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I gave you a link. How many more do you want? I'll get you as many as you need. There are no people in the literature who "think radiation is a more or less negligable effect" - the tiles were designed *specifically* to be radiative - that is why they have such a large surface area.

Look, is it really worth my time to baby-step you through Space Shuttle 101? If references aren't good enough for you, ask a NASA scientist (but first search for "tiles" to see where they already discuss it). I'll quote some of the answers that they've given:

"Jessie from Jacksonville, Ill., age: 14 asked the following question of Mission Specialist Andrew Thomas

Question: Why doesn't the space shuttle burn up on its way through the Earth's atmosphere?

Answer: The space shuttle, Jessie, is encased in some very fine silicon ceramic tiles, which are able to take a very large amount of heat. And they absorb the heat and radiate it back out into space so that the space shuttle does not burn up due to the friction of the atmosphere. "

Congratulations, a fourteen year old now knows more about the shuttle tiles than you. Bet that makes you feel great?

Here's another:

"Rachiel fengstad, of Lethbridge Alberta asked the following question of Linda Ham, lead flight director

Question: What properties of ceramics are the most useful in space shuttle technology?

Answer: The light weight and quick heat dissipation rate of the shuttle's ceramic tiles are pretty useful qualities. Also, quite a few electronic components make use of ceramic packaging which is a good insulator. Original Response"

One of the answers refers to the TPS information page . From the overview:

"The HRSI tiles protect areas where temperatures are below 2,300 F. These tiles have a black surface coating necessary for entry emittance (second definition)."

you can't damage it with your fingernail at all

Mechanical properties of FRCI-12 tiles (why do I have to do all the work for you?). Tensile strength - 107 psi (737 kpa). For comparison, a study of bridge concrete failures when testing a repair method found the average failure tensile strength to be just over 500 kpa (concrete starts out higher, but decreases with age). In short, it has the tensile strength of old concrete (but is far, far lighter). Yes, what we really want is hardness, but I don't have time to hunt that down.

extremely cheap

June 27, 2000 QuestChat with George Raiche, Research Scientist, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA
"RE: [Bertus] Sorry I send the same question twice...How much does one of this plates cost about in dollars??
To tell you the truth, I don't know how much one tile costs. The material costs are very small--the real expense was in the research costs to invent the tiles. Also, the labor costs to inspect and replace the tiles are far greater than the material cost. It's like repairing a car--the labor charge is usually much more than the parts."

If you have any more questions, ask NASA (I gave you the link) or actually do a web search yourself - I'm not your babysitter.

http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/rules/regrev/evaluat e/809662.html

Prorated Fatal Crash Involvements Per Billion Miles:

Mid-size car (e.g. the Prius you mock): 9.46
Mid-size SUV: 13.68

So, the chances of being in a fatal crash are about 30% higher for an SUV, on a per-mile-traveled basis.

*plonk*

Here's a really old chart with real statistics. It says that going to work is way more dangerous than flying in airplanes OR crashing your car.

Even if you don't have that much money, there are exceptions for service animals.

"These new National ID regulations violate every notion of federalism, because they force states to comply with regulations issued by the federal government without any constitutional authority to do so," says Patrick Poole of the Free Congress Foundation.

It's not as clearly unconstitutional as one may think: "The Congress shall have Power ... To establish Post Offices and post Roads". The Congress provides for a network of post roads, implemented as the U.S. federal highway system, and it doesn't want unsafe drivers on federal highways to endanger the safety of postal drivers.

we use the same track gauge as europe (except spain) I believe the loading gauge is also the same as well. The reason why the Acela is such a mess is that it is built like a tank on a go-cart suspension. This was dictated by the FRA which believes in tanks but not High-Speed Rail

Your (sic) also neglecting to mention that the military had some power over the freeway system.

Correct, and it helps to remember that the official name of the U.S. Interstate System is "Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense
Highways". Eisenhower's name was added to it in 1990 as part of a celebration of the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Full details of the history, routes, etc. can be found at this site.

-Charles

hell, we in the US won't even change the CAFE standards for cars or tax the SUV's out of existence.

Yes we did.

Not that I'm saying it's sufficient, of course, but try to stick to facts while ranting.

I bet that the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA) would propose something like this considering it is composed of driver's license officials and law enforcement executives and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHSTA). NHTSA was particularly upset when the national speed limit of 65/55 mph was repealed almost 10 years ago.

