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Believe it or not, you're chancing it every day with things that could take out a whole city block (e.g. liquid chlorine) while you're worrying about something that would be ugly but that they'd just direct traffic around.

Funny you should mention that. I make a point to note all of the placards I see on the highway and look them up in the Emergency Response Guidebook. Just this morning I passed a tanker of isopropyl acetate (placard 1220) - fairly nasty stuff according to the guide.

The worst thing I've seen on the road were reinforced small tanks of the CX blister agent (a chemical weapon, placard 2811) and a rail car of chlorine (placard 1017). What the CX was doing on the highway I have no idea.

I've also seen casks of reactor fuel heading from the Areva plant in Lynchburg, Va presumably to one of the reactors in Surry or North Anna. I was a lot less concerned over the nuclear fuel that I was the CX.

Some of the more dangerous entries in the guidebook (check out Oxygen Difluoride, placard 2190) have initial isolation distances for large spills of 1000m - that's 3280 ft or .62 MILES in all directions. Draw a circle of radius 1000m centered on your downtown and see how many people that is. You must also protect people downwind at night for 11 km (7+ miles) for large or small spills and 11km during the day for large spills.

Actually, as population has increased and total crashes decreased it would seem that Accidents ARE down Per Capita:

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

Apparently in the US the fatality rate is 1 per 125m "vehicle miles of travel". I couldn't find a reliable average number of fatalities per fatal accident, so I couldn't work out a "miles per fatal accident", though obviously would be higher.

Unfortunately I couldn't easily find any reliable accident statistics, a 6m figure (1 per 0.5m miles) is bandied about a bit but seems to stem from some ambulance-chasing lawyer outfit.

Personally I find that an astonishingly impressive safety record. Ample room for improvement for sure, but does give me doubts that computers are anywhere near as capable.

That said, using statistics for context does throw up some oddities. Like, why we shouldn't be at all concerned about terrorism, and wondering why smoking is still legal and even socially acceptable (yes I am a smoker, and do think the habit is utterly idiotic).

Statistics don't bear that out. We're still having roughly the same number of wrecks as we always did, and roughly the same number of fatalities.

No. Not true.

In spite of millions and millions of more miles driven every year accident rates and fatalities are down.

But the key point is they have been falling ever since these stats have been kept. The new gadgetized car technology is too new to show any measurable effect.

Do you have any actual statistics to show otherwise? Considering how the actual figures show an almost consistent downtrend in fatal accidents per 100,000 population, per 100,000 licensed drivers and per 100,000 Registered Vehicles. And yes, yes, one can not account everything towards safety features, but to try to claim that they have no net positive effect is completely asinine unless you have some sort of alternate explanation for why those per capita figures show a ~30%, ~22%, and ~31% drop over a 15 year period.

These things haven't been out long enough for any traffic fatality statistics to be released yet. The jury is still out.

Check out this link. While it isn't a true showing of a causal relationship but you can notice the general trend of Fatality Rate Per 100,000 Population and Fatality Rate Per 100,000 Licensed Drivers has almost consistently gone down year over year.

Ever since the time that gasoline hit $4 here in the US, I've been keeping an eye on the DOT's Traffic Volume Trends. It seems to me that, once Americans realized how much gas could cost (and will permanently cost, eventually), they also realized how much auto travel is superfluous. In particular This chart of the 12-month average for all roads shows a clear pullback in miles driven. Perhaps some of this could be attributable to people being more efficient in their travel; taking care of multiple errands at once, using public transportation much more, etc. Certainly the downturn in the economy has an impact, too.

Ever since the time that gasoline hit $4 here in the US, I've been keeping an eye on the DOT's Traffic Volume Trends. It seems to me that, once Americans realized how much gas could cost (and will permanently cost, eventually), they also realized how much auto travel is superfluous. In particular This chart of the 12-month average for all roads shows a clear pullback in miles driven. Perhaps some of this could be attributable to people being more efficient in their travel; taking care of multiple errands at once, using public transportation much more, etc. Certainly the downturn in the economy has an impact, too.

