speed linked to fuel mileage, accident survival

http://autos.aol.com/article/texas-speed-limit-gas-mileage/

Further evidence comes from a recent study that showed even a small reduction in speed can have a big impact on lives saved. In the report, published in the Transportation Research Record, author Rune Elvik found that a 1 percent decrease in travel speed reduces injury crashes by about 2 percent, serious injury crashes by about 3 percent and fatal crashes by about 4 percent. These reductions are critically needed, traffic safety experts say, as speeding remains a serious highway safety problem. Nearly 13,500 people died in speed-related crashes in 2006.

Drivers can assume that each 5 MPH they drive above 60 MPH, according to the Governor's Highway Safety Association (GHSA), is like paying an additional 20 cents a gallon for gas. Additionally, aggressive highway behavior such as speeding, rapid acceleration and braking can lower gas mileage by a whopping 33% at highway speeds and 5% around town.

"But today, it's always hurry, hurry, hurry everywhere you go. Everybody's gotta be there yesterday, and if you do the legal speed limit of 55 or 60 MPH, people tailgate you or beep their horn. You can't obey the law even if you want to without getting grief on the highway."

vehicle pollution causes brain damage

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110407092028.htm

If mice commuted, their brains might find it progressively harder to navigate the maze of Los Angeles freeways. A new study reveals that after short-term exposure to vehicle pollution, mice showed significant brain damage -- including signs associated with memory loss and Alzheimer's disease.

The authors found a way to recreate air laden with freeway particulate matter inside the laboratory. Whether in a test tube or in live mice, brain cells showed similar responses:

• Neurons involved in learning and memory showed significant damage,
• The brain showed signs of inflammation associated with premature aging and Alzheimer's disease,
• Neurons from developing mice did not grow as well.

The freeway particles measured between a few dozen to 200 nanometers -- roughly one-thousandth the width of a human hair, and too small for car filtration systems to trap.

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D - maybe we will find that our transportation is an important contributor to old age dementia?

So does a sedan for every home still look 'cheap'?

Aside - I drive a subcompact car to work, and hope to start bicycling some soon.

I hypermile and drive like a granny - other than going 10kph over the speed limit.
LOL and better not go any slower or I'd cause road rage.
I ponder that the few bad 'indy 500' drivers pay less for gas than I do.
Otherwise, they'd just be plain foolish.

gas station air pollution linked to health problems

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110204130315.htm

The research study shows that a "minimum" distance of 50 metres should be maintained between petrol stations and housing, and 100 metres for "especially vulnerable" facilities such as hospitals, health centres, schools and old people's homes. "Ideally, the 100 metre distance should be respected in plans for building new houses," says Doval.

The researchers propose carrying out this study at new construction areas in which it is planned to build these kinds of facilities. However, petrol stations are not the only source of emission of these pollutants.

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D - I was arguing with the a friend's friend on FB recently
He dismissed incidental costs to society of use of products.
If it is not embedded into a standard product price, then apparently it is a fairy tale.
And since the 'cradle to grave' cost of product cannot be precisely measured, then approximating it is spurious.
I pointed out that standard taxing is totally arbitrary, and a 'sin tax' like I proposed would much closer to an accurate assessment of using a product.
With 100 buck barrels of oil upon us again, folks will begin to agitate for lower fuel taxes again.
I say DOUBLE it. That still does not reflect the cost in urban areas of fuel use.

With public health care, the fiscal budget picks up the tab for anything we do not sensibly deter at the taxation level instead. In other words, we pay indirectly via hiked taxes or increased debt anyway!
Without public health care, the economy still absorbs the costs by loss of productivity. Money spent on health care is money not spent elsewhere.
Perhaps a spartan rather than thriving health care sector for preventable (and delayable) conditions is more desirable?

stress of road noise causes strokes

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1350595/Traffic-noise-raise-risk-stroke.html

Researchers say there is a low risk to young people, but road noise could account for one in five strokes among pensioners.

The first study to investigate the link found that for every ten decibels more noise, the risk of a stroke increased by 14 per cent. The risk increased by 27 per cent for those aged 65 and over.

When the noise gets above 60dB, the risk of stroke goes higher still, according to a report in the European Heart Journal.

The Danish study investigated 51,485 volunteers aged between 50 and 64 for around ten years. A total of 1,881 had a stroke.

The participants were estimated to be exposed to noise levels between 40dB and 82dB.

In a major city, typical noise levels can average 50-55dB compared with 60-70 for residents living near an airport.

Researcher Dr Mette Sørensen said the strokes were probably caused by noise disturbing sleep, which in turn raised stress hormones and blood pressure.

