Infographic: Distracted Driving: Moral Hazards of Motoring Muddled

June 28, 2013 at 6:27 pm

In a country with nearly 300 million vehicles and an equal number (or more?) of mobile devices distracted is fast becoming a big issue.  this infographic by IFA Auto Insurance, designed to raise public awareness about the dangers of distracted driving, shows you how the extent of the problem, the consequences, etc.  Worth sharing with your peers.

Image Courtesy: IFA Auto Insurance via Business2Community.com

Source: business2community 

WashPost’s Dr. Gridlock: Train Fight Highlights Flaw In Call-Button Setup

May 4, 2009 at 2:12 pm

(Source: Washington Post)

Dear Dr. Gridlock:

I was on a packed Red Line train shortly after 6 p.m. [Monday] when a fight broke out between two passengers as the train was moving between Farragut North and Metro Center. As the two passengers fought near the forward end of the car, several passengers tried to find the emergency call button to call the train conductor.

 Apparently, the button was at the rear of the train car, but the train was so crowded it took some time for word to get to the passengers within reach of the call button. In the meantime, passengers in the center of the car, desperate to do something to get the attention of the train operator, opened the emergency box, which only has an emergency brake lever that stops the train, but no call button. A passenger pulled the lever, which stopped the train.A few moments later, the train operator, as if unaware of why the train stopped, asked passengers to stop leaning on the doors. About five tense minutes later — during which time a couple of good Samaritans kept the two combatants separated — two Metro police officers boarded the train and got it moving (after some struggle with the now-extended brake lever) to Metro Center.

No passengers were harmed, but the fact that there were no call buttons at the center of the train — where there was an emergency box — led to some unnecessary anxiety, delays as the train was stopped between stations, and may have further endangered passengers if the fight had continued while the train and passengers were trapped inside the tunnel.

— Isaiah J. Poole, Washington

Passengers can easily get confused about the purpose of the red boxes on either side of the central doors. They don’t control the brakes. Pulling the lever releases the central door so passengers can evacuate the car. Open that box only in an emergency, and on the instructions of the train operator after the train has stopped. Leaping from a moving train into a darkened tunnel is not an option.

The emergency door boxes are not a substitute for the intercoms. But on a crowded train, the intercoms are hard to get to at the ends of the cars, and sometimes — as we saw when train operators were inadvertently stopping with some rear cars still in tunnels — passengers don’t think about using them in time.

There’s a better setup on the newest cars: Call buttons and intercoms are in the middle of the cars as well as at the ends. And the boxes with the emergency door levers are colored beige, rather than red. The lettering says “Emergency Door Release.”

When the Red Line train’s lever was pulled by a rider in the fifth car on Monday, the train operator up front got an indication that there was a door problem. At the same time, Metro spokesman Steven Taubenkibel said, the train’s fail-safe system was bringing it to a stop. Transit police responded to the incident, located the fighters and removed them from the train at Metro Center, Taubenkibel said. They declined to press charges against each other.

A Word of Advise from TransportGooru:

1).  Dear Fight Club Members, it is already a painful experience commuting by DC’s Metro rail during the peak hours.  And you people make it worse by getting into such silly fights without knowing that we are all terribly inconvenienced by your immature behavior.  If you really feel like duking it out, wait till you get to your stop and start jumping at each other.  

2). Dear Dr. Gridlock,  for your kind attention the suggestion to dial 9-1-1 or to use a cellphone to call out from a DC metro tunnel is “INVALID”.  The metro system didn’t realize the concept of “security” when it leased out the licenses only to Verizon, which means cellphone users with other carrers like AT&T, Sprint, etc are sitting ducks until they resurface from the tunnel to an above ground station or section of the track.  Talking about Social Equity and DC Metro makes me mad!  All damn tax payers paid for the system and how come Metro decided to lease out the lines only to the previleged Verzion customers?  This is a DUMB policy and only validates eagerness to remain out of touch and incredibly partial & discreminatory!

California Attorney General Gets Wheels Stolen Off Camry Hybrid

May 1, 2009 at 12:53 pm

Yes, it can happpen to anyone!  Even if you are the Attorney General of California.  The thieves in California are probably the best of the breed in this business – sincere & hardworking; they just go about doing their jobs without any discrimination. A brazen thief swiped two wheels off Attorney General Jerry Brown‘s state-owned Toyota Camry Hybrid. Is this schadenfreude or irony?

The theft occurred while Brown was out of town at the state Democratic convention in Sacramento and the car was parked streetside in front of his Oakland Hills home. The thieves left the car up on cinder blocks, observing proper wheel theft etiquette, boldly choosing to take the two street facing wheels rather than the home-facing wheels. 

Amy Morosini, 40, a neighbor of Brown’s, said she was driving with her family to a college reunion on Saturday when she saw the car on a cinder block.