An interesting item is I went to the Dayton Hamfest last year, there was one vendor selling a Car Chip that recorded details on your driving. I talked with the salesman and he even mentioned one company (he would not name) mandated this in private vehicles of their employees. If you didn't like it, you don't work for the company.

With the coming Driver License Agreement as sponsored by the AAMVA and the mandate for states to join it if the Real ID Act of 2005 passes combined with this technology, it would be very difficult to retain your driver's license or maintain reasonable insurance premiums especially if you travel alot by car like I do. Even a "law abiding" driver will get nailed here and there !

I will be doing a lot of traveling this Summer such as traveling from Colorado to California and to Indiana. In Indiana, the speed limits is pretty well 55 mph except for rural interstates. The 4 lane divided highways are 55 mph and I usually do 70 to 75 mph. Currently, Colorado takes no adverse action such as points for minor out of state offenses. Here in America, since our public transportation is non-existent, the motor vehicle is the only way to get around unlike Japan or Europe. Unfortunately, it is not practical since places of employment is spread around unlike many years ago where your job was located downtown in a given district.

FTFA "would save the equivalent of 10,000 barrels of oil a day". What they are realy saing is we would save electricty (gereated from coal, wind, solar, nuke, and a very few oil powerplants), equivilent to that of burning 10,000 barrels of oil. Why did they phrase it that way? to make it sound like some how this would reduce the amount of oil.

I realy have to wonder also if they didn't use the same study that they tried to use in 2001 when the tried looking at this before.

It basically gives me zero confidence in the reliability of your factoid.

Yes, I know. When someone presents something that disagrees with your "common sense" then it is hard to believe. Go read NHTSA documentation. Sure, they claim that "speed kills" but if you read the numbers, they commissioned a study that found increasing the speed limit reduced crashes, they found that the drivers at the top 15% of speed were safest, they found that speeders are less likely to crash than those at or below the limit. And that is from an organization that claims "speed kills." I wonder what someone that was impartial would find.

Computers on the other hand are not simple to use for simple tasks.

But they are. Properly set up for a new user, they are pretty easy. You want to type a letter? Click on "Start" and then the name "Word" (which looks like a little letter). When you are done and want to print it, click on the icon at the top that looks like a printer. Ever heard of that "internet" thing? Well, to check it out, click on "Start" (where you go at the start of any task...) and click on the only thing listed with "Internet" in the name.

Once it is properly set up, it is quite easy to use. The real problem is setting it up. You don't sell someone a car with the distributor cap in the trunk and require that the put it on before the car works. But with a computer, you are doing exactly that. The new user with a "fresh" computer will need to know how to set up networking, configure their email program, and other initial setup tasks (depending on your definition, also requiring protection software installation and configuration as well).

Try EzPass. If you drive on the New York Thruway and have an EzPass in your car, they know exactly where you are at any given moment and how fast you were going and they do give speeding tickets based on that information.

Here is a PDF from 2000 detailing the intial review of the E-Z Pass system. The relevent section is D. Traffic Monitoring. They have since expanded the monitoring to what I understand to be the majority of the thruway. My boss brought in a ticket a few weeks ago that he claimed to be sent to him as a result of his speeding on the thruway that was sent to him based on ezpass information. The tin foil hat wearer in me is inclined to take his word for it. ;) Of course, even if he was just bullshitting, there are several legitamate stories of ezpass information being used to track people from exit to exit for purposes civil and crimial cases.

Big Brother already has plenty of tools other than RFID tags to watch us all. ;)

One of the many many reasons why i still have spare change in my car.

* Bring a photo I.D. when you fly, and have your airline ticket issued using your name as it appears on that I.D. Many airlines are requesting such identification at check-in in order to reduce the re- selling of discount tickets. (Airlines don't permit tickets to be sold or given to other persons.) On international flights, make sure your name is the same on your ticket and your passport. If your name has recently changed and the name on your ticket and your I.D. are different, bring docu- mentation of the change (e.g., a marriage certificate or court order).

If you've ever looked at the back of a large ocean going ship, you may have noticed that more often than not, the ship says either "Panama" or "Monrovia" on it. (those being the capitals of the Republic of Panama and Liberia respectively). The ship will also fly the flag of it's country of registry even though the crew and owner are probably not from there. Here's a list (there are other popular countries too, but you don't see them as much).

http://www.marad.dot.gov/Marad_Statistics/MFW-01-0 3.htm

The reason is that it's legally advantageous to register your vessel in certain countries, even if it's owned elsewhere.

