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Gas tax? That's supposed to go into road construction and maintanance. Where it really goes, well, talk to your friendly politicians and maybe they'll tell you where it really goes. Or maybe not. Did you contribute massive sums to their reelection campaign?

To be fair, nearly 60% of highway funding comes directly from fees & taxes paid by road users. Compare this to the ~34% of public transportation operating costs funded by passenger fares. This is a case where it's *easy* to directly charge the appropriate costs to those who use public transportation, since users already pay the operator who provides the service.

Registration & fuel tax money might not go to where each user uses the roads the most - one might register a vehicle or purchase fuel in a different area than where it is driven the most.

Gas tax? That's supposed to go into road construction and maintanance. Where it really goes, well, talk to your friendly politicians and maybe they'll tell you where it really goes. Or maybe not. Did you contribute massive sums to their reelection campaign?

To be fair, nearly 60% of highway funding comes directly from fees & taxes paid by road users. Compare this to the ~34% of public transportation operating costs funded by passenger fares. This is a case where it's *easy* to directly charge the appropriate costs to those who use public transportation, since users already pay the operator who provides the service.

Registration & fuel tax money might not go to where each user uses the roads the most - one might register a vehicle or purchase fuel in a different area than where it is driven the most.

Your comments implying the driving slower may be more dangerous is laughable - like the tales told of people who got into accidents while trying to buckle their seatbelt.

No, it's just a recognition that velocity differentials are a major factor in traffic accidents (ultimately the only factor).

As the average speed of the US driver has climbed, the death toll has risen as well - both in absolute numbers and in average deaths per mile travelled.

Care to support that? According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration the total number of fatal crashes was about the same in 2007 as it was back in 1997 and the the number of fatalities per mile is much lower. See http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

Your comments implying the driving slower may be more dangerous is laughable - like the tales told of people who got into accidents while trying to buckle their seatbelt.

As the average speed of the US driver has climbed, the death toll has risen as well - both in absolute numbers and in average deaths per mile travelled. There is no evidence that driving slower is more dangerous, notwithstanding your own personal feelings in the matter. And if somebody driving slow in front of you is enough to make you drive in a risky manner, you really shouldn't be driving, should you?

This is a commonly quoted myth. Please provide a single, CREDIBLE link to any study that indicates this. You won't find it... because every credible study that set out to prove this myth has returned the exact opposite results.

Here are the real facts, and just so you don't think I'm pulling this out of my ass, here are the links.

Fact: Slower drivers are involved in accidents more often than speeders.
Fact: Speed differences are a more common cause of accidents vs high speeds.
Fact: Speeders are generally more alert and cognisant of their surroundings than slower drivers.
Fact: Raising speed limits shows a DECREASED injury and fatality rate.

There is plenty of evidence that slower drivers are FAR, FAR more dangerous than faster drivers. There are a number of reasons for this, but one of the biggest one is the fact that slower drivers are a minority on the road, and thus they constitute a MAJOR road hazard. As such, they are responsible for far more carnage than the fast drivers, since they are a majority. If you aren't driving with the majority of traffic, you are wrong. This isn't an opinion, it's simply a fact. If you are a slower driver and you're impeding traffic, even if the traffic is speeding, you are wrong. More and more state laws agree with this, as they ticket slower drivers, even if they are doing the speed limit (Hi Seattle and Colorado, and some others!).

And before you say saftey features in cars have improved (airbags, anti lock brakes, etc...), I've included injuries that would result from a crash. If car safety goes up, fatalities should drop but at the same time, injuries should go up... but the stats say otherwise.

Fatality rate for 100 million miles traveled:
1995 - 1.73
2006 - 1.41

Injury rate for 100 million miles traveled:
1995 - 143
2006 - 85

This is DESPITE 37 MILLION more drivers and 26 MILLION more cars.

Here's a small physics quiz: What happens to the car if the wheels on one side don't turn as fast as the wheels on the other?

I normally don't follow-up to old posts but this time I couldn't resist. Since you fancy yourself such an expert in Physics to quiz me on the topic, please allow me to return the favor:

You are driving a car with a wheel track of 65 inches (that's the distance between the right and left wheels) and a tire diameter of 30 inches. You make an unbanked right turn with a nominal (mid-lane) radius of 50 feet. To keep things simple, assume the road is flat (no crown or grade). Answer the following three questions:

1. How many revolutions will the inside (right) tires make going around the turn?
2. How many revolutions will the outside (left) tires make going around the turn?
3. True or False: The answer to #1 = #2.

No fair turning to the back section and peeking at the answers. Hint: This is the reason why all four-wheel vehicles intended for on-road use have differentials.

ABS isn't designed to "try and keep the car going in a straight line." Anti-Lock Braking Systems are designed to maintain steering control during panic braking by keeping the tires from crossing over from static friction to dynamic friction. It does this by monitoring the speed of each wheel during braking and releasing the brakes for any wheel that is found to be turning at a much slower rate than all the others (implying that wheel is starting to skid). As you can clearly see, this contraindicates the performance I encountered of all four wheels being modulated by the ABS system when only one wheel lost traction.