At last tally, there are approximately 251 million passenger vehicles on the road. Also, deaths due to drunk driving are just under 14,000 per year. That equates to less than .006% of highway deaths caused by drunk drivers.

There were 30,797 road fatalities in 2009, according to your government ( http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx/ ).

If 14,000 were caused by drunk driving, then that makes it closer to 50% of deaths caused by drunk driving, or at least far more than 0.006% by a few orders of magnitude.

Math isn't one of your strong points, is it?

Here is why your math does not work. Use commercial airliners. In the US, post 9/11 there have been six crashes where there were fatalities. In one of those crashes, a co-pilot was hung-over (BAC .06 - technically not DWI, but DUI if he was driving). Using your methodology, almost 17% of airline deaths are due to drunken pilots. Assuming that the crash in question was because the copilot was drunk, then that statement, like yours is true (your statement is that half of of auto deaths are caused by drunk driving).

However, both of those statistics 17% and 50% are meaningless. What is important is what is the likelihood of being killed by a drunk driver (or pilot)? For drivers in the US it is .006%. For fliers in the US it so much less that my calculator doesn't go that far out.

Yes, we do not want drunk drivers or drunk pilots. But, with limited resources, is that the best use of public safety funds? No, because the risk is so much lower than other things that are more likely to happen.

In the case of the original article, say the checkpoint is Florida catches 10 people out of 1,000 stopped? Was it successful? It depends, it did get 10 drunk drivers off the road. However, what was the risk involved? Statistically, none of those 10 would have been in an accident, let alone cause a fatality. As a matter of fact, there was a greater chance for an accident being caused by the checkpoint diverting traffic than by the drunk drivers them self.

I am not trying to belittle or minimise drunk driving, however, society does over exaggerate its impact which leads to wrong solutions and bad laws being enacted.

BTW, about 35K people die every year on roads in the USA. That number used to be 50K 10 yrs ago, so all the airbags and anti-lock breaks appear to be working.

Also, gridlock is working... it's harder to die when you can only go 10mph.

For reference, see the fatalities in urban vs rural.

Despite the much higher number of people in urban/suburban areas, there's still equal or more fatalities in rural areas.

At last tally, there are approximately 251 million passenger vehicles on the road. Also, deaths due to drunk driving are just under 14,000 per year. That equates to less than .006% of highway deaths caused by drunk drivers.

There were 30,797 road fatalities in 2009, according to your government ( http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx/ ).

If 14,000 were caused by drunk driving, then that makes it closer to 50% of deaths caused by drunk driving, or at least far more than 0.006% by a few orders of magnitude.

Math isn't one of your strong points, is it?

You better check your math. 14,000 deaths out of 251 million drivers is .006%. While it may be true that about half of all highway fatalities are related to drunk driving, it does not change that the percentage of drivers killed by drunk drivers is .006%.

But to be more accurate, I should have stated: That equates to less than .006% of highway drivers killed by drunk drivers. So, it's not my math, but my english that is off.

At last tally, there are approximately 251 million passenger vehicles on the road. Also, deaths due to drunk driving are just under 14,000 per year. That equates to less than .006% of highway deaths caused by drunk drivers.

There were 30,797 road fatalities in 2009, according to your government ( http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx/ ).

If 14,000 were caused by drunk driving, then that makes it closer to 50% of deaths caused by drunk driving, or at least far more than 0.006% by a few orders of magnitude.

Math isn't one of your strong points, is it?

40% is a little high. The total for 2006 is 31%.

http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Crashes/CrashesAlcohol.aspx

I find it interesting that the multiple vehicle number is 24%. That means that 76% of all multiple vehicle traffic fatalities in 2006 were caused by sober drivers. Do you think that being caught speeding should permanently revoke one's privilege to drive?

Here are the real numbers for traffic fatalities.