I can understand stable countries like Panama or the Bahamas as places of registry, but how can a country as messed up as Liberia make this happen? Is there actually a functional Liberian shipping bureaucracy? Or is it just a bunch of people in Switzerland with "Liberia" on the office door? (the Liberian pitch) Then again, if you really want to avoid taxes, perhaps an unstable registry is to your advantage...

Practically, I can see where the horned devil might make certain religious people uncomfortable.

It wouldn't be the first time an innocuous symbol was changed because some of my Christian bretheren and sisteren came up a bit short in the "discernment" department.

Here's part of my contribution (at least, I think I wrote this part) to the Wikipedia entry for US Highway 666:

In January 2003, the Governor of New Mexico declared his intent to change the designation of US 666 due to "infamy brought by the inopportune naming of the road." [1] Officials in Colorado and Utah concurred, choosing "US 393" as the route number. But since the route came nowhere near U.S. Highway 93, AASHTO suggested U.S. Highway 491, noting it as a "branch" of U.S. Highway 191 because the routes meet in Monticello, Utah. US 666 officially ceased to exist on May 31, 2003, though "New 491 - Old 666" signs would be posted for at least a year.

If it costs $1,000,000 per pound to send somebody to space, virtually nobody goes to space, no matter how "safe". At that cost, it isn't worth it.

However, when the cost comes down enough, SO WHAT if a few people die?

Now, it sounds callous, but when you look at statistis, Motorcycles (AKA murder-cycles) are MIGHTY DANGEROUS..

NOBODY IS BANNING THE KAWASAKI, ARE THEY?

When you see somebody get on board a relatively cheap, fast, murder-cycle, do you tell them about the risks?

See, when space travel is cheap and "good enough", people will use it, even if it's as dangerous as a (gulp!) murder-cycle.

Call it flamebait or troll if you want, but it's a fact many people are willing to take the "extra risk" of phones+cars.

The total number of crashes and fatalities in the US is lower than 30 years ago despite more people on the road. The crash, fatality, and injury rates per million miles are still decreasing. I'll take my chances and give you a call to let you know how it turns out.

Your friendly gov't PDF report

As someone else has pointed out, a lot of people speed. Should we get rid of speeding offences?

Not necessarily, but we should reconsider what the limits are set at. When 95% of people are driving faster than the limit, the general consensus would seem to be that the limit is too low.

Laws are meant to serve the people, not the other way around.

I bet if you put out a referandum to the population at large and asked what the speed limit on I-95 should be, they wouldn't come up with 55 mph.

There is a flaw in your logic. Just because the majority of the people want to speed, does not mean that they should raise the speed limit.

The NCSA stated that the leading cause of death for ages 3 to 33 in 2002 was Moter Vehicle Traffic Crashes http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/nrd-30/NCSA/RNote s/2004/809831.pdf. In fact, Highway fatalities (based on 2002 numbers) are at an all-time high. In Alabama, this can be directly attributed to the lack of state troopers and increasing the speed limit to 75. Now that the speed limit is at 75, motorist (particularly the younger ones) drive at speeds well above 80. I can not travel on the interstate one weekend without driving by at least one fatal (or near fatal accident). To be fair I travel over 500 miles of interstate on a weekend so I have a huge sample base for my observations, but the national statistics do corollate with my observations.

People like to say "you are more likely to die in a car than in a plane", because lots more people die in car crashes than in plane crashes,...

People like to say it because commercial aviation (the only kind most of us realistically have access to) is much safer than flying. For every 100,000,000 miles traveled by car we see about 1.7 deaths. For every 100,000,000 miles traveled by commericial aviation, we see about 0.7 deaths. (source) Even including the September 11th attacks research shows flying is much safer than driving. So if you're planning your trip across country, you are about twice as safe flying than driving. (Of course, in both cases the odds of dying are very small.) Flying is not a risky activity by any realistic measure. Noting the apparently large number of famous people who died in airplanes is a distraction. First, many of these people aren't flying commercial airlines like the rest of us. The numbers are very different if you're flying yourself or on a special flight. Those are special cases, including them is like including crashes in Nascar races in driving safety measurements. Second, any death by flight gets much more coverage than an auto death, especially if someone famous is involved. We're getting distorted news. Third, famous people tend to fly more. If you exclusively fly your chances of getting in an auto accident are zero. It's still safer than if you'd chosen to travel those miles by car.

Are you saying that roads were, historically, only built for the military?

