The carlet letter? NJ tags new drivers age 21 and younger with decal

April 15, 2009 at 11:27 pm

 (Source: Associated Press via Yahoo)

TRENTON, N.J. – Would you drive any differently if you knew there was a teenager behind the wheel of the car in front of you?

You might find out soon. A first-in-the-nation law in New Jersey will require new drivers ages 21 and younger to display identifying decals on their vehicles.

Gov. Jon Corzine signed the law Wednesday; it takes effect next year.

The decals will probably be a small reflective rectangle attached to the front and rear license plates to help police enforce restrictions on probationary drivers, motor vehicle officials said.

Police will use them to determine whether teens are violating the state driving curfew and passenger restrictions, said Pam Fischer, director of the New Jersey Division of Highway Safety.

Authorities will not use the decals to target young drivers or pull them over for no reason, she said.

The decals are long overdue and will save lives, said Ron Gesualdo, owner of Gene’s Driving School inMatawan.

“The parents are for it,” he said. “The kids don’t say anything, but you know what they’re thinking.”

One of those kids thinks the decals will only mean more trouble for teenagers.

“That’s going to mean police are going to be bothering us even more,” said Tebvon Mcneil, 18, of Paterson. “They see that sticker on the car, they’re just going to be pulling us over for no reason. Are there drugs in the car? That’s the first thing they’re going to think, because we’re teenagers.”

And not everyone thinks the new law will improve driver safety. Jennifer Collins, a 29-year-old Hamilton resident, wondered whether the stickers will distract other drivers who are looking for them in traffic.

“That really doesn’t make any sense to me, honestly,” she said.

Officials are considering using Velcro to attach the decals, so they can be removed by other drivers using the same car.

Click here to read the entire article.

A war on short yellow – Wall Street Journal Op-Ed visits the darkside of red-light enforcement

April 15, 2009 at 7:54 pm

 (Source: Wall Street Journal)

A Journal front-pager recently noted an Arizona man charged with attacking a freeway speed camera with a pick ax. Here’s the rest of the story: He was fined $3,500, not given a parade.

But don’t despair. We still live in a democracy. One Arizona sheriff recently proved you could get elected by opposing speed cameras. Meanwhile, the state legislature is considering bills to dismantle the system created by Gov. Janet Napolitano when she faced a gaping budget deficit, before she escaped to the Obama Department of Homeland Security. Petitioners in Arizona are also gathering signatures to put the question directly before voters — speed cameras have never won when submitted to voters.

Even the Scottsdale City Council recently voted not to oppose the anti-camera bills in the state legislature.

Why is this important? Because Arizona, specifically Scottsdale, is home to the two biggest companies, American Traffic Solutions and Redflex Traffic Systems, in the incestuous world of promoting and operating traffic cameras for revenue-hungry governments.

Laid to rest long ago should have been the pretense that the goal is “safety,” not chasing cash. New York State, sinking under budget shortfalls, last week authorized a batch of new red-light cameras around the state. A recent investigation by the Detroit News showed that even conventional ticket-writing is driven by revenue needs. Said one cop: “When you’re being told how many tickets you need to write, to me that’s a quota.”

Consider: Red-light running and speeding, the two main uses of traffic cameras, are implicated in fewer than 8% of accidents. A far more prevalent cause of nondrunken accidents is driver inattention — one study estimated, in a typical case the driver’s eyes are diverted from the road for a full three seconds or more, fidgeting with a cellphone, disciplining the kids in the back seat, snoozing, blotting up spilled coffee, etc.

What’s more, if not for the idiotic diversion of research dollars to fuel economy, the most highly touted auto-industry breakthroughs today would be exactly in this area. Available now or coming soon are devices that warn a driver when he’s wandering out of his lane or when another car is in his blind spot, even applying the brakes to prevent a collision.