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

I'm having trouble finding the data on their site so can you source another location that compares advances in car safety versus drunk driving enforcement as a leading cause for the reduction in traffic fatalities? Bonus points for adjusting the percentage of fatalities over the years for the increase in licensed drivers.

In other words, I'm having trouble seeing "the history that shows strict enforcement of impaired ..." in the data from what I hope is an unbiased source. What's your source?

I did say roughly and I apologize for being so rough. I don't know what an "autoblog" is, but here is a direct link to the NHTSA page: http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Crashes/CrashesAlcohol.aspx

The number, exactly*, is 37% involve alcohol. The quote from the bottom of that page:

Note: NHTSA estimates alcohol involvement when alcohol test results are unknown.
Alcohol-Impaired Driving – at least one driver or motorcycle rider had a BAC of .08 or higher.

* subject to NHTSA estimation

What is the principle by which you made this decision? Is it a desire to see as few deaths as possible? Then you should be focusing your efforts on heart disease. That accounts for a third of all deaths in the US! (831,000 or 34.3% in 2006, according to the American Heart Association.) It's about as bad as a WTC event every second day (and every Sunday).

Perhaps it's only "unnatural" deaths? Then you should be campaigning to forbid automobiles, since automobile accidents account for some 30,000 deaths in the US annually ( http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.html ). Instead, you suggest using an automobile.

Perhaps it's only deaths with a culpable party? Then let's restrict ourselves to automobile accidents involving drunk driving. That accounts for about 10,000 deaths in the US annually ( http://www-fars.nhtms.dot.gov/Crashes/CrashesAlcohol.aspx ). That's a WTC event every five months.

Perhaps you're upset by intentional murder alone? The going rate in the US is 17,000 per year ( http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2010/tables/10s0295.pdf ). Terrorism rates for the past ten years have been less than ten annually except in 2001.

If you're restricting yourself any further than this, I doubt the utility of your principle.

You're not necessarily inconsistent here, just inefficient.

What is the principle by which you made this decision? Is it a desire to see as few deaths as possible? Then you should be focusing your efforts on heart disease. That accounts for a third of all deaths in the US! (831,000 or 34.3% in 2006, according to the American Heart Association.) It's about as bad as a WTC event every second day (and every Sunday).

Perhaps it's only "unnatural" deaths? Then you should be campaigning to forbid automobiles, since automobile accidents account for some 30,000 deaths in the US annually ( http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.html ). Instead, you suggest using an automobile.

Perhaps it's only deaths with a culpable party? Then let's restrict ourselves to automobile accidents involving drunk driving. That accounts for about 10,000 deaths in the US annually ( http://www-fars.nhtms.dot.gov/Crashes/CrashesAlcohol.aspx ). That's a WTC event every five months.

Perhaps you're upset by intentional murder alone? The going rate in the US is 17,000 per year ( http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2010/tables/10s0295.pdf ). Terrorism rates for the past ten years have been less than ten annually except in 2001.

If you're restricting yourself any further than this, I doubt the utility of your principle.

You're not necessarily inconsistent here, just inefficient.

I assume you're taking into account being hit by an SUV while driving a different car.

Actually, NHTSA studied fatality rates by vehicle type. SUVs do offer more protection in collisions by virtue of their greater mass. But this is almost exactly offset by their greater tendency to roll over (and higher fatality rate in roll-overs). Consequently, occupants of mid-size SUVs are only slightly safer than occupants of small cars, and occupants of full-size SUVs are slightly more likely to die than occupants of medium- and full-size sedans.

Here's the data from the US DOT for miles driven and death rates.

As far as the 1 per 500,000 miles I am using 6 million car accidents per year in the US. If you have better data I'd be glad to see it.

I have a "near miss" about once or twice a year where only sheer luck and/or psychic ability has prevented an accident.

Exactly - near misses happen all the time but rarely result in an accident.

