Traffic Tidbits: 15 August 2007
- Don’t Know which way is North? Fight about it! Two men have a round of fisticuffs due to an argument whether Pennsylvannia is north or south of Virginia. As someone mentioned in the comments, I sincerely hope that the drunk one though VA was north of PA. This link brought to us through the kind services of Matt Rosenberg who also has a link to an article about the Clearview highway sign font.
- Improving Traffic Safety in the US: If you’re interested in a very very long report, please click through to the Improving Traffic Safety Culture in the United States: The Journey Forward, produced by the AAA foundation. I haven’t gotten through this whole thing yet, but it is cogent and the introduction is worth the read for anyone.
- Arbitrary Speed Limit Changes . . . Don’t Work: The Chattanoogan reports on speed limit changes on Signal Mountain. The article describes the enforcement regime, which claims to have reduced the average speed, although they don’t say by how much. The article uses a bunch of numbers that don’t necessarily demonstrate any changes. Reductions in certain speed bins do not (necessarily) show a statistically significant change in traffic patterns. I’m going to call the police dept. at Signal Mountain and see if they documented this study.
- Bridge Collapse in China: This bridge was under construction when it collapsed, not in service. Thanks to the Transportationist for the tipoff
- Angkor Died due to Infrastructure Collapse: According to this article the ancient city of Angkor in Cambodia was the largest metropolitan area of a preindustrial nation. It failed due to a lack of basic infrastructure maintenance. This has some resonance given all the uproar about the I-35W bridge collapse
- Senator Clinton Urges a Quick and Thorough Analysis: In 2005 Senator Clinton amended the SAFETEA-LU (“Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act—A Legacy for Users” and don’t get me started about names for transportation bills…) to include a comprehensive study of the nation’s infrastructure. It isn’t complete yet, so Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is using the political hay that has fallen to pad her race to the presidency. In case you can’t tell, I do not support Senator Clinton in her bid.