Subsequent research supports my assertion that this was a design flaw: A NHTSA recall was issued for the '99 Isuzu Rodeo ABS for just the problem I described in my posting.

If he was rear ended at fairly high speed, it proves my point even more. Plastic cars get destroyed way too easily, and are way too costly to repair.

New designs are safer. I said that.
But you can apply new safety principles to a new design centered around metal and it can be just as safe, and your car will cost far less to repair after a minor collision. There's no reason a bumper should be completely destroyed if granny hits a post in a parking lot at 5 MPH.

Not all crumple zones are metal - the main one in the front in the boot is, but anything that it designed to give way to absorb energy is a crumple zone.

No, tanks protect the people inside, so they can fire the guns, gut up close and throw some explosives, etc.

You could build a car out of high density foam, and surround it in thin, plated sheets of aluminum. Weigh it down just enough to keep it from getting airborne. Hell, you could collapse your car for easier parking / when you don't need the back seat / etc. Any little parking lot collision will total your car, sure, but it's "safer"!

Bumpers specifically are NOT designed to absorb impact and protect people. They ARE designed to protect the mechanics of the car. Plastic bumpers do not do that. Metal bumpers do.

"The car bumper is designed to prevent or reduce physical damage to the front and rear ends of passenger motor vehicles in low-speed collisions. Automobile bumpers are not typically designed to be structural components that would significantly contribute to vehicle crashworthiness or occupant protection during front or rear collisions. It is not a safety feature intended to prevent or mitigate injury severity to occupants in the passenger cars. Bumpers are designed to protect the hood, trunk, grille, fuel, exhaust and cooling system as well as safety related equipment such as parking lights, headlamps and taillights in low speed collisions."

Source? http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/ , bitch.

I guess you didn't watch the video then. You should, it's for people who think like you.

I'll give you a quick recap, a 15 year old Volvo 940 is crashed into 3 year old Renault Modus. The host had to leverage himself against the Volvo to get the car door open after the crash and once you saw the inside, it was pretty clear that if you had been driving, you wouldn't be walking anywhere. The dummy probably would have to be cut out of the car, and the lower leg damage might have been serious enough to warrant amputation. The steering wheel ended up somewhere in the driver's face.

On the other hand, the Renault Modus door was opened with only slight effort with one hand. There was no interior deformation, so the driver would been able to walk away. The air bags protected both the driver and passenger.

The cars deform for a reason - they are built to dissipate the kinetic energy of a car crash. All of the energy that goes into deforming metal is not being directed into the passengers.

Your comment about rural America is a specific case. Even if it was true what you said about deformation (and it isn't), you are saying that you think it is better to be a little more safe in one specific set of circumstances, as opposed to safer on the whole (and I'd argue that you'd be safer one the whole with a newer-built for safety car). Perhaps you do 99.99% of your driving on rural roads, but don't think serious/fatal car accidents only happen to lone drivers in the middle of nowhere when there is no one around to help.

You remind me of some people I knew a few years ago. The argued that they were safer not wearing seatbelts, because if you were wearing a seatbelt and hit in the door, you were more likely to die. They didn't stop and consider that the type of side impact that they were trying to protect themselves against only happens a small percentage of the time, and in all other types of crashes, you are much safer wearing safety belts.

I suggest also checking out the FARS Encyclopedia

Do yourself a favor and watch that video. It will take 9 minutes of your time and it could save your life.

You should know that the NHTSA and other organizations do a bare minimum collision safety test, because anything more would fail too many manufacturers. The speeds are low, and the impacts are not (as someone says below) designed for SUVs, because SUV's do not follow the regulated requirements for bumpers. If they were, they would fail. This has been tested previously. Also, there is a large difference between a 2000lb car (focus/compact) going 35 mph and a 4000lb car.

Almost all cars typically make the 4 or 5 star rating because it's ridiculously easy to do at 30 mph collisions assuming the other car is not even moving , simply because of the framing of most vehicles (a column/b column/etc). However, real world examples would lead people to understand that is not true. All cars have serious material failures of all forms continually, it just doesn't get reported as a recall until it reaches critical mass (I believe its still 500 failures on a specific make/model for that in the US).

Crumple zones are a feature up to a point. After that, the engine is in your lap and you die. Engines are designed to slide downward and then back, so that they don't immediately go back towards you (which killed people in accidents prior to the 80s I believe), but enough forward impact will do exactly that.

You should know that the NHTSA and other organizations do a bare minimum collision safety test, because anything more would fail too many manufacturers. The speeds are low, and the impacts are not (as someone says below) designed for SUVs, because SUV's do not follow the regulated requirements for bumpers. If they were, they would fail. This has been tested previously. Also, there is a large difference between a 2000lb car (focus/compact) going 35 mph and a 4000lb car.

Almost all cars typically make the 4 or 5 star rating because it's ridiculously easy to do at 30 mph collisions assuming the other car is not even moving , simply because of the framing of most vehicles (a column/b column/etc). However, real world examples would lead people to understand that is not true. All cars have serious material failures of all forms continually, it just doesn't get reported as a recall until it reaches critical mass (I believe its still 500 failures on a specific make/model for that in the US).

