Miscellaneous
NHTSA: drunk driving down; drugged driving on the rise
Drunk driving is on the decline, but that doesn’t necessarily mean traffic is safer: While drunk driving campaigns have been particularly effective in recent years, prescription drug and marijuana use is emerging more and more on our country’s roads, according to two new studies from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). First, the positive […]
Hack attack: How vulnerable is your vehicle?
This week, news broke that two million people who use Progressive Snapshot (a small device that tracks a car’s path to help determine its car insurance rate) may be vulnerable to hacking. But Snapshot drivers aren’t the only ones who are open to a potential hacking attack: Two hackers who demonstrated in 2013 how they could hack […]
VMTs on decline since ’92, with men driving most by far
Call it the great American car devolution: Americans have been driving less since at least 2004 — if not earlier, according to a recent report by the Washington Post. While VMTs, or vehicle miles traveled, peaked 11 years ago, individual states’ VMTs peaked as far back as 1992. And among the drivers who are clocking […]
Study: Media distortion affects perceptions of transit safety
Public transit disasters may make for splashier headlines than car crashes, but in reality riding public transit is much safer than traveling by car — and the implications for community safety are enormous. A study from Todd Litman at the Victoria Transport Policy Institute reveals just how safe, and the estimates are startling: Bus riders are 60 […]
How plumbers, the UPS, and people of color benefit from the NYPD’s slowdown
New York is nearing on the second month of one of the greatest law enforcement experiments in recent memory: what happens if police stop enforcing the law? Since the NYPD’s slowdown began in the wake of the Liu and Ramos shooting – which police union chief Lynch blamed on the Mayor’s comments on race and law enforcement – courts have […]
Lower oil prices wreak havoc on state budgets
This New Year’s Eve, motorists can celebrate at the pump, where the price of gas has, as of this writing, a national average of $2.273 per gallon, according to the AAA. In fact, except for Vermont, Alaska, and Hawaii, all states saw the average price of gas drop at least a dollar between June and […]
Is urban agriculture worth the space?
FastCo reports on Green Sense Farms, a warehouse outside of Chicago that produces soil-free produce to feed 20 million people, while urban farms are popping up from Cambridge, Massachusetts to Japan. The Ecologist encourages that “to reduce the pressure on the world’s productive land and to help assure long-term food security… city people are well […]
5 great (non-documentary) movies for urbanists
1. Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), dir. F.W. Murnau Murnau’s masterpiece Sunrise might be the great anti-urban film. The German Expressionist director Murnau moved to Hollywood after directing his other masterpiece, Nosferatu, putting together three silent films and a documentary before his death in 1931 at the age of 43. Steeped in the […]
Vision Zero for cities symposium tackles traffic safety
Last week in Brooklyn, advocacy group Transportation Alternatives held the Vision Zero For Cities Symposium, a panel on Vision Zero, New York City’s movement to reduce traffic injuries to zero with the guiding principle that “No human being should be killed or seriously injured in traffic.” The event included leaders from the NYC Department of Transportation, […]
Remembering victims of traffic accidents worldwide
On Sunday, November 16, all member countries will celebrate the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, an effort led by the United Nations (UN). In Greece, the SOS Road Crimes group is asking participants to gather and bring well-worn shoes to remind others of “the traveler and his unfulfilled desires.” In London, the Brahma […]
Study: Drivers in India, China receptive to self-driving cars
A majority of drivers have great expectations — along with some safety concerns — for self-driving cars, reports a new University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute public opinion study. The study expanded on an earlier study targeting drivers in the U.S., Great Britain and Australia, adding 1,700 respondents throughout India, Japan and China. Researchers discovered […]
