(Source: via Reddit)

Image Courtesy: Imgur.com via Reddit

And here is the funny road safety campaign video featuring the sign above. How much I wish America adopted this blunt, yet funny style of conveying the message. Our American campaign signs are boring compared to the Aussies’. PERIOD!

(Source: Youtube Via Reddit)

The advent of dash cams in cops cars have brought to us many a horrible crimes as they happened on the roads. Here is one such occurrence where the police saw (and recorded) a woman hit a pedestrian. Then the chase starts and finishes with a nice & beautiful closing statement by the police officer!  It is amazing how the officers handled the situation (one gets off the chase to attend to the accident victim and the other gets off chasing the offending driver).  Just brilliant!  The best part of the video for me was this statement delivered by the cop: “Sod the Bloody Work”!  Well put, Officer! I couldn’t have said it any better.

(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: USDOT Secretary Ray LaHood’s Fastlane Blog)

After looking at this picture, I’m sure you will never drive while talking on the cell phone.

Image Courtesy: Eva Levine via Sec. Ray LaHood's Fastlane Blog

Sec. Ray LaHood’s blog post offers some details behind this horrific mangled mess of metal:

• A garage New Canaan, Connecticut has put this mangled vehicle on display along with a “No-Cell-Phones” sign . This one was destroyed in a crash that may have been caused–not by drunk driving, but by a distracted driver.
• The red VW Jetta, now barely recognizable, was being driven by a 19-year-old woman. When she entered Interstate 95, she struck another vehicle, causing her car to spin out and hit the median, where it was hit by a tractor trailer. The young driver was killed in the accident.
• The deceased driver’s family gave written approval for the Garage owner  to put it on a highly visible corner of his property with hopes of deterring at least a few “distracted drivers.”

What a powerful message, in deed.

Image Courtesy: Eva Levine via Sec. Ray LaHood's Fastlane Blog

Click here to read more.

Related articles

• Distracted: 1 in 6 Road Deaths Tied to Texting (abcnews.go.com)
• US official wants ‘distracted driving’ label on cell phones (alternet.org)
• U.S. Transportation Sec. Hates Facebook, Twitter [Emissions] (jalopnik.com)
• UPS Supports LaHood’s Effort to Stop Distracted Driving (eon.businesswire.com)
• “Focusing On Distracted Driving” and related posts (transportation.nationaljournal.com)
• No Surprise: Distracted Driving Up Significantly Since 2005 (ridelust.com)
• Distracted driving deaths declining in the U.S. (ctv.ca)
• LaHood releases 2009 distracted driving crash figures ahead of summit (autoblog.com)
• Report: LaHood mulling nationwide ban on all in-car mobile phone use? (autoblog.com)

(Sources: Next Generation HealthCare via Good; Infrastructurist)

Incidents like 9-11 bring to people’s mind the dangers of man made disasters, and the enormity of the problem gets magnified with the loss of lives resulting from such incidents.  But how many of us realize that here in the US we lose many more lives on our nation’s roads every year due to automobile accidents?  If you have not grasped the enormity of the problem we are facing in our roads, it the rough equivalent of 12 times the losses we suffered in that one incident  — that would be roughly 34,000 lives were lost in the US roads in 2009 alone, according to a new report released by NHTSA. In the decades past the problem was even worse and the transportation agencies at all levels – Federal, State and Local have been actively engaged in combating this problem.  The silver lining in this grey cloud is that the numbers are dropping steadily in the past the years, at least in the US.   Thanks in large part to the continued efforts of the governments in making our roads safer and also to the auto manufacturers who have made the vehicles stronger and smarter, we can now continue to see a reduction in the years ahead.  Here are some interesting numbers from this NHTSA estimates:

• A decline in highway deaths of  8.9% from 2008 to 2009
• The lowest fatality rate–1.16 deaths for every 100 million vehicle miles traveled–on record
• The lowest overall number of deaths–33,963–since 1954
• 15 straight quarters of decline in the number of overall roadway deaths

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the rest of the world.  Pretty much every country on this blue planet has been a victim of this problem and many of them counter massive, tragic losses every year that have only continued to climb up.   The losses are steeper in many of the developing countries and under-developed countries, where the poor infrastructure and lack of enforcement & driver education are compounding the problems.  Especially in countries like China and India, where the growing economies have fueled a significant spike in the number of vehicles on road, the governments are struggling to keep pace with the surging demand for roads and other surface transportation infrastructure. The graphical depiction below, courtesy of  Next Generation Healthcare, clearly demonstrates the enormous problem we are facing around the world.  It shows how many deaths there are from road traffic accidents in different parts of the world and the numbers are alarming.