“I kind of just pointed it out to my husband and said, ‘Oh my God, look! Someone stole Jerry’s tires!’ ” Morosini said Thursday.

 

Th ebest part in this is the sense of humor exhibited by the AG.  Brown said in a message posted on his Facebook page:  

“Even though I am California’s ‘top cop,’ 2 of my tires were stolen. No matter. I got 2 new ones and I’m rolling again!” 

Way to go,  Mr. Brown!  Keep rollin’. BTW, Does the thief know that he stole his own money – the wheels belonged to a tax-payer owned state vehicle.  Looks like California’s  thieves are among the dumbest in business. 

(Source:  SF Gate via Jalopnik)

Car thieves live it up on Candid Camera – Houston Police Dept’s rigged fleet catches thives and their happy moments

April 29, 2009 at 12:10 am

The Houston Police Department has assembled a fleet of bait cars in the hope of capturing car thieves. At the very least, they’ve captured some hilarious video of robbers becoming victims of their own hubris.

Everyone seems to be smoking in this videos, which makes believe no one here is capable of making long-term decisions about their well-being. According to the police, they’re a perfect 52-52 in arrests and convictions because it’s hard to mount a defense when they have you on video calling someone to brag about stealing a car from inside a stolen car. Enjoy the video below.

Totally pissed off: $206 in urine-soaked coins is not acceptable payment for a speeding ticket in Washington

March 26, 2009 at 4:05 pm

(Source: Autoblog & Oregon Live)

Michael Harold Lynch was ticketed for doing 54 mph in a 35 mph area that was also a construction zone. The fine was $206. Lynch decided to let his anger flow by placing $206 in a plastic bag, peeing in the bag and sending it in. Upon receiving Lynch’s little care package, the courthouse staff gave it to a police officer and declined to accept the pungent payment to clear the ticket. 
“It was nasty. It reeked,” said Sgt. Phil Anderchuk.

Anderchuk called a U.S. postal inspector to see if federal law had been broken, and learned that it’s not against the law to mail a box of bodily fluids, as long as it’s properly packed and doesn’t emit an obnoxious odor. 

In explaining why the courthouse couldn’t accept Lynch’s payment, the sergeant wrote that “the pile of coins emitted a strong, pungent odor of stale urine. This was very concerning to me.”

Anderchuk reminded Lynch he still owed for the ticket.

“I encourage you to submit your payment in a more traditional form,” he wrote in a January letter. He told Lynch to expect a visit from a postal inspector, presumably to talk about how close he came to violating federal law.

Lynch apparently got the message, because a few weeks later a check arrived. But it was made out to the wrong agency. Courthouse staff sent it back. In February, a new check arrived, but this time it was made out for the wrong amount: $206, which didn’t account for $65 in penalties for arriving late. Last week, the state turned Lynch’s case over to a collection agency.

Click here to read the entire story. 

Bobbys mess-up big time: British driver ticketed for 173mph in a vehicle capable of 127mph

March 25, 2009 at 12:49 pm

(Source: Jalopnik & Daily Telegraph; Photo Courtesy: Jalopnik )

Clocked by police driving at 173mph in a 50mph zone, the Brit avoided jail after his defence team said his sports car was incapable of travelling that fast.

Tex O’Reilly, winner of the award for least Britishly-named man ever, was ticketed for 173MPH in a 50MPH zone while driving his Lotus Elise. One problem? The Lotus Elise tops out at a leisurely 127MPH.

The Telegraph article reports that the prosecution failed to disprove the defence claims and accepted O’Reilly’s basis of plea. The builder from Canal Bridge in Willington, Derbys, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving on the basis that he had driven at just 105mph.

Handing him a £5,000 fine and two-year driving ban, Judge Andrew Hamilton said: “May I make it absolutely clear that had you been driving at 150mph you would have been going immediately to prison.

“However, you were not driving at 150mph, you were driving at 105mph, and for whatever reason the prosecution have accepted that basis of plea, and that puts the case in a different light.”

O’Reilly sold the Lotus to a buyer in Germany for about £9,000 a month after the offence was committed on the A515 between Buxton and Ashbourne on July 12. 

Asked by the judge why the prosecution case had not involved tests of the Lotus in Germany, she added: “The defendant has asserted that the car could not have done that speed. Inquiries have been made as far as they can be and we can’t go further than that.  “It may be because our defendant is fortunate in the circumstances that the car has been moved very quickly from the country.”  But Dominic Shelley, defending, said “slippage” with speeding devices or human error can account for such disparities in recorded and actual speeds.  “They (Lotus Elises) are not built for that speed and the likelihood of one being able to keep control of such a vehicle at that speed is beyond comprehension,” he said.

Click here to read the entire article.