Even defenders of photo enforcement acknowledge studies showing that red-light cameras (which are designed to be conspicuous to motorists) lead to an increase in rear-end collisions as drivers slam on the brakes. Defenders claim the trade-off is still a net gain because of reduced deadly T-bones in the middle of the intersection. But the real lesson may be that both types of accidents would be reduced by a longer yellow.

Click here to read the entire story.

Get ready for a little Tuk Tuk! USDOT and EPA approve Tuk Tuk North America’s Mitsubishi-powered three-wheelers

April 15, 2009 at 7:18 pm

(Source:  Autobloggreen)

Upon returning from a recent trip to Thailand, some friends of mine related experiences of what it’s like to travel on somewhat primitive roads in somewhat primitive vehicles. Disconcerting at first, apparently, but totally acceptable after a few trips prove that it’s (relatively) safe. The vehicles of choice in Thailand, along with a bunch of other far-away locales, are Tuk Tuks, three-wheeled machines that marry the front end of a scooter to the rear end of a passenger car. Soon, you’ll be able to get one in America.

We just got an email message from Tuk Tuk North America informing us that the company has officially been granted both DOT and EPA approval for its line of Mitsubishi-powered three-wheelers. This means that the Tuk Tuk will be completely road legal here in the United States. We’re not so sure you’d want to drive one cross-crountry (though we understand it’s fully capable of such trips), but as an around-town errand-runner, the little scoots might work out just fine, returning an estimated 55 miles per gallon.

Click here to read the entire article.

Questions arise about highway-safety nominee’s views on CAFE

April 15, 2009 at 10:34 am

(Source:  Greenwire – New York Times; AutoBlogGreen)

President Obama tapped a longtime crusader against drunken driving to lead the Transportation Department’s highway safety agency, but some environmentalists are concerned about the nominee’s positions on fuel economy standards.  The nomination of a new NHTSA administrator might seem like an event that would elicit little controversy, but when President Obama picked Chuck Hurley to head the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the rumbles began. In the White House announcement, Hurley’s work with Mothers Against Drunk Driving (he was CEO since 2005) and automobile safetly was highlighted. Sounds good, right? 
If confirmed, Charles Hurley would become the top official at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the agency that must draft and enforce a wide range of safety measures and craft corporate average fuel economy, or CAFE, standards.

 

Chuck Hurley - Image Courtesy: Dickinson College

Hurley has served as CEO of Mothers Against Drunk Driving since 2005 and has spent more than three decades working on a host of driving safety initiatives. He previously held senior leadership posts at both the National Safety Council and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit research group funded by auto insurers.

The insurance institute has been critical of past CAFE proposals and has backed an auto industry argument that a disproportionate focus on increasing fuel mileage would lead to smaller and less safe cars (See a related article on TransportGooru that discussed the latest IIHS crash test results correlating vehicle safety during crashes to the size and fuel effieicency factors of small cars). The group helped lead a successful industry push for CAFE standards that use an attribute-based system that requires cars and trucks to achieve different standards depending on each vehicle’s footprint.

Hurley’s work with the institute during the 1990s was enough to worry Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Campaign, which has advocated for fuel economy increases. “It would be awkward to have an administrator of NHTSA who’s spent much of his career attacking fuel economy standards that NHTSA administers,” he told the Wall Street Journal.

With exception of the fuel economy concern, Hurley’s nomination drew near-universal praise from highway safety advocates.  In addition to his extensive work on drunk-driving issues, Hurley has also worked with law enforcement agencies on air bag and seat belt issues, child passenger safety and teen driving initiatives.  “Chuck is a passionate safety advocate whose career has been dedicated to reducing motor vehicle deaths and injuries on the highways,” said Vernon Betkey Jr., chairman of the Governors Highway Safety Association.

Goodbye, Gas Guzzlers? – Washington Post editorial analyses the keys to succesful implementation of US’ Cash for Clunkers” initiative

April 15, 2009 at 12:42 am

(Source: Washington Post

Without higher gas taxes, ‘cash for clunkers’ won’t do the job 

CAR SALES in Germany jumped an astonishing 40 percent in March, thanks in large part to a “cash for clunkers” program in which the government gave those handing over old-model cars roughly $5,000 toward the purchase of newer, more fuel-efficient vehicles. Lawmakers in the United States have crafted similar proposals, hoping both to provide a boost to the U.S. auto industry and to spur sales of environmentally friendlier cars. But even the best of these proposals is not likely to provide the punch of the German initiative.