Click to enlarge the image

Quoting the numbers from the NHTSA estimate for 2009 motor vehicle traffic fatalities, Ray LaHood – the Secretary of the US Department of Transportation, noted on his blog that he is extremely encouraged by the significant drop in fatalities on American roads but at the same time he is disturbed by the fact that “we are still talking about nearly 34,000 preventable deaths a year. There are still too many people dying in traffic accidents every year. Just too many.”

On 2 March 2010 governments around the world took the historic decision to increase action to address the road safety crisis over the next ten years. The UN General Assembly resolution proclaiming a Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 (A/64/L.44/Rev.1) was tabled by the Government of the Russian Federation and cosponsored by more than 90 countries. WHO welcomes this proclamation which seeks to save lives by halting the increasing trends in road traffic deaths and injuries world-wide.  A draft Plan for the Decade, which was prepared by WHO with support from members of the UN Road Safety Collaboration, is now open to all stakeholders for comments. Visit the Collaboration’s web site at http://www.who.int/roadsafety.

Some nuggets of information for you that will make you gasp (courtesy of World Health Organization’s report on road safety titled The Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020):

• Over 3000 people die on the world’s roads every day.
• Tens of millions of people are injured or disabled every year.  Nearly 1.3 million people are killed each year. If trends continue unabated deaths will rise to an estimated 2.4 million a year by 2030.
• Between 20 and 30 million sustain non-fatal injuries.
• It’s predicted that by 2030, the amount of people who are killed in road traffic accidents will rise to fifth in the leading causes of death around the world. Currently it is in ninth place.

Hopefully, with improved funding and targeted attention towards issues like distracted driving and drunk driving, we can expect a decrease in this trend.   Oh if are wondering how you personally contribute towardsaddressing the problem — Leave your keys behind and take transit systems (buses, trains, etc) if you can.   If you have the proper infrastructure, you can consider walking or biking to places instead of driving. Next time when you drive your car/ motorcycle/bicycle ,  remember that you are not just driving for your own safety but also also for those of others who share that road with you.  At the end of the day, there is only so much the goverments can do to keep is safe and we the citizens have to realize that they have a very important and personal role to play in keeping our roads safe.  Let’s do it!

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• Exclusive: Driving Fatalities Fall to Record Lows, According to Report (abcnews.go.com)
• U.S. Traffic Fatalities Hit Historic Lows (thecarconnection.com)
• Highway deaths hit lowest level since ’50s (msnbc.msn.com)
• U.S. Plans New Car-Safety Rules (online.wsj.com)
• Driving deaths plunge, fewest since 1954 (money.cnn.com)
• Highway deaths drop to lowest levels since 1950s (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

(Source: Washington Post , FoxNews.com, & CNET)

Image Courtesy: CNET - Trapster alerts you to nearby speed cameras and "Smokey takin' pictures."

A must-have iPhone application for people who drive a lot is “Trapster” the app for avoiding speed traps. Or a better description by Paul Carr before he was fired from The Guardian: “Yes, that’s Trapster: the mobile distraction for when driving at high speed isn’t fucking dangerous enough.”

The free program uses the GPS receiver built into new iPhones to track a driver’s location and warn of nearby speed traps and red light cameras. It’s also available for phones running Google Android and some BlackBerries.  Drivers can add new locations to the app by hitting buttons to mark speed traps and red light cameras for other drivers. Users can also rate the accuracy of speed trap reports, which helps weed out fake inputs.

It’s been nearly a year since the debut of Trapster, a controversial but popular app that alerts you of nearby speed traps, cameras, and the like. It’s had more than 1 million downloads, and is “getting about 50,000 downloads a day right now” to add to that.