Well, yes and no, but I wasn't referring to roads in general. I was referring specifically to the Interstate System. You know, I-70, I-80, I-35. The original name was the "National System of Interstate and Defense Highways."

http://www.eisenhower.utexas.edu/highway.htm
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/programadmin/interstate.ht ml
http://www.eisenhower.archives.gov/dl/InterstateHi ghways/InterstateHighwaysdocuments.html

Referring to roads in general, the Romans built the best and longest lasting roadway system. Roman roads were originally built wide enough for a garrison to march down them. Sounds like military use to me. http://www.teachingideas.co.uk/history/romanrd.htm .

An utter crock. Do the math. Assume a mere 150 miles of track and only 10,000 passengers a day. One hundred fifty million to build and 200 thousand to operate daily, but the passenger only pays less than twenty thou total? Give a link or back down

Okay, actually I was being rather conservative... this document says the latest segment will only cost a mere $64 million dollars per mile: "... at $64 million per mile, the North Portland MAX will be very expensive to construct." Thankfully, the cost of operation per rider on that segment will only be $10 each, of which the rider will pay maybe 20-30%.

This article says that the MAX system in Portland costs ten times as much per rider than the bus. That means that on the more flexible bus system a $1 fare pays for the cost of the rider, assuming the $10 figure above is correct.

This article says: "Airport MAX This was a $125 million, 5.5-mile extension developed through an innovative public/private venture involving the Port of Portland, Tri-Met, the City of Portland, Portland Development Commission and Bechtel Enterprises. Bechtel contributed $28.2 million towards the $125 million project. It links Portland International Airport to the existing regional light rail system. The system was completed in late 2001." Note that this says $125 million for 5.5 miles. That would be around $20 million dollars per mile. The article also mentions several other projects with as high or higher cost per mile.

This document has more numbers to crunch. In 2005 it will cost $7.2 million to operate this 5-mile segment each year. They give a ridership forecast for 2020 (which may or may not be bullshit depending on the motives of the person making the forecast), and assuming the fare is $2.00 per boarding, it will bring in from fares $9,412,000. However, inflation and the trend of increasing costs to maintain government programs will have no doubt raised the operating cost of the segment to well beyond that by the time 2020 hits.

In US? Probably 5 or so thanks to the Anthrax thingy (and a lot of people didn't even want their mailman on their property, not to mention their mail!)

And how many died from car accident?

Probably about 150,000. Historical sources are here and here. Oh, and there were about 10,000,000 people injured in crashes since 9/11...

Worse yet, modern acturial tables show that you've got a 1:500 chance of being struck and killed by a moving vehicle in any given year- which gives a theoretical limit of about half the 1000 year limit given.

First off, I'd love to see any actual actuarial table that gives a 2 out of 1000 chance per year of an automobile-related fatality. According to these guys , there was 38,252 fatalities out of a population of 290,810,000 in the US in 2003. That works out to about .13 out of 1000. A couple of orders of magnitude less than what you quoted.

Secondly, the idea that any chance gives a "theoretical limit" shows your total lack of understanding how statistics or probability works. What it will sometimes be expressed as is an amount of time till you'd have a 50% chance of a fatal accident... which, in the case of the actual statistics, and not the ones you made up, is 5331 years. If you include death from non-ageing related disease, crime, and "Hey y'all, watch this", you probably get a 50% chance of living 1000 years.

I don't see it listed at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration but perhaps I missed it.

I agree that humans are error prone...Statistically human piloted cars are the most lethal weapons in existance right now killing over 40,000 people and injuring millions each year in the US alone. My arguement is that poorly implimented automation can be even more dangerous and I'm not sure I want to trust a car company to come up with a good implimentation based on their past performance. Statistical Reference: http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/nhtsa/announce/press/pres sdisplay.cfm?year=2002&filename=pr55-02.html

Heh, you think you pay a very large tax on gas? Take a look at this comparison for some other countries: Fuel Tax Rates comparison.

I'm afraid your analogy may be flawed. See also: http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/hot/Firestone/Index.html.

...That's three decades of terrorism, with hundreds of people killed in some of those years....

I think you have identified what people in the US have such a hard time grappling with: time scale. For example, the average Joe doesn't realize that approximately 40,000 people die on US road each year yet freaks out over flying in a plane.