A bill co-sponsored by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) offers the most sensible approach. Buyers are eligible for vouchers worth $2,500 to $4,500 toward the purchase of a new car if they turn in older vehicles that get less than 18 miles to the gallon. The older vehicles would be junked and turned into scrap. The new car must have a sticker price of less than $45,000 and surpass fuel economy standards by 25 percent. Buyers may also apply the vouchers to fuel-efficient used cars manufactured after 2003. Vouchers could also be used for participating in public transportation programs. A similar proposal in the House provides credits only for vehicles made or assembled in North America; such a provision is problematic because it could violate free-trade agreements.

But would even a perfectly crafted program trigger the kind of spending spree witnessed in Germany? Unlikely, largely because of simple economics and human nature. In 1999, the German government began to gradually impose an additional tax on each gallon of gas beyond the existing tax; today, the additional tax stands at 50 cents, and high gas prices push consumers toward fuel-efficient cars or public transportation even without additional incentives. Yet the Germans did not stop there. The country announced at the start of this year that it would implement in July a new tax based on carbon dioxide emissions; the larger the car and the greater its emissions, the higher the tax. No wonder, then, that Germans flocked to take advantage of the cash-for-clunkers deal before driving becomes even more expensive.

Click here to read the entire article (free regn. required).  

Note:  Below is a list of articles on this issue, previously published on TransportGooru.  This compilation of articles offer an insight into state of various “Cash for Clunkers” style programs implemented (or currently being debated) across the globe (Germany, UK, etc,). Stay plugged in to TransportGooru for more on this topic in the days to come.

 Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save (CARS) Act revives “Cash for Clunkers” scrapping plan in U.S

Germany plans to extend Abwrackprämie aka “Environmental Bonus”

The bickering starts over the implementation of the Cash for Clunkers legislation

Obama Favors “Cash for Clunkers”

Germany increases subsidy to 5 Billion Euros, tripling incentives for its “Cash for Clunker” (Abwrackprämie) program

Britain mulls implementation of “Cash for Clunkers” scheme to boost ailing auto sales 

Where the US stands in pushing “Cash for Clunkers”- Four bills in Congress; Details Needed

“Just 15 of the world’s biggest ships may now emit as much pollution as all the world’s 760m cars”

April 14, 2009 at 7:47 pm

One giant container ship can emit almost the same amount of cancer and asthma-causing chemicals as 50m cars, study finds

(Source: Guardian via Tree Hugger)

The Guardian has a pretty shocking piece about giant cargo ships and the pollution they emit. The title of this post is a line from “confidential data from maritime industry insiders”, and according to them, the low-grade ship bunker fuel that powers cargo ships has up to 2,000 times the sulphur content of diesel fuel used in US, and European automobiles and emission control is practically non-existent.  Here we can see that the primary concern with shipping is air-pollution (“US academic research which showed that pollution from the world’s 90,000 cargo ships leads to 60,000 deaths a year in the US alone and costs up to $330bn per year in health costs from lung and heart diseases”). It does contribute significantly to global warming, but about 5-6 times less than land-based transportation.

Shipping by numbers (From Guardian)The world’s biggest container ships have 109,000 horsepower engines which weigh 2,300 tons.

Each ship expects to operate 24hrs a day for about 280 days a year

There are 90,000 ocean-going cargo ships

Shipping is responsible for 18-30% of all the world’s nitrogen oxide (NOx) pollution and 9% of the global sulphur oxide (SOx) pollution.

One large ship can generate about 5,000 tonnes of sulphur oxide (SOx) pollution in a year

70% of all ship emissions are within 400km of land.

