Archive for August 28th, 2009

As per the earliest post. And yes, they are ugly.

Is more or less the theme of my latest column at Slate.

Coincidentally, reader Lucas had this morning sent me a horrifying story from the Atlanta Journal Constitution about a young Nepalese girl, having just arrived in the U.S., who was struck by an SUV driver who illegally passed a MARTA bus.

One particular passage stood out:

A Clarkston police officer parked on the shoulder of Ponce de Leon Avenue witnessed the accident, Scipio said. The officer had just written six tickets to other drivers for passing on a double line and he was about to go after Armwood when Sukmaya was hit.

Scipio said Armwood saw the patrolman on the side of the road and “he still passed another vehicle.”

I haven’t seen the link between enforcement and public health made quite so painfully clear and close as this example. But it raises an obvious, if often overlooked point: A majority of crashes are not only “human factors” related, but involve some traffic violation, whether speed, failing to signal, etc. — and violations are, as has been discussed in the literature (here for example), clearly different (and clearly more dangerous) than errors (though the press tends to lump both under the rubric of “accidents”). The issue here is not simply ticketing drivers (though I’m all for doing far more of that, and with more meaningful penalties), but taking more strenuous measures against those who seem to have a knack for racking them up (and often, inevitably it can seem, going on to do greater damage).

This morning, I had read Eric Felten’s interesting take in the WSJ on the presence of hazards in places like the Grand Canyon, and why we shouldn’t install things like hand-rails, even on dangerous trails.

Then I came across, via Brainiac, a splendid website from the U.K. called “Attention Please” that chronicles warning sign overkill. Its stated mission:

This is a Manifesto Club photo-album, capturing unnecessary, absurd or patronising safety warnings in public spaces. By turning our cameras on needless safety tape and signage, we hope to expose those who put them there - and encourage a more rational approach.

One of their gripes, vis a vis the Grand Canyon:

Even in our national parks and areas of outstanding natural beauty there are up to 45 signs per mile, destroying any feeling of wilderness or tranquility.

The tour is cranking up in earnest and just to let you know I’ll be at the venerable Harvard Bookstore, in Cambridge, Mass., on Wednesday, September 9th, to talk about the book.

Details here. Hope to see you there.

The blogosphere has gone nuts over the idea that Google Mobile Maps will be showing real-time traffic maps, with information generated by the very people (at least those with Android phones, and a few other devices) navigating that traffic (yes, this is what Dash does/did, on a smaller scale). We can crowdsource our way out of congestion!

As Wired notes, “The new service takes this data from everyone and combines it, using Google’s big brain, to give a pretty accurate picture of traffic conditions, which are then piped back to your device.”

Question is just how “pretty” is pretty. As Roadguy notes, the reality looks better on screen than on the street. Google’s Big Brain is still developing, apparently.

(Horn honk to Kottke)

Gives “traffic justice” a whole new meaning. Man cheats on wife, has to tell rush-hour commuters about it.

Via USA Today an interesting tale of a driver tracking down another (drunk) driver who had hit him and then fled.