On a related note, what is so astonishing is why someone in a random rural town honestly thinks terrorism will come to their doorstep. This is clearly a byproduct of the media and government furthering their own agendas. Whether you like the movie or not, Fahrenheit 911 (and Bowling for Columbine, for that matter), has a great snippet where such a resident displays outright fear that their little crossroad town will be invaded by terrorists. I lived in a first strike nuke zone and on top of a fault line for years and rarely thought about either. Truly mind boggling.

>It has tonnes of cars, tonnes of bad drivers (not as many as the US though, our driving test is a bit more advanced) and lots of accidents.

That's true. A BBC World News reporter took a test in Montana and reported how laughably easy the test was. He passed with flying colours.

Funny, though, that he later took an Ontario, Canada driving test and failed miserably. I'm not certain which test he was given, as there are two separate driving tests in Ontario that need to be passed to have a full license.

Some interesting stats:

7.3 per 100,000 Ontarians die in accidents (2002).
14.93 per 100,000 Americans die in accidents (2002).
5.78 per 100,000 Britons die in accidents (2002).

Compiled by combining info from this and this. I'd just get the per 100,000 population count from the UK website but it's particularly pathetically designed, requiring over 6 links just to get to a single stat that's pointlessly in PDF.

It's just interesting that the increasing the difficulty level of a test not only follows the laws of diminishing returns, but also, apparently, can cause an increase in accidents as the difficulty level increases past a certain point.

The moms love the SUVs coz they feel safe - problem is, when they hit a Smart even slighly, they kill the occupant.

Not necessarily. Smart is designed with safety in mind and has pretty good crash test results. Don't forget that crash tests describe only the passive safety (can you survive when bad things happen?), while Smart excels in active safety (can you avoid the bad things to happen in the first place?). I was driving a rented one on a business trip and the thing is agile like a TIE-fighter. Unless you're asleep at the wheel, you will be able to make an evasive manoeuvre avoiding getting hitted by the SUV.

On the other hand, large SUVs are hopeless in active safety (a pick-up truck with a wagon-like interior will always remain a pick-up truck in terms of agility), they prone to rollover and the frame chassis does not add to passive safety, contrary to popular belief. Yes, the chassis will remain untouched by a minor collision, but it does not mean your spine will remain untouched as well. If someone drops you in a steel cage from a steep cliff, the cage might itself remain untouched on the bottom - but your spine probably won't. Modern cars wreck so horribly precisely because the chassis takes all the energy that would otherwise release - among other things - on your spine. It's no wonder that the safest 4x4 according to NHTSA is subaru forester. It's a car-based SUV that gets totally wrecked in a crash - but that's because the driver leaves from collision in perfectly good health. Someone has to explain this to all the SUV moms...

People aren't always smart enough to know what's good for them, and yet that doesn't in fact mean that we shouldn't try it.

Let's look at carpool lanes. It's very rare to find a place where carpool lanes are approved of by half or more of the populace. But when you actually install them, not only do they let people who carpool get to work faster, they also actually cut down on other people's commute times too, because there are fewer cars on the road. And yet, because people see other people driving by faster than they are, they still don't like them.

THEN what is the probability of dying in a car crash? It's basically the chance of being hit by or running into a random nut.

So you only drive on divided highways during the day in clear weather with a car in excellent mechanical condition, wearing your seatbelt with two hands on the wheel and paying strict attention to the road? Even if you are the perfect driver and never make mistakes (I call BS) have you taken a look at the people driving around you? All it takes is a mistake from one of them and you end up in an accident, maybe even killed.

Bad drivers kill good drivers every day. Even if you take out the single-vehicle drunk driver deaths, it isn't going to make up the several orders of magnitude that airplanes are safer than cars.

Throw all the above variables into a multiple regression, then show me airplanes are "safer," and I'll believe. It won't happen, because the airlines would never fund such a study.

The available evidence states that air travel is safer. How about you look up the statistics and prove that your mythical perfect driver is safer?

Based on deaths per mile, it looks like 3/5 or more vehicular deaths would have to occure during your non-ideal time window to match the safety of airliners during the ideal period. While that sounds possible, you still are more likely to die in a vehicular accident than a flight due to spending much more time on the road than flying (and the raw statistics support this - you've got a 1 in 6,300 chance of dying during the year while driving versus a 1 in 1,568,000 chance of dying on a commercial flight during the year). To be a fair comparison you would likewise have to remove from the statistics any airplane accidents that resulted from bad weather (shouldn't make a big difference since most crashes result from pilot error).