Lets first of all, get it clear that DUIs or even DWIs vary from state to state and due to jurisdictional limits, your CDL is not always governed by federal authority.

That said, the FMCSA legal BAC limit is applied only when a CDL commercial motor vehicle operator who is required to have a CDL is deemed to be driving under the influence of alcohol and subject to the disqualification sanctions in the Federal regulations. You are not subjected to the disqualification sanctions in the Federal regulations in your private non-commercial car.

Now some states have transferred the federal laws to CDL drivers in a private vehicle but not all. The problem/difference comes in where the cop doesn't know that the CDL version of the legal limits apply and stays with the regular version. You can't be charged twice for the same offense and if they let you go, they aren't going to come back after you later just to say, I'm sorry we let you go when you were over the legal limit, now we are going to arrest and charge you. You also can't be charged for the federal law unless the federal jurisdiction applies and since drivers licenses are state jurisdiction, in your private car, state rules apply.

And of course, this is also mentioned in the last paragraph of the page you linked to.

Oh, but the right believes that Public Transportation is "big government that can't support itself".

Actually, it is pretty expensive, and not very energy efficient. Here's a table of efficiencies. Energy efficiency (article is a direct link to a DOE report on the subject). The most important thing to look at is the comparison of the Telsa roadster and the Japanese Train - it's close. Japan is the biggest public transport riding countries in the G8 - so all the typical responses about how trains would be better if people already rode them go out the window. It gets even better. If you divide the Telsa's numbers by 1.57 (the average number of people in a car), you get almost exactly the same number. But it gets better. Google has been testing some plug-in hybrid Escapes and Priuses, and they've been running around about half the Telsa's numbers in average driving (those Tesla numbers are straight and level at 65 mph). What that means is that these cars are more efficient than the train, with only one person in them. You can even compare the gas cars to buses, and note how they edge out buses, ever so slightly.

Car drivers pay about 80-90 of their costs, equivalent to a 11 cent gas tax increase to make up the difference. This works out to about 0.05 cents per mile. Edmunds estimates the TCO of a new 2011 Hyundai Accent at $0.44 per mile. Make that $0.45 to make up for the shortfall and you're done. That includes, gas, insurance, taxes, the tax shortfall, parking, highways, depreciation, the highway patrol, financing, the works. Of course, that's a brand new car. What if you run an old beater into the ground, like many poor people do? A lot of those costs go out the window.

By far, insurance is the biggest cost. A robocar could avoid much of that cost. Public transport may be safer in some cases, and that is a valid point.

So, instead, we're going to implement fine control of individual's actions, which is "being tough on crime".

It'll be a disaster. Fortunately, we're not going to have this: the official response.

Settle down all you knee-jerkers, that's not actually what he said

What's your fucking point? The fact that he even suggested it was an option is pure idiocy!

Conservatives here love to rant about KDawson being a hack of an editor, with a liberal bias. Meanwhile this conservative piece of garbage was only up here for about 20 minutes before someone pointed out that it is total bullshit. Yet I don't see an outpouring of people calling for Timothy's head...

I guess every once in a while we see the true bias of slashdot; I'll give you a clue and tell you it sure as hell isn't liberal.

The article is a hoax... from the source:
http://fastlane.dot.gov/2010/11/setting-the-record-straight.html

Because he said "you have to have people take personal responsibility " and " there will never be a technological device that imparts common sense when it comes to safe driving" ? That's idiotic?

Settle down all you knee-jerkers, that's not actually what he said

thank you.

But this is what the Secretary actually said.

http://fastlane.dot.gov/2010/11/setting-the-record-straight.html

Sort of. Here is the official response.

The actual number of deaths is twice that, but it's still irrelevant because

1) It's been decreasing every year for the past 5 years despite the "epidemic" of cell phone usage:

2005 39,252
2006 38,648
2007 37,435
2008 34,172
2009 30,797
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

A 25% reduction over 5 years. Not too shabby.