Crumple zones are a feature up to a point. After that, the engine is in your lap and you die. Engines are designed to slide downward and then back, so that they don't immediately go back towards you (which killed people in accidents prior to the 80s I believe), but enough forward impact will do exactly that.

The first website you list, apart from being terribly unprofessional, gives statistics suggesting that, in ages between 1 and 29, automotive accidents are the leading cause of death. While the percentage of deaths is certainly higher for teens from 15-19, this is also the period when most people in the US learn to drive, and would certainly seem understandable given that.

The second seems absurdly inaccurate and almost blatantly misleading if not entirely incorrect. Apart from considering a huge time period (1995 to 2004), and listing meaningless raw numbers as something that should matter, the numbers themselves, and especially the percentages, can't possibly be right if interpreted in the most obvious way. Looking at the data from the NHTSA, for example, there were around 37,000 auto accident deaths every year during the period, and teen drivers accounted for nowhere near the "36.2 percent" that the article implied. Taking a single year, 2006 (the most recent), fatal accidents of those from 16-20 were significantly outnumbered by accidents in other age groups, and accounted for only 13% of fatal accident deaths; while these numbers are relatively meaningless for the purpose of making conclusions, they still contradict those in the article.

A better consideration, instead of looking at deaths per age group by raw numbers, which is useless, or deaths per age group per number of drivers in the group, which is somewhat useful, would be to look at deaths indexed by the number of years the driver had had a licence, per number of drivers in each group. It is not obvious that lack of responsibility is the major factor in traffic-related deaths rather than lack of experience, even if many sources seem to jump to conclusion with insufficient evidence.

Oh, and for the most part, roads...are actually paid for by LOCAL and STATE governments, not the feds. Why do I pay federal income taxes again?

Because some states really can't afford their infarstructure without federal highway dollars. Just see how badly the current 8 billion highway fund shortfall is affecting states with low population densities like Arkansas.

The redistubution of highway funds means you can drive across this country from coast-to-coast without encountering dozens of shithole states with mud roads. The simple fact is, they had this very problem during World War II when they were forced to move troops and goods from coast-to-coast over state and local roads. It didn't work so well, and the end results were federal highway funding and the interstate highway system.

The total apportions for 2005-2009 are over 180 billion dollars. That's hundreds of millions yearly for every state to pay for transportation projects. Hell, the federal highway funds are so important, they are the reason our "national" drinking age is 21 (every state capitualted, rather than risk those funds). It may not be "right" in your mind, but the fact is states can't survive today without federal highway funds.

Say you want to carry them because you want to be able to kill people who annoy or frighten you. .... You are mistaken about who they are meant to kill, or at least you have generalized to the point of absurdity.

I wasn't talking about who they are MEANT to kill, but who they actually kill.

Fair enough. When we look at who guns (in America) actually kill, we find that just above half the time, they kill their owners. I believe suicide, or the choice to cease living, is a natural human right, and guns are a quick and painless (if messy) way to go, so no problems there. Do you believe in the right to die? I would argue that the other half of gun deaths fall into four categories as follows: premeditated, passion, accidental, self-defense.

Premeditated: If you are going to take the time to plan it out, are you going to buy a gun from, a licensed dealer who will take your name, and keep records with serial numbers, ballistics info, and other data (only a fool thinks guns should be sold like other products), or will you seek someone out on the street? If a gun wasn't available (is it impossible or just difficult to get a gun in Britain?) could you come up with another way?

Passion: If you are so enraged that you would kill another person, momentarily psychotic with anger, would the lack of a gun stop you, or just make it harder?

Accidental: Shit happens. Incidentally, it happens with more frequency in cars.

Self-defense: Is it acceptable to use lethal force in self-defense?

It is the wet dream of every tyrant, strong man, and one party state to take from the people the power of armed resistance.

This is a peculiar American fantasy. Lots of countries have instituted "strong man, one-party government", in countries awash with guns (often in post-war regimes with an AK-47 under every ex-soldier's bed). It makes it easier for the "strong man" to increase police powers, reduce civil rights, with the aim of protecting people from armed gangsters or insurgents.

An informed and educated populous, with access to the free exchange of ideas, is of far greater importance for democracy than an AK-47. That being said, look at your own argument; First a would-be dictator comes to power, then he expands his powers using as evidence the large number of armed citizens that "the common man" needs protection from, and then he takes away their guns. Finally, he is able to oppress as he sees fit, having established a monopoly on armed force.

Look how far your own government has come in that regard recently. You're not Zimbabwe yet, but you've certainly been going in that direction.

My own government has used nationalism, terrorism, and a complacent and profit driven corporate media to seize expanded powers, not fear of a gun toting mob, so I am not sure how your comparison to Zimbabwe is relevant.

As a brief aside, I hope you are enjoying this debate as much as I am. I would hope it goes without saying, but it doesn't always so: I respect and appreciate your opinion.