85% of all ship pollution is in the northern hemisphere.

Shipping is responsible for 3.5% to 4% of all climate change emissions

The calculations of ship and car pollution are based on the world’s largest 85,790KW ships’ diesel engines which operate about 280 days a year generating roughly 5,200 tonnes of SOx a year, compared with diesel and petrol cars which drive 15,000km a year and emit approximately 101gm of SO2/SoX a year.

Scoopful of GM News – Bankruptcy, Churning Board Members, Sales Dreams, Volt Reality, Vehicle Recall, etc..

April 14, 2009 at 6:48 pm

(Source: Jalopnik, Wired, Autoblog, Detroit News)

GM chair fears deal can’t be reached: Kent Kresa, interim chairman of General Motors Corp., is not optimistic money-saving concessions can be reached with bondholders and the United Auto Workers to avoid bankruptcy before a June 1 deadline. “I’m hopeful we can get there,” Kresa told The Detroit News today. “Everybody understands we would be in a much better situation if we can resolve this among all the players without going through bankruptcy.” GM is trying to restructure about $28 billion in unsecured debt held by GM’s bondholders and $20 billion in obligations to the United Auto Workers. The federal government also may agree to swap some of its $13.4 billion in General Motors Corp. debt for new equity in the company in a move to help boost GM’s balance sheet.

GM chairman looking to turn over half of board of trustees by June? According to the Detroit Free Press, General Motors interim chairman, Kent Kresa, has been asked by president Obama’s administration to replenish the automaker’s board with fresh blood. Kresa said that while the board did achieve “historic things” recently, like renegotiating the UAW pay scale, he also said that the board didn’t fully comprehend the magnitude of the downturn. 

 GM Says Volt Won’t ‘Pay the Rent’ : General Motors won’t make money on its electric car for quite awhile. That’s to be expected, and it should be supported. The Obama administration doesn’t understand that.

 

GM Looks To Double Sales In China By 2012 [Carpocalypse]: GM looking to double sales in China by 2012. Good luck with that. [Reuters]

GM recalling 1.4 million passenger cars over potential engine fires:  The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has just announced a major recall covering nearly 1.5 million General Motors passenger cars from the late 90’s and early 2000s. The recall affects various Buick, Chevrolet, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac models equipped with normally aspirated versions of GM’s much-utilized 3800 3.8-liter V6…Autoblog –

 

GM, Task Force preparing for “surgical” bankruptcy: According to a lengthy report by the New York Times, the Treasury Department is directing General Motors to begin work on a bankruptcy filing by June 1. Based on sources close to the talks who were unable to officially discuss the process, the report outlines the “fast ‘surgical’ bankruptcy” of the automaker if GM is unable to reach an agreeme…

GM‘s new offer for bondholders may contain no cash, just equity: GM, Earnings/FinancialsGM’s most recent offer to its bondholders offered a little bit of cash and a little bit of equity. GM CEO Fritz Henderson’s example was that a holder of $1,000 in bonds would end up with $333 and a some equity. After conferring with the Auto Task Force, however, that offer was deemed excessive in light of GM‘s situation so…

IIHS: New crash tests demonstrate the influence of vehicle size and weight on safety in crashes – Smart forTwo & Toyota Yaris score poorly

April 14, 2009 at 6:11 pm

Smart USA quickly responds to IIHS crash test results

(Source:  AutoblogJalopnik IIHS)

This morning’s IIHS report on the shocking finding that little cars don’t take well to colliding, at speed, with bigger cars.  Three front-to-front crash tests, each involving a microcar or minicar into a midsize model from the same manufacturer, show how extra vehicle size and weight enhance occupant protection in collisions. These Insurance Institute for Highway Safety tests are about the physics of car crashes, which dictate that very small cars generally can’t protect people in crashes as well as bigger, heavier models.

“There are good reasons people buy minicars,” says Institute president Adrian Lund. “They’re more affordable, and they use less gas. But the safety trade-offs are clear from our new tests. Equally clear are the implications when it comes to fuel economy. If automakers downsize cars so their fleets use less fuel, occupant safety will be compromised. However, there are ways to serve fuel economy and safety at the same time.”