Version 3.5 released back in September, bringing with it some impressive–and, for many users, long-awaited–new features. Here’s the rundown ((courtesy of CNET):

• Improved interface Five features (some of them new) are now accessible by tapping blue icons that span the right side of the screen.
• Bluetooth audio If your car supports Bluetooth, you can pair Trapster to your stereo to get audio alerts over your speakers. Even better, if your car supports A2DP (i.e. stereo Bluetooth), you can take advantage of:
• Built-in iPod controls Tap the little musical-note icon to slide open Trapster’s iPod audio controls. Obviously, you don’t need stereo Bluetooth to use them, but it sure is a nice combo.
• Rotating maps Trapster tacks your position in real-time on a moving map. Now, that map can rotate depending on your direction of travel rather than staying in “always-North” mode. The top blue icon toggles this feature on and off.
• Real-time traffic The bottom blue icon slides out a Google Traffic map, which shows you trouble spots in your area. Handy, but it’s too bad the developers could’t integrate this with the main map instead of requiring you to view a second one.

Image Courtesy: Trapster

Trapster crowdsources the data from its users who report speed traps.  This information is stored in the server and sharing with other Trapster users who come later near the same location, thus making the road safe . The more users, the more data, and the safer the roads are for speeders. The app potentially can help users speed or run lights more often. Nonetheless, police are largely supportive of Trapster, because they hope it will get users to slow down.

“Anything that gets people to slow down on the highway, or drive in a more responsible manner, is a good thing,” said Corinne Geller, public relations manager for the Virginia State Police.  She said the state itself uses that logic to announce some red light cameras and speed-limit enforcement areas.  “We don’t hide,” Geller said.

Here are some interesting stats from the Trapster website (as of Sep 10, 2009)

• 1,621,254 Total Trapster users world-wide
• 1,402,349 iPhones using Trapster
• 818,205 Traps reported world-wide
• Trapster is the 20th most downloaded app for the iPhone out of all 85,000 odd apps.
• Everyday more people download Trapster for iPhone than all other traffic/driving related apps COMBINED.

Click here to read more.

(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.

(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.

(Source: NY Times)

The Department of Transportation plans to hold a summit meeting on distracted driving in September, according to a safety advocate who was invited to participate reported NY Times on Monday.

David Teater, a spokesman for the National Safety Council, a nonprofit advocacy group, said the Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood, plans to hold a press conference Tuesday to announce plans for the summit meeting.

The agency confirmed that Secretary LaHood is making an announcement Tuesday “about combating distracted driving,” including practices like texting behind the wheel.  As indicated the Secretary went public, outlining his plans for a summit this morning.  In late September, senior transportation officials, elected officials, safety advocates, law enforcement representatives and academics will convene in Washington, DC to discuss ideas about how to combat distracted driving.

“If it were up to me, I would ban drivers from texting, but unfortunately, laws aren’t always enough,” said Sec. LaHood. “We’ve learned from past safety awareness campaigns that it takes a coordinated strategy combining education and enforcement to get results. That’s why this meeting with experienced officials, experts and law enforcement will be such a crucial first step in our efforts to put an end to distracted driving.”

Secretary LaHood noted today on his Fast Lane Blog:

When I was home in Peoria a few weeks ago, Alyssa Burns, a 17-year-old high school student was killed when she drove off the road.

It turns out she was texting while driving.

We’ve all seen the footage of the bus driver who was talking and texting on two cell phones while driving.

He smashed into the back of a car, injured the driver, and ended up driving into a swimming pool.

The horrific commuter train crash last year in California involved an operator who was too busy texting to pay attention to what he should have been doing. As a result, 25 people were killed and 135 were injured.

If it were up to me, I would ban drivers from texting.

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.

That’s why I announced this morning that I have decided to convene a summit of senior transportation officials, safety advocates, law enforcement representatives, members of Congress and academics who study these matters.

We will meet next month to discuss how to put an end to the rash of accidents and fatalities that have cropped up because of distracted driving.

When we are done, I expect to have a list of concrete steps to announce.

The bottom line is, we need to put an end to unsafe cell phone use, typing on blackberries and other activities that require drivers to take their eyes off the road and their focus away from driving.

The USDOT press release provides  further information on the summit and also directs readers to a website created for this summit.   For information and updates on next month’s summit on distracted driving, visit:http://www.rita.dot.gov/distracted_driving_summit/. Taking it one step further, the website offers to provide updates on the Distracted Driving Summit via Twitter at http://twitter.com/distractdriving.

Image Courtesy: Apture

Click here to read the entire article.

Wide access to U.S. roads granted to Mexican trucks in NAFTA would be terminated. Critics cite safety concerns, but a spokesman for the Mexican Embassy calls it ‘protectionism, plain and simple.’

(Source: LA Times)