According to the National Center for Statistics and Analysis, in 2005, over 43,000 people were killed in traffic accidents in the U.S. alone. I don't know what the number is for the entire world but it must be in the six digits. Most of them are not caused by older drivers. Traffic fatalities and injuries are a much bigger threat to the nation than terrorism. All the money being spent on terrorism should be thrown into developping a 100% automated transit system. And no, we don't need AI to do it.

Riiiight... The OP wasn't making an analogy (A is like B) at all, not even a metaphor (A is B), he was making a fairly literal statement. Which you have done nothing to discredit. In fact you supported it: People do not freak out about 20k car accidents per year -- wait, actually it's 37,000 (and while we're at it, 9/11 had 2,975 casualties according to Wikipedia, not 5,000).

So anyway, people do not freak out about 37,000, but they would freak out if 5000 car accidents were caused by a coordinated effort instead of the usual combination of too big cars, negligence and DUI. They'd freak out even if the likelihood of being hit was the same. I guess because people have the mistaken impression they can control the risk in one case and not the other. Irrational, but I'd probably feel the same way.

What do you think they have been using to read the RFIDs in your tires? You know, the ones made mandatory by law (T.R.E.A.D. Act, http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/nhtsa/announce/testimony/tread.html )?

Been doing this for 3-4 years now.

Combine it with the RFIDs that the auto industry hides in your car when they make it(as a mechanic I've found dozens, in the weirdest places, but usually glued to the underside of the vehicle and covered with undercoating), and it is pretty hard to go anywhere in a car without someone being able to track you remotely.

But its all a waste of time. Everyone knows that terrorists all ride bicycles now.

NADS gives u real Gs;-)

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/portal/site/nhtsa/menuitem.ec22fb0a0adebfd24ec86e10dba046a0/

* a friend from nhtsa told me the NADS chief had a big banner in his office reading "go NADS"

Dude, where did you get your statistics? 80% of fatal accidents are at 45mpg or less?

There is actually an online database of fatal vehicle accidents called FARS. In 2006, they list 10,310 accidents at 45mph or less and 13,639 at 46mph or greater. (I excluded the cases where speed was unknown.) That means just 43% of fatal accidents had 1 party traveling at 45mph or less.

Unfortunately, they don't have combined stats to tell you what the rate of the fastest vehicle was traveling, but I'd guess a lot of these accidents were with a fast car hitting a slow car. (1555 fatal accidents involved stopped cars.) If that was the case, then the % of accidents where someone was traveling faster than 45mpg would be much higher.

Also, for that list of top 20 primary causes of accidents, I'm guessing driver inattention would have been #1. Speed would most certainly be a contributing factor though in most any fatal collision. If someone isn't paying attention to the road, would you rather him be driving at 35mph or 55mph? While speed wouldn't have been the primary contributor, it certainly makes a big difference.

Sometimes the argument is made that there are other costs to society involved in riding (and crashing) without a helmet.

The U.S. has a program in place called Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) www.its.dot.gov which includes a vehicle communications segment.

Wow...something we actually beat Europe to, technology-wise? In the US, the initiative is called VII, or Vehicle Infrastructure Integration. It also uses a chunk of the 5.9 GHz spectrum, under the 802.11p specification.

A lot of the ideas they have kicking around are forming a giant mesh network that will alert drivers in-vehicle about traffic conditions ahead, or vehicles "warning" each other when they get too close. A lot of it will come down to individual device/auto designers, as the most basic VII-enabled system will just communicate with other devices like a giant RFID tag ("I'm here!"), while others should be integrated GPS, etc.

For those of you wondering, yes, the DOT wants to use this information like they do with toll transponders, cellphone trackers, and license plate readers, and other discrete detection systems: for traffic flow information for average speeds. That way they can do traffic analysis as well as notify the public of where traffic slowdowns are. (Traffic counts and density will still have to rely on aggregate detectors such as loops and radars, since not every vehicle in the traffic flow will have a transponder for quite some time). To avoid the chicken-and-egg syndrome (the infrastructure is in place, but vehicles don't have these systems), the DOT has gotten agreements so far from every major auto manufacturer to include some form of VII in their future models as standard, again up to the automaker as to how fancy it actually is.

In every presentation I've ever seen on this, someone stands up and asks about tracking people. It will either be someone worried about privacy, someone wanting to sell individual tracking information as a commodity, or law enforcement asking about enforcement possibilities. In every case, the designers have said that privacy has been their biggest concern, and that the system as it is currently designed cannot be used for any of this. (I believe that the current method is that a vehicle's transponder ID will get a randomized hash at one location, and then when that hash is seen again, that travel information is recorded, then the hash is dumped and a new random one is generated at that point).

Note that I said as it is currently designed. There are some good ideas in the program, people just need to keep an eye on it to make sure the usual "backdoors" aren't slipped in for the usual purposes.

He references the NHTSA's study, The Economic Impact of Motor Vehicle Crashes for the cost being $230 Billion.

"...accidents cause more than death and injury. They also clog roads, damage vehicles and require extensive emergency response systems. The NHTSA has attempted to quantify the total cost of accidents, and while the numbers are subject to debate. In The Economic Impact of Motor Vehicle Crashes, they cite $230 billion per year, or about 2.3% of the GDP. Other estimates range as high as 4% of the GDP.