Also, remember we're only considering fatalities. Once injuries are considered, driving is obviously much more dangerous than flying. I personally know several pilots who have never had any injuries resulting from flying (and they're flying general aviatino aircraft which are statistically much more dangerous than commercial airliners). On the other hand, I know several people that have been injured from driving, including one unfortunate guy who has been in 3 freak accidents that have permanently disabled him (he was in a parked car once and riding in a passenger seat the other two times).

Even so, I just returned from a 4000+ mile road trip. While it may be safer to fly, it isn't a factor for me when deciding on how I'm going to go somewhere.

You obviously live in some remote part of the world where you rarely have to interact with other drivers.

Personally, I see the very real problem at least twice a day on my way to and from work. The idiot doing twice the speed limit past a line of cars that are going the speed limit. The idiot slowing down one lane of a 4 lane freeway by doing 5 miles under the speed limit, when the rest of the cars are doing 5-10 over. The idiot who pulls out to make a left turn through too small a gap. The idiot who...

And you know what's even worse? Sometimes I'm that idiot. No one can be a perfect driver all the time under every condition. With over 6.3 Million auto crashes in the U.S. each year, and over 38,000 fatalities in crashes per year (that's 14.66 fatalities per 100,000 population), I'd say it's a problem begging for an answer.

There are only three ways to fix the problem:
1) Reduce the number of vehicles on the road/vehicle miles travelled. While this is a nice eco-friendly sounding, PC and Public Transit approved message, it just won't work. Reality shows that people find personal, flexible, cheap transportation too convenient to give up. Not to mention the fact that the entire U.S. economy is based on fast, flexible individual travel, and anything that restricts it could cause the whole house of cards to collapse.
2) Increase driver training and knowledge and capability testing. This doesn't work for two reasons. First, if you restrict driving to only those who can pass a rigorous test that will disenfranchise a large part of the population (see point #1). Second, even if I can pass the test today, that doesn't mean I'm safe behind the wheel after a night at the bar, doesn't mean I'm safe driving to work at 2 a.m. in response to my beeper after only 3 hours of sleep, doesn't mean I'm safe driving to get to the meeting "I'm just barely going to make if I go a little faster than normal and try to squeak through all the Yellow lights."
3) Take the highly variable and erratic human out of the equation. If every car handled its own speed, lane changing, etc. in a well designed fail-to-safe system not only would higher speeds be easy to achieve, but traffic signal control, traffic route optimization, and parking optimization becomes a breeze.

Seriously, other than the speed freaks, the ricers, and the "therapy through driving agressive" people, I don't see why anyone is against this. The prices will come down, and the systems will become more reliable and better integrated. This probably won't be widespread until my grandchildren's time, but just think:
I would love to check with my car before leaving to see how long today's commute was going to take (getting a response that was accurate to within 2 minutes), walk out and get in, have the car take me by the fastest route safely, and with no hassles or worries about other idiot drivers, while I read the paper, talk on the phone, eat breakfast, shave, or all of these at once. Get to work and have the car drop me off at the front door, then go park itself. Pick me up at the front door when I'm ready to leave and take me home in the same manner. This would give me an extra 2-3 useful hours per day, and reduce my daily stress level by a huge margin.

A well designed system would allow for much faster travel, much shorter and more consistant trip times, and infinately safer travel than what we have now. Yes, the initial cost will increase, and it will take time for the costs to drop so that this is standard in every car, but the same was said about seat belts, and airbags, and radios, and anti-lock brakes, etc.

This system would even make it safer for pedestrians and bicyclists, by making sure vehicles were never weaving in the lane, vehicles were always checking for obstacles, instantaneous reaction to events, etc. this would make walking or biking to work safer and far more comfortable and enjoyable, so more people might do it.

Win-Win situation.

Bravo! Spoken as a true liberal (which your post history confirms)! Get real. "Roads" are NOT primarily paid through corporate income taxes. They are paid for through GASOLINE TAXES and Teachers, Police Officers and Firefighters are primarily paid through REAL ESTATE TAXES
Which leaves open the question of where income taxes are going. But you're argument is that Government should be given MORE money.
Fucking moron.
(I choose to post this anonymously because this post is antithetical to the democratic party. Therefore my Karma would be slammed hard.)

The FAA is under the auspices of the US Department of the Interior, aren't they?

I was not familiar with microgravimetry. The Federal Highway Administration has an article on using it to find old mines

It looks like basicaly you use Newton's law of gravatation to measure the local density of the earth, and just look around for a dip.