2) 30,800(ish) deaths per year is 0.01% of the population, or one in 10,000 people. On the other hand, there are 11,700 people born in the US every day. Not to sound callous, but it's not exactly the plague we're talking about here.

Settle down all you knee-jerkers, that's not actually what he said

except that IS what he said, "we're looking at it" means "we're considering it a viable option" rather than "we laughed in the face of the guy who suggested it because it's moronic".

Settle down all you knee-jerkers, that's not actually what he said

I'm a USAmerican and while I'll admit to sucking at math, I think it's a stretch to say I suck "so badly." I'm not exactly sure what The Problem with America Today is, but if I had to guess I'd say a lot of it has to do with extremely large organizations motivated solely by profit (AKA news media) manipulating the international discourse in ways that are profitable, which has nothing to do with a sane representation of reality. It's probably not even that satisfyingly conspiratory, unfortunately, but I do know that I've never seen anyone ram together a few legitimate data points like I have in this blog post (which I'm reproducing in entirety here to save everyone the effort of having to click through to a foreign environment):

In the style of Harper's Index, if with so much less elegance...

Number of deaths in the USA due to fundamentalist Islamic terrorists in 9/2001: 2,996
Estimated number of those that were US citizens: 2,669
Number of deaths in the USA due to traffic accidents in the same month: 3,303
Number of deaths in the USA due to fundamentalist Islamic terrorists between 9/12/2001 and 12/31/2008: 0
Number of deaths in the USA due to traffic accidents in approximately the same period: 303,841
Total approved, as of 12/2009, for the three military operations initiated to combat terrorism in response to 9/11 (excluding funds for CIA, FBI, TSA, Homeland Security, etc.): $1,086,000,000,000
Estimated budget for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over the same period: $6,520,000,000
The NHTSAs budget, expressed as a percent of the amount allocated for these military operations: 00.
Estimate, in 2008, for the final total cost of the Iraq war alone: $3,000,000,000,000
Amount allocated to the military per terrorism related US citizen death in the USA since 9/11/2001: $406,893,967.78
Amount allocated to the NHTSA per traffic related death: $21,458.59
Amount allocated to the military per terrorism related US citizen death in the USA since 9/12/2001: Undefined
Percentage of causes of death in the USA that kill more people than terrorism: 100
Percentage of causes of death in the USA that receive more public money for prevention than terrorism: 0
Percent change in gross federal debt between 2001 and 2010: 232.97
Percentage of gross federal debt in 2001 that would have been eliminated by 1.086 trillion dollars: 18.8
Amount each US household would receive given 1.086 trillion dollars evenly distributed: $9443.48
Rank of defense, excluding expenditure on active military operations, among all categories of federal spending: 1
Percentage of federal spending in 2009 that went to defense: 23
Percentage of federal income in the same year that came from individual income tax: 43
Percentage that came from social security/social insurance tax: 42
Percentage that came from corporate income tax: 7


Sources: http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_September_11_attacks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHTSA Global Terrorism Database, with specific query used The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11, by the Congressional Research Service (pdf) The three trillion dollar war

have fun in Hawaii

Just take the H-1 interstate from california.
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/hawaii01.cfm

I'm passing on my mod points, because I actually have done research in drowsy driver warnings. You are correct that this warning is too late and drivers need the warning sooner. Also, people are downright terrible at accurately judging how tired they are.

Back in the late 1990's the US DOT started funding a series of projects on this topic for commercial truck drivers. DOT wanted a method for measuring drowsiness before things got to the point where drivers were closing their eyes for seconds at a time. A measure called PERCLOS was developed and subsequently implemented in a dashboard mounted sensor (gee, that sounds like the abstract).

The difference is that the system used a single camera and was actually tested on drowsy drivers in a simulator and validated in a very large road study. The system developed under DOT research issued a warning as drivers were moving up the drowsiness curve, not when they went over the cliff. Truck drivers need to know at least 10-20 minutes before an exit that they need to get off and take a nap since safe parking areas are spaced too far.