"...calculations have also been done to work this figure out as a cost per mile driven, as we do for depreciation and fuel. Estimates I have seen range from 10 cents/mile (using above $230B number) to as high as 30 cents. Numbers for motorcycles go as high as 50 cents/mile. For those who accept higher numbers like 20 cents, this is more expensive than the gasoline (which is 17 cents/mile in a 25mpg car) and in most cases more than the depreciation, which is to say more than the cost of the car itself."

The article you give says the NHTSA thinks the number might be higher than $230B today. And even the AAA analysis has the total cost of accidents at $1050 per person--no small change--and the cost of traffic congestion at $430.

I spend about $.16 per mile for gasoline, so the cost of accidents is higher than gasoline or depreciation for me.

In reality, passive protection is the only form of protection which reliably works.

Passenger vehicle occupant fatality rate by type of car (PDF warning)

Fatalities per 100,000 registered vehicles:
17.76 Compact Cars
16.87 Compact Pickups
16.85 Subcompact Cars
16.16 Midsize SUVs
13.87 Standard Pickups
12.34 Full-size SUVs
12.16 Full-size Cars
11.49 Midsize Cars
11.09 Minivans
9.34 Large Vans

SUVs are not safer than mid- and full-sized cars. If you read the PDF, you'll see this is primarily due to lack of maneuverability and penchant to roll over, and a higher fatality rate in rollovers. Those increased risk factors more than swamp out any benefit of "passive safety." Yes compact and subcompact cars do worse, but I would argue anyone who could afford an SUV would be buying a mid- or full-size sedan, not a compact or subcompact.

I can give you 38,588 reasons why safety is the most important thing. That's the number of people killed in traffic accidents in 2006 (latest year available). That's about one 9/11 per month. And that's been the case for decades!

We lose about as many people per year as died in Vietnam over ten years (U.S. military fatalities, that is). We get so worked up about 4000 U.S. fatalities in Iraq, while approximately that many people die every five or six weeks from car accidents--preventable fatalities--and no one seems to be even interested in talking about it.

If you offered me a free car that gets 50 miles per gallon or a $50,000 car that would save my wife and daughter from being killed--I don't even have to think about that choice. I'll gladly go into debt to protect my loved ones and myself from harm. Gasoline is just a frucking liquid in the ground. My family is priceless.

Now having said that, I believe the choice you presented is not mutually exclusive. We can definitely ditch fossil fuels eventually, in fact rather soon, if we move to more electric vehicles, solar/wind/nuclear to power them, plus use some handy inventions like sidewalks and bicycles as a supplement to the car. And the added value of walking or biking is that you are less likely to die, assuming you can mostly use bike lanes.

12,427 / 365 = 34
I've no idea what the distribution curve looks like but there's a big market for bicycles it seems.

There were less fatal accidents when the speed limit was 55.

Turn-abouts are safer than intersections.

Less fatalities @ 55? I don't think so http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

Turn about are safer..unless the road is busy, or your a pedestrian, or your on a bike.. F the bikers and the peds, they should be driving cars anyways right? oh, but that would make the road busier? Damn.

Doing some quicky cost analysis, guides my point of view towards the idea that the benefits (a couple cents cheaper gas in a decade or so) out weight the cost (more exploited land).

But then again I'm okay with the current "shortage" of oil, since we might slowly ween ourselves back from the gross, and inexcusable, excess lead to by the false sense of infinite resources/entitlement. Its a dose of reality, something we need in America.

Personally, I'm mixed on the entire thing. We have no shortage of oil and the price ain't all that expensive. O.k. we do have a temp. fuel price issue because we have to compete with everyone else to buy the damned stuff. I've been reading about N.S. SAVANNAH
http://www.marad.dot.gov/Offices/MSP/Ship_Operations/NSS/index.htm . Read up on that ship. Basically there wasn't any tech. reason why we shouldn't have nuclear civilian cargo ships. The poor ship was doomed because of the PR stunt thing, but it worked and made a profit. The real hidden cons where that those specialists got more money due to all those nuclear related classes that they had to attend, and those that supervised them usually made more money and complained to their union. Oh, and that half the ship was a cargo ship/half was a passenger PR ship. It was built as a tech demo and the tech worked fine. They then complained that it wasn't economical, well it was never built to be.

This link is about 100% solar/hydrogen powered home http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=hydrogen-house&page=2
The home works. It cost the guy $100K of his money, $400K of government grants, and a $3 million car to make it work. I'm sorry, but the tech may be there, but I'd rather us focus on building cost effective tech. Nuclear powered ships, trains, and airplanes make far more sense than solar powered homes at this point in time.