Microgravimetry is also used in the study of thin films

The creators of the Jetsons postulated that by the year 2000 we'd be buzzing around the skies in flying bubbles that fold up into suitcases and living on highrise platforms above the clouds. Vidphones and sentient robotic assistants would be abound. That's what this guy's predictions sound like.
Some stuff holds water though.

What will probably happen:
-Wrist PDA/Cell phone responsing to voice commands
-Universal phone number good around the world with no per-minute charges, but a flat fee.
-RFID checkout at grocery/retail stores
-Video/movies on demand
-Electronic ink
-Expanded applications for biometrics

What will not happen:
-Toilets and toothbruses that monitor your bodily fluids for problems. Besides being high on the spooky factor, I think people would opt for less expensive toilets and toothbrushes.

-An alarm clock that analyzes your brainwaves. Just make sure the electrodes don't fall off while you're sleeping. If they do, you'd better hope it doesn't synchronize itself to your husband/wife's jacked up sleeping patterns.

-Nanites running around your body fixing problems. Also a decent spooky factor. Imagine a software bug causes them to think that every living cell in your body is a cancer cell. Oops.

-Self driving cars. With 160,000 miles of highway in the US (not counting side streets) who, praytell, will put forth the cost to repave all of it with thousands of sensors for a tiny percentage of cars that will be able to take advantage of them? A lot of good your self piloting car will do against gridlock when 99% of the other cars on the road are still driver controlled.

-Automated kitchen complete with robot assistant. This guy IS a science fiction writer. Your fridge might be able to tell you you're running out of milk, but I just don't see a practical scenario where a kitchen can cook breakfast on its own, barring Star Trek food replicators. And besides, is it really that hard to turn on a stove and crack open two eggs onto a frying pan?

-Low carb breakfast. The Atkins of today is the pet rock of yesterday. Move along, nothing to see here.

-Virtual/augmented reality - Ah the great promise of virtual reality. I can buy into having a device that "writes" details about objects in your field of vision, but that technology packed into contact lenses and being able to do facial recognition within 10 years is a bit hard to swallow.

-A "smart window" for every cubicle. When most people are lucky to get four walls?

The article definitely has more against it than going for it. I'll make sure to ring him up on his universal number in 10 years and tell him how full of BS he is.

Tell them that you want Apple Powerbooks BANNED from using the in-flight laptop power (which will charge batteries) available in many first- and business- class sections of airplanes.

This is a very dangerous and serious situation! The DOT is concerned enough to ban Knitting Needles (maybe someone could knit an Afghan!); why not ban something that poses a REAL DANGER?

Write letters to the editors, call local call-in shows, and do all the "Guy Kawasaki" style virus marketing that Apple loves so much. Let people know that having an Apple Powerbook charging on an airplane is a recipe for disaster!

Tell them that you want Apple Powerbooks BANNED from using the in-flight laptop power (which will charge batteries) available in many first- and business- class sections of airplanes.

Seriously, this is a very dangerous situation!

Write letters to the editors, call local call-in shows, and do all the "Gay Kawasaki" style marketing that Apple loves so much. Let people know that having an Apple Powerbook charging on an airplane is a recipe for disaster!

Look here in the Vehicles section:
http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/facts_data/facts_data.h tm

Japan allows far lighter cars on the road and yet, has only 60% of the fatal accidents per 10,000 vehicles.

Road density isn't a good comparison, there are huge areas of the US that aren't populated, thus there is no need for roads there. You would probably find the road density is proportional to population density.
The better comparison is automobiles per captita where Germany is 1st, US second, followed by france and canada. Although vehicle miles travelled is higher in the US.

Amazing how many people manage to post on the internet but still haven't heard about Google.com. Here's one of the better hits for you, but you'll have to read a lot of PDFs from there. What it comes down to is that eating causes slightly more accidents each year than cellphone, but the percentage of drivers that eat is much higher than those who phone.

Actually, the FARs summary is a good one for comparing the danger of alcohol and cellphones, but I can't find a place to download it. Various newspapers have reported it's conclusions, though.

I've seen these studies, and I doubt they are unbiased studies by people in a neutral position on the issue.

Go ahead and point out the "bias" here.

LOL, I never realized that before, thanks. It's supposed to stand for Colorado State Patrol but I guess ASS is easier to remember :). Here's a link with more info. Do a search for 277 on the page and you'll see what I'm talking about.