Furthermore, the system was designed specifically with driver acceptance in mind. It was designed to be similar to a speedometer, rather than an alarm clock. It provided objective information on how tired you were and only issued an alarm when you crossed a dangerous threshold. Some cars allow you set similar threshold warnings for speed.
In terms of coffee, it does help, but not when used the way most of us think it does nor is the impact very large. Also, it doesn't help at all when you're over the drowsiness cliff and are closing your eyes long enough to trigger the system in this article. By then, you're in the cornfield (if you're lucky) or wrapped around a tree (if not).

The National Bridge Inventory has data on Deficient, Structurally-deficient (SD), and Functionally-Obsolete (FO) bridges. The numbers are very disturbing.

I once found a listing of bridge 'health' numbers as a percentage from 0-100% - a bridge I go over every day is at 10%.

Here it is. Search for 0009500 in the "Fed Struc Id" column. 10.5% sufficiency rating.
Ugh.

I'm guessing it's buried in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD).

There are quite a few rules that highway departments have to follow. About the only flexibility is the design on State and local route number signs (County Highway/State Highway) and street signs -- but not how the information is displayed (i.e. font size and proportions).

I'm sure it is the reason you don't SeE StReeT SiGNs LikE THIs... Sure, all uppercase seemed definitive and authoritative and the style of the time. I remember Chicago having all capital lettered street signs, but with the advent of GPS and me knowing where I'm going, I don't remember the last time I looked at one.

For those interested the latest MUTCD is online.... http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/pdfs/2009/pdf_index.htm

Enjoy.

staying in lanes that end until the very last moment to cut in front of traffic

http://ops.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/fhwahop09037/principles.htm

http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/

http://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/speedmgt/ref_mats/fhwasa09028/resources/Synthesis%20of%20Safety%20Researc...pdf

now stfu

Statistics on the other hand will show that the number of fatalities varies to the square of the speed of the vehicle involved in a collision.

Highway statistics show no consistent relationship between speed and fatality. That's probably because once you reach a speed that kills you, it doesn't matter how much faster you go. Higher speeds do seem to increase driver alertness, but of course you also have more stopping distance.

What we do know is that Germany has much higher highway speeds, yet much lower highway accident rates (1/3 of US) and lower absolute number of fatalities (1/40 of US at 1/4 the population).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_limit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autobahn

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/pubs/pl08021/fig7_5.cfm

So, stop pulling statistics out of your ass.

Maybe, but those rural areas create the food that the cities need to house and feed their populations

And this is relevant how?

The roads needed to truck in supplies, heavily subsidized food programs, and greatly disproportionate distribution of state tax income as well as federal aid.

Well since the majority of the people live there, and the majority of the wealth is both generated and consumed there, then of course cities account for the most of government revenue and expenditures. It's pretty damn hard to say that cities are "greatly disproportionate" when according to the 2000 Census, 79 % of all Americans live in urban areas. If you really want to look at disproportionate spending look at the rural area. Mapping states according to federal contributors and beneficiaries (contributors receive less than $1 of federal spending for each dollar paid in taxes, beneficiaries receive more than $1 for each dollar paid in taxes), you find two curious facts. First. there's the irony of the political leanings of the states; but more importantly for this conversation, the more populous and urban states are net contributors and the less populous and rural states tend to be beneficiaries. We see this again and again by any metric and any population you choose. For instance, poverty rates for instance.

I grew up in the rural area. It sucked. I'm glad I got out, because there's simply no future there.

My milage stats came from the U.S. Federal Department of Transportation Your assumptions for gas milage are not based in reality, but rather the perfect world of milage tests. Also, see the comments about the major milage loss when the tires are changed out for safer ones. The lifespan gas saving does not reflect resale value or price. They are not going to "drop dead the instant the warranty expires". Rather it assumes that the battery will have to be replaced within 3-5 years after it expires. This is a safe assumption given previous performance.