Absolutely not, instead we should distribute measures taken with respect to how many people are negatively affected by something.
Hunger and lethal diseases kill an extreme amount of people, so a relatively large amount of money and should be spent on research and immediate aid just like some "liberties" should be enjoyed with care (waste less food, safer sex against aids etc). The same goes for traffic safety. There's fewer, though still a lot, of fatalities, so an accordingly smaller amount of money and time should be spent on developing safer cars as well as educating the public about dangers associated with driving. And again, some liberties may have to be given up (e.g. require ABS or airbags on all cars, require a permit to drive, speed limits). Terrorism ought to be dealt with in the same fashion. With a death toll of less than a tenth of road fatalities [1][2], less than ten percent of the amount of time and research ought to be spent on countermeasures and TWAT (The War Against Terrorism). Equally, less than ten percent of the liberties given up because of traffic safety should be given up because of Terrorism. The U.S.' $500bn spent on Iraq, the billions spent on Afghanistan should be countered by $5tn (+Afghanistan) in traffic safety measures - about a third of the U.S.' GDP. There ought to be ten Guantanamo Bays for DUIs and getting into one's car should require a DHS examination, a background check, several patdowns and standing in line for a week.

[1] http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ter_ter_act_200_fat-terrorist-acts-2000-2006-fatalities
[2] http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

Not to rain on your parade and you've certainly got your history right, but when something as scary as terrorism requires you to think back thirteen years to an event with 168 fatalities, this seems very damn ridiculous to me.
Just as a sad little comparison: On average, each and every 36-hour-period from 1994 through 2007 had more people die in traffic accidents [1] than this huge headline-making bomb. 9/11, OTOH, took almost four weeks to be offset by road fatalities (and caused four^Wseven years of all-out war against freedom (and the middle east)). Strange, eh?

[1] http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

As long as it doesn't end up upside down. According to this mid-sized and large cars and minivans are safer than SUVs. I don't know whether that says more about the vehicles or the sort of people who drive Camrys, though.

In furtherance of this aim, they got the .08% BAC legislation enacted. Not directly, for they're a spineless bunch of bastards. Instead, they bought sufficient Congress-castrati to wield the hammer of "no federal highway funds" to impose their will on states not adopting "the new standard". By the way, there's no solid medical evidence that any level below .16% really impairs driving ability.

I call bullshit. To quote s 4.1: "By BACs of 0.080 g/dl, 94% of the studies reviewed reported impairment."

In one case, a woman had one glass of wine with dinner and got red-lighted when she left the brightly-lit parking lot without her headlights on. She explained to the "officer of the law" that it was only because her sister had borrowed her car and had mistakenly turned off the auto headlights. The cop asked if she had had anything to drink with dinner. She replied that she had had one glass of wine earlier in the evening. So the rampant son of a bitch DUIed her, declaring, "We have a zero tolerance policy here."

Which is why there is a BAC limit. One glass of dinner - unless it was port in a big mug - will not put you over 0.08% BAC and you won't get DUI.

Cocksucking, swaggering, power-mad bastard -- I'll bet he felt like a real stallion with the wifey when he got home that night. I'll bet her pussy and asshole are still sore.

Your profanity and unfounded allegations of spousal abuse really complement your unreferenced anecdote well. I'm certainly convinced.

The number of FATAL auto crashes is on the DECREASE as newer cars are ever LESS likely to have accidents with FATALITIES.

http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx/ (12 years of crash statistics)
The statistics seem to disagree with you (unfortunately). I say 'unfortunately' because I drive almost 600 miles per week. I am increasing my chances for an early exit. :~(

More and more, Texas rocks. They eve have their own power grid, exempt from federal oversight. How long before they break off and become their own nation again?

Too bad about this stuff. Then again, I live here. The way people in NYC talk you'd think Texas was a cesspool and NYC has flower-scented farts. Guess it's not true.

But, I DIGRESS.

Within this 3 to 6 second range recommended by Section 4D.10 of the MUTCD, jurisdictions are free to set yellow change interval timing based on their own policies or studies. . . . Because vehicle laws vary by State and conditions vary by intersection, the engineer must exercise judgment in deciding on the length of the yellow interval.

According to the MUTCD, "A yellow change interval should have a duration of approximately 3 to 6 seconds. The longer intervals should be reserved for use on approaches with higher speeds."

But for Bobby Joe redneck in the middle of the US with NO ONE around for miles, the kind of people who make up half the population of the US?

Actually, those folks don't make up half the population of the US - it's more like 20%. But because they reside in states with small populations, and the Senate gives equal weight to all states. In addition, the electoral college has a mixed representation based upon both the Senate and House, which skews things in favor of the states with smaller populations. Finally, two of the smallest states are the first to vote in the presidential primary/caucus system, and because they are small enough for politicians to realistically campaign door-to-door in their states, and because in the later primaries the "momentum" of the candidates helps to skew votes toward those who did well in the earlier primaries, they receive a disproportionate amount of attention from the press and from politicians (especially in campaign platforms, where things like farm policy have a prominence all out of proportion with the actual importance of agriculture in the modern US economy). There's also a deep streak of conservatism in US popular culture, one that leads folks who live in suburban subdivisions to talk about the empty midwest as "the Heartland" and "the real America," when the real America always has been, and always will be, a mercantile empire. So I'm sure that to the rest of the world, those Bobby Joe rednecks look like they are half the population of the US, they're just a small minority. The real America isn't Hope, Arkansas: it's Paterson, New Jersey.