There are many programs under ITS, one of which, the Intelligent Vehicle Initiative includes research efforts at hands-off driving,. Hands-off driving was first tested on an Interstate Highay in 1997,

On an 11 kilometer stretch of Interstate 15's isolated High Occupancy Vehicle lanes, the National Automated Highway System Consortium (nahsc.volpe.dot.gov) embedded magnets in the surface of the road. Along the shoulder, radio beacons were installed. Test vehicles were outfitted with optical sensors, radio communication equipment and computers. On August 8, 1997, these vehicles were driven by an experimental automated highway system along the test track. Human "drivers" sat behind the wheel, but it was the computer that dodged obstacles, merged vehicles and braked to stop.

The cars moved in two basic formations. As "free agents," each vehicle traveled independent of the others. As a "platoon," several cars followed each other within a few meters, forming an "auto train" that could grow or shrink as vehicles left and joined the platoon.

(Disclaimer- I have worked on more than a few ITS projects :)

cheers- raga

There are many programs under ITS, one of which, the Intelligent Vehicle Initiative includes research efforts at hands-off driving,. Hands-off driving was first tested on an Interstate Highay in 1997,

On an 11 kilometer stretch of Interstate 15's isolated High Occupancy Vehicle lanes, the National Automated Highway System Consortium (nahsc.volpe.dot.gov) embedded magnets in the surface of the road. Along the shoulder, radio beacons were installed. Test vehicles were outfitted with optical sensors, radio communication equipment and computers. On August 8, 1997, these vehicles were driven by an experimental automated highway system along the test track. Human "drivers" sat behind the wheel, but it was the computer that dodged obstacles, merged vehicles and braked to stop.

The cars moved in two basic formations. As "free agents," each vehicle traveled independent of the others. As a "platoon," several cars followed each other within a few meters, forming an "auto train" that could grow or shrink as vehicles left and joined the platoon.

(Disclaimer- I have worked on more than a few ITS projects :)

cheers- raga

For this reason, you'll see that most "doubles" (2 trailers+tractor) won't have tandem axles in the trailers, while the doubles with tandem axles in the trailers won't be able to carry any where close to the 36 kip max allowable.

AFAIK, only a couple of western states allow "triples" (3 trailers+tractor) and they can operate only on a very small designated part of the highway network.

cheers- raga

You know, I've never worked in NYC, but I've visited, and one thing I recall is the following: the yellows go to red, and then there's another couple seconds of pause, and then the reds on the other side flip to green. Also, many members of ITE (Institute of Transportation Engineers, the traffic engineer equivalent to IEEE) have been bitching about NYC's idiotic 3 second yellow standard for a long time now. Let's also note that NYC's drive to a 3 second yellow was spearheaded by an insurance industry group that also pushes red light cameras (and that the far too short 3 second yellow has been proven to cause higher numbers of entry-on-red, which results in higher ticket revenue). Something that causes higher numbers of crashes and tickets, being pushed by an insurance industry lobbying group? Gee, you don't think they might want to be able to jack up their rates for drivers, do you?

My aggressiveness comes from the fact that I spent most of my high school summer jobs working as a surveyor's assistant, meaning that I dealt with more than a few road engineers. I'm not dumb, and I picked up quite a bit. Having a civil engineer for a father probably helped too. Oh, and knowing of the existence of the Highway Safety Act (1966) and the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices. Which used to lay out exactly the principles I talk about, until it was modified in 2000 to remove the "based on formal site engineering studies" for politically motivated reasons (specifically, the lobbying by red light camera and insurance industry people, and also the desire by most cities for increased revenue from red light cameras). However, even the watered down version states the reason for a yellow light to be (paraphrasing) "to allow motorists adequate time to stop prior to the intersection and to clear the intersection." ITE/ASCE's most recent publication setting forth the method of determination would be Determination of Left-Turn Yellow Change and Red Clearance Interval, published in JTE. Specifically it deals with those issues for left-turn intersections. Unfortunately, the paper is not free, unless you have access to JTE through work or school or membership. Another non-free reference is ITE's #JDB04A20

Be less aggressive when you try to talk back to someone who knows what they're talking about, okay? NYC is hardly the typical example for road safety, by the way - you freaks don't even obey your lane lines, much less your traffic signals.

We already *have* freeways. Traffic engineers should work on slowing cars on surface streets.

Don't worry... they are! Search for "Traffic Calming" and you'll find things like:

http://www.trafficcalming.org/

http://www.ite.org/traffic/

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/environment/tcalm/