 Now Jalopnik has some of these crash videos here.

The three tests we have are between the Honda Accord and the Honda Fit, the Toyota Camry and Toyota Yaris, and finally the Mercedes C300 and the Smart ForTwo. With each we get a full speed offset frontal crash with both cars traveling at 40 MPH, destruction and carnage ensue and rightly so, there’s a lot of energy involved here. These are hardly scientific tests, and they represent the absolute most extreme crash scenario for these speeds, especially for the smaller cars. Ratings got from “Good” at the top of the scale through “Acceptable” and “Poor.” Considering this is one car bashing into another, the evaluation is somewhat subjective, but it gives an idea of relative performance. Let’s take a closer look at each.

 Click here to read the entire article and to watch two other awesome videos.  Seen below is the IIHS report in PDF format.  To download the report, please visit the IIHS website

P.S:  According to AutoBlog, folks over at Smart USA were not pleased to see the results of the latest batch of crash testing from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The IIHS did a series of frontal offset crash tests between small and mid-size cars, one of which included a smart ForTwo versus a Mercedes C300. While the results may have been what most people expected, they don’t correlate with the ForTwo’s results in standardized tests where the IIHS rates the smart as good in front and side impacts. The feds at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration give the smart 4 stars on frontal impact and 5 on side impact. 

The problem, as Smart USA sees it, is that the IIHS devised a test that no automaker has designed to and that they claim only represents about one percent of real world accidents. Smart has even set up a site for customer testimonials about the crash safety performance of their ForTwo. Typically, in the past, Smarts have actually done quite well in similar vehicle-on-vehicle tests, such as the ones conducted by Mercedes and Auto Motor und Sport after the jump.

Saudi government bans “lewd” personalized license plates including: “SEX,” “ASS,” and… “USA”?!

April 14, 2009 at 5:02 pm

(Source: BBC via Autoblog; Photo: Saudi Jeans via Autoblog)

Saudi Arabia recently instated a new type of license plate that is expected to be fitted to 49 million cars in the kingdom. As opposed to the old Arabic-only plates, the new plates feature Arabic and Latin letters and numbers. Drivers can even request that the three letters on the lower right form certain 3-letter English words, like “nut.”
But according to the BBC, authorities have published a list words that definitely cannot be placed there, and heading the list of words like “SEX” and “ASS” is this one: “USA.”  It hasn’t been explained why “USA” is on the list of Saudi Arabia’s banned words, but such plates and 90,000 others like it are being recalled and replaced with something more acceptable.   Personalised plates are popular with wealthy young Saudis. One plate recently sold at auction for 6m riyals ($1.2m), the newspaper reported.
Such license plate controversies are not new in many parts of the English speaking world.  Often plates implying profane matter are restricted in the U.S. and for those who remember the recent one from Colorado touting a woman’s love for tofu got a lot of media attention.  PETAf iles blog reports that no one driving through Colorado will be seeing the personalized license plate “ILVTOFU” anytime soon, thanks to the DMV’s rejection of the message as “possibly offensive to the general public.”  Wait, what? How is loving tofu offensive? As it turns out, the license-plate approver had an entirely different interpretation of the message, as in I-LV-TO-eff-you.

While it’s a creative interpretation, it’s not exactly what the Colorado mother of three vegetarian kids had in mind. Coffman-Lee is a vegan, and as she puts it, “I’m very expressive. I’m anti-fur, anti-rodeo, anti-circus when they come to Denver, and I thought, ‘Here’s a chance to be positive and say I love something.'” She even says that a friend at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animal (PETA) liked the idea so much they were willing to pay the $60 plate fee.Hopefully, with a little explanation and maybe even a tasty sample of the jiggly white stuff, the rejection will be overturned and her car can become the vegetarian-message-on-wheels that it was meant to be.  

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.