Wait, you mean fuel taxes pay for roads? What fuel taxes? Oh, you mean the absurdly low $0.46/gal (26.2c state + 18.4 fed.) that doesn't change with the price of gas and accounts for $20 billion (fed. portion of $29.6b total) out of $40 billion of federal highway spending? I don't think the electric cars are going to make that much difference--they aren't even *trying* to make gas taxes actually pay for all the roads in the country.

What will really sell is an electric car that can take a family of 4 with luggage 300 miles and charge in less then 5 minutes, and is comparably priced to current gas models. We also need to deal with the problems with range due to temperature. Meaning, the 3000 miles but be 300 miles MINIMUM under the worst condition.

I think your minimum is too high. We have one car - a 2004 Honda Odessey - and we rarely go more than 220 miles between fueling (in city). Even on long car trips (across the great basin) we rarely get over 300. This is no problem for us. Now I could see it being more of a problem in rural areas, but 80% of the US population lives in urban areas these days so you could get most of the market with a lower target.

http://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z9596/Bricklin-SV1.aspx

or perhaps these?

http://books.google.com/books?id=kcwHCy6F4vcC&lpg=PA54&ots=FLN5TmAJOf&dq=ESV%20AMF&pg=PA54#v=onepage&q=ESV%20AMF&f=false

or better yes, the AMF ESV

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/pdf/esv/esv21/09-0480.pdf

the ESV PDF is very good.

In other words, what goes around comes around. We keep striving for perfect or near perfect safety and technology is getting closer to giving it to us, however I think the ultimate requirement is that we hand over driving to computers and by then why would you want a car?

Actually, I can name a few highways that're NOT the way you describe:

I-35 in Kansas as the Kansas Turnpike.
I-90 in Massachusetts as the MassPike.
I-44 in Oklahoma as the H. E. Bailey Turnpike, the Turner Turnpike, and the Will Rogers Turnpike respectively.
TX121 in Texas as the Sam Rayburn Turnpike.
TX190 and TX161 as the President George Bush Turnpike.

There's loads of others, in fact. Here's a link to the ones that are in the Eisenhower Interstate System that're tollways: From the US D.O.T...

They're definitely called "highways" but they're also called "tollways"- and they break the definition you provide there. Now, I think I concur that we should probably declare the networks a public resource, yes- but don't think that this prevents the other- because it flatly DOESN'T.

Again, you are looking at the EPA's web site, and the environment is not the original intent of HOV legislation. It was added-on many years later, most notably in Virginia who fight it ever time it comes up for renewal. Politically, it was a nice extra justification for having HOV lanes and in a very small number of states the clean/special fuel provision was added to the protest of highway planners.

As for quoting my sources, here is one that mentions the optional exceptions that states may allow, and it is a very new provision. HOV lanes in Virginia, for example, are over forty years old. You'll note the DOT's web site says "may" allow clean/special fuel, not "must," for states "choosing to allow exceptions."

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/safetealu/factsheets/hov.htm

Anybody know of similar stats for driving?

Quick look-up gives 1.25 fatalities/100 million miles traveled for 2008. Haphazard calculating gives 60 accidents/100,000 hours driving (50mph, 1 fatality in 1000 accidents).

Hard to compare, though.

The Environmental Working Group cites 2,509 deaths from mesothelioma per year. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration cites, in 2008 alone, 34,107 fatal crashes, which sent 26,689 people to their own funeral.

According to the California Office of Traffic Safety there were 3,995 fatalities from car crashes in 2008 alone. More people die in car accidents in one year in California than nationally from mesothelioma.

Do these pesky politicians actually think they're doing good with laws like these? How do people like Sen. Gloria Romero prioritize risk and public safety?

The DOT highly regulates what a train must do for an at-grade train crossing.

There are things that can be done that makes horn-blowing not necessary at certain intersections, but that can cost $20K-$200K per crossing, from what I understand. I know they have put a few in around my area.