Citation please

Well, if you rearrange the numbers, you'll see that 67% of the time there's a fatal accident, and some of the occupants wore seatbelts and some didn't, those that didn't were the one's that died. In other words, you are roughly twice as likely to be killed in an accident if you don't wear your seatbelt. That's probably more like the statistic we're used to hearing. It seems consistent with studies like this one:

"Research has found that lap/shoulder seat belts, when used, reduce the risk of fatal injury to front-seat passenger car occupants by 45 percent and the risk of moderate-to-critical injury by 50 percent."

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/injury/TSFLaws/PDFs/810729W.pdf

"...the vast majority of Americans live in small town America..."

Oh? The vast majority of Americans live in cities: [ http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/census/cps2k.htm ]
"Small Town America" adds up to about 10%.

"Russia is only 55 miles away"

The Bering Straight is far more dangerous to cross, there's nobody on their side living near it, and have you seen the military presence in Nome and the Aleutians?

"Canada is even closer."

Canadians are fat and happy. It's the Mexicans that are making a run on the border and, consequently, it's Mexican politics that the State Department is far more concerned with.

"As far as I can tell, the department of homeland security is staffed by a bunch of paranoid Nazis."

Were the 1990's so long ago? Thanks to protests in Havana and the wake of a coup in Haiti, in 1994 the Coast Guard alone interdicted 64,382 boat people. Heck, according to the New York Times, the Coast Guard picked up over 1200 on a single day. Just because the Caribbean has been relatively quiet in your young life doesn't mean these things never happened in the past or will not happen in the future.

There are going to be some late nights this week for the higher ups in the Florida Department of Military Affairs.

* Under the new rules, you can bring batteries with up to 8-gram equivalent lithium content. All lithium ion batteries in cell phones are below 8 gram equivalent lithium content. Nearly all laptop computers also are below this quantity threshold.
* You can also bring up to two spare batteries with an aggregate equivalent lithium content of up to 25 grams, in addition to any batteries that fall below the 8-gram threshold. Examples of two types of lithium ion batteries with equivalent lithium content over 8 grams but below 25 are shown below.

While the screwdriver is a problem...

> I know TSA won't be all too happy about my spare battery

Why? Because the idiot Bush bashers keep telling the lie that Bush has ordered the TSA to start stealing Lithium laptop batteries? Despite the story here that made that claim, that is not true. You may have a spare battery in your carry-on bag if you do it safely. Putting it in a plastic bag or putting tape over the terminals meets their requirements.

TSA reference:

http://safetravel.dot.gov/tips.html

but most of the complaints I've personally heard about the non-swappable battery are related to the Air's role as an ultraportable and not being able to swap batteries on long haul flights or trips when power may not be available

The ability to swap batteries on the plane may be moot if you can't bring them on at all. This recent TSA ruling puts a lot of limitations on loose batteries.

I suppose clarification would be helpful in this case. If we're talking about who uses transit the most, there are two distinct ways of looking at it: which group makes up the majority of the people using public transit, versus which group has the largest proportion of its members using public transit. Strictly speaking, yes, the able-bodied poor outnumber all other groups on transit. That's because they outnumber all other groups period. Nevertheless, the able-bodied poor are, for the most part, VASTLY better off financially than the elderly et al, and a much greater percentage of them own and drive cars than the elderly, the disabled, and children.

Oh really?
Only 12% of Americans are below the poverty line.
10.2% of the elderly are below the poverty line.
48% of the poor own a vehicle
8% of families on welfare own a vehicle
78% of the elderly own a vehicle

So no, you're just plain wrong.

The healthy adult who works for minimum wage, 30 hours a week, could manage to afford a car, although it would be extremely difficult.

Are you freaking kidding me? That's $10k/year. After taxes, perhaps $8k/year. Let's say that they get all of those taxes back in government benefits and then some -- say, $11k/year. Let's say no kids, which would slaughter their income. Even if you assume they're living in a hellhole that costs only $300/mo, and that they can miraculously keep their combined utilities down to $100/mo (lights off most of the time, low thermostat in the winter, high in the summer, showers every other day, etc -- making the hellhole even more of a hellhole). That's $6,200. Let's say they can keep food costs down to a mere dollar per meal, so $90/mo, meaning there's $5,120 left. Let's say that their healthcare (which almost no minimum wage jobs provide) costs a mere $200/mo *after* copays (try to find a policy that provides a relevant amount of coverage that cheap just *ignoring* copays). That's $2,720/year left. Let's say that they have no TV, no entertainment, no phone, no furniture, no nothing -- they just lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling all evening until they fall asleep. There's $226/mo left. Let's say to keep clothing on their backs and shoes on their feet, they can get by on $6/mo, so $220. Let's say they can somehow pick up a car at a price of only $60/mo -- some old junker that they somehow got a payment plan on -- so $160 left. Well, even if the car is cheap, you need liability coverage at a bare minimum in all 50 states, typically a few tens of thousands of dollars worth in each category. Let's assume that the driver is female, has had a license for several years and no accidents, and is in their thirties. Let's give them fair credit to boot. Perhaps $80/mo, so $80 left. Let's say that they can manage to keep such a junker held together and running for only $20/mo. Hey -- if you make a whole bunch of ridiculously harsh assumptions, they can afford, what, 15 miles per day in gas?