D - I've read the building code and considered house design.

Builders rarely consider noise volume in a house.

Those ICF, particularly with aerogel windows, would be silent.

pedestrian deaths in Toronto

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/grim-month-continues-with-14th-pedestrian-death/article1443794/

The deaths and injuries add to the war between pedestrian and driver and frustrate police and traffic safety advocates who say fatalities and injuries could be prevented if people would simply watch and listen.

“The easiest thing to say is it's unacceptable,” says Traffic Services Sergeant Tim Burrows. “When it comes to traffic collisions, they're predictable, they're completely preventable and they don't have to happen.”

The fatalities – eight in Toronto alone since Jan. 10 – have spurred medical professionals to push for pedestrian awareness campaigns to encourage people to watch where they're going, and for more traffic enforcement for inattentive drivers.

All of the deaths have been due to human error, by the driver, the pedestrian or both, Sgt. Burrows said, adding it's too early to say if charges will be laid in yesterday's accident. Next of kin were yet to be notified last night.

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D: I bought a car last year. In the car, I sometimes hope to turn left on a yellow. But the incoming cars going straight are apparently rushing to an emergency. Or they are very late. Or they are just fools. I am sure I am sitting in front of a red before they hit the interesection. But cannot turn until cars stop coming.

As a pedestrian, these are the cars that take you out at a cross-walk, when you have the right of way.

So yeah, you gotta watch. Feel free to encourage those drivers. Toss something at the car.

Piston kick the passenger side door. I personally like to reach and bend back the radio antenna, which then forcefully flicks forward and smacks their rear window.

D: easy to say watch and listen. But in the middle of the street in a crosswalk, when a car is gunning it into the turn (remember, that car driver is a caped crusader, rushing to the scene of a crime to find some phone booth to don their costume in! ) you are stuck like a deer in headlights.

Don't wait to assume they'll swerve last minute.

Toss what you're holding at their windshield.

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D: I've often fantasied about designing robo-pedestrians. They scrupulously adhere to the rules of the road. 

Wait until the sign says walk. And start to walk. 

If a car heads towards them, they throw themselves through the driver side window, thereby impaling the driver.

Problem solved.

Of course, I also fantasize about robo-drivers. There would not be many university students left around here...

Meh. Darwin in action. People are so busy trying to autodarwinate. Who are we to argue?

D: pedestrians will often wear dark clothing on a dark night. We're really not visible to peripheral vision.

Do keep in mind what you look like out there. Tacky, but consider a nice fluorescent toque.

Or buy reflective stripes on your next jacket.

---

I am a bit of a jerk with my bicycle. I dismount at crosswalks. I go onto the sidewalk. I hold the bike (important) on the RIGHT side. Don't look at the driver beside you planning to turn right. To many, that implies you see them an acknowledge their mass superiority.

On the walk signal, appear to lunge into the road to assert your right of way. Don't actually!

Lead with your bike. The following can happen:

1) they stop and glare. Look at them like the moron they are and point at the walk signal.

2) they don't stop. They run over your bike. And/or they get a ticket. And you get.... a new bike! Make sure your bike is a junker. You'll get a new bike. <:

3) they try to swerve left to get into a second lane. Keep walking. They end up blocking traffic. Great fun!

You can even stop and stare at them in the middle of the cross-walk then. Gesture at them as if they were particularly slow (they are). Point to the cross-walk sign.

---

We seem to think the Pedestrian signal is for pedestrians. We place it away from the driver's signal.

It's not. Pedestrians KNOW when they should walk.

The pedestrian walk is for the DRIVER. So why we place it visually away from where they are looking is quite beyond me.

I'd say this flawed assumption costs lives.

3) 

car exhaust gives seniors pneumonia. h2!!!

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/12/23/pneumonia-traffic-pollution.html

I'm sure we all knew that in some general sense.

If only there was some alternative. There is, there will be.

We just lack the will.

Now: public transit lanes.

Then: H2 fuel.

Now I am not a zealot about hydrogen. The biggest boosters also tend to know the least.

Almost inevitably they have read "The Hydrogen Economy" - and nothing else.

It doesn't mention all the *man* problems.

Though my friend Ryan has managed a much more spirited defence of H2.

The usual first pointless observation of H2 is 'it produces no pollution'!!!

If you mix it with 02 instead of atmospheric air, sure.

But H2 has storage issues- see later.

'n carrying 2x more O2 to in turn mix with it is prohibitive by volume or mass or money.

So in practice, H2 DOES pollute- though much less than, say, gasoline.

I think other than 1/3 the Nox, all the other pollutