heard many people say that: McDonalds is not a Better Place.

(Source: Orlando Sentinel via Yahoo News)

True to its tag line, NBA Cares, the residents of Miami got a chance to witness one of NBA’s best in action.  Seven time all star, Alanzo Mourning jumped out of his SUV to assist a citizen on wheelchair cross a busy highway in Miami, FL. Read up:

Mourning’s vehicle had been sitting in traffic on the right lane, when he spotted a disabled person sitting in a motorized wheelchair along the curb. Mourning jumped out of his SUV, stood in the road and stopped traffic by raising his long arms, while the wheelchair-bound pedestrian made it to the median. Then, the seven-time NBA All-Star immediately went to the southbound lanes and raised his arms to command stunned drivers to stop. All traffic movement instantly stopped, and the wheelchair safely made it to the other side.

After making sure the citizen was safe on the other side of the road, Mourning lowered his arms and headed to his SUV to the sound of cheering fans, who recognized the 6-foot-10 temporary crossing guard.

What a really caring gentleman and a wonderful citizen!  NBA ought to have more such example-setting characters who are so genuine! Way to go, Zo!