Let's get real. There are no tricks to being poor. A lot of people assume that there must be some sort of trick to get by, but there isn't. You have no choice but to sacrifice a significant amount some combination of mobility, health, and comfort -- cramming lots of people into tiny apartments in bad neighborhoods, going without even basic things like phone service, using the "pray nothing goes wrong" health plan, and so on.

Preteens DO take public transit, even assuming that you discount school buses.

Not proportionally often in the US. Now, Japan, that's a different story. I once shared a bus with an entire class full of school kids on Sado

> There's no shortage of people who would be happy to have a job driving for you if you don't drive.

Yeah there is. There's a shortage of about 40,000 people a year in the US:

http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

http://phmsa.dot.gov/portal/site/PHMSA/menuitem.ebdc7a8a7e39f2e55cf2031050248a0c/?vgnextoid=24e4ffc638ef6110VgnVCM1000001ecb7898RCRD

Well, at least now you have an excuse to finally replace those old manual screwdriver's with carry-on approved power tools. Just be sure to lock the trigger... you wouldn't want your drill to activate accidentally mid-flight.

Under the new rules, you can bring batteries with up to 8-gram equivalent lithium content. All lithium ion batteries in cell phones are below 8 gram equivalent lithium content. Nearly all laptop computers also are below this quantity threshold.

The ban affects shipments of non-rechargeable lithium batteries, such as those made by Energizer Holdings Inc. and Procter & Gamble Co.'s Duracell brand

that you not travel with recalled batteries. http://safetravel.dot.gov/remember.html

Other things that you can find are why they are doing this e.g. flight crews can better monitor safety conditions to prevent an incident, and can access fire extinguishers, if an incident does happen -- http://safetravel.dot.gov/tips.html

YOU CAN TRAVEL WITH MOST LI-ION CONSUMER BATTERIES assuming the TSA agents follow the rules as stated

For the lazy people not willing to look at the actual page, nor the willingness to get through the TSA's obtuse writing here is the punch line:
The following quantity limits apply to both your spare and installed batteries. The limits are expressed in grams of "equivalent lithium content." 8 grams of equivalent lithium content is approximately 100 watt-hours. 25 grams is approximately 300 watt-hours:
* Under the new rules, you can bring batteries with up to 8-gram equivalent lithium content. All lithium ion batteries in cell phones are below 8 gram equivalent lithium content. Nearly all laptop computers also are below this quantity threshold. -- My Macbook Pro battery is 60 watt hours or about 5.5 grams of lithium
* You can also bring up to two spare batteries with an aggregate equivalent lithium content of up to 25 grams, in addition to any batteries that fall below the 8-gram threshold. Examples of two types of lithium ion batteries with equivalent lithium content over 8 grams but below 25 are shown below ( the picture shows a pro-camcoder extended use battery and an external extended use laptop battery).

I usually travel with 10 or more Li-ion batteries of various sizes and this language does not lead me to believe that I will have any trouble because I never check my batteries.I am still concerned as enforcement of these new rules is left up to poorly trained agents, so I worry about losing very expensive batteries because one idiot see lithium on the label and chucks it.

that you not travel with recalled batteries. http://safetravel.dot.gov/remember.html

Other things that you can find are why they are doing this e.g. flight crews can better monitor safety conditions to prevent an incident, and can access fire extinguishers, if an incident does happen -- http://safetravel.dot.gov/tips.html

YOU CAN TRAVEL WITH MOST LI-ION CONSUMER BATTERIES assuming the TSA agents follow the rules as stated

For the lazy people not willing to look at the actual page, nor the willingness to get through the TSA's obtuse writing here is the punch line:
The following quantity limits apply to both your spare and installed batteries. The limits are expressed in grams of "equivalent lithium content." 8 grams of equivalent lithium content is approximately 100 watt-hours. 25 grams is approximately 300 watt-hours:
* Under the new rules, you can bring batteries with up to 8-gram equivalent lithium content. All lithium ion batteries in cell phones are below 8 gram equivalent lithium content. Nearly all laptop computers also are below this quantity threshold. -- My Macbook Pro battery is 60 watt hours or about 5.5 grams of lithium
* You can also bring up to two spare batteries with an aggregate equivalent lithium content of up to 25 grams, in addition to any batteries that fall below the 8-gram threshold. Examples of two types of lithium ion batteries with equivalent lithium content over 8 grams but below 25 are shown below ( the picture shows a pro-camcoder extended use battery and an external extended use laptop battery).

I usually travel with 10 or more Li-ion batteries of various sizes and this language does not lead me to believe that I will have any trouble because I never check my batteries.I am still concerned as enforcement of these new rules is left up to poorly trained agents, so I worry about losing very expensive batteries because one idiot see lithium on the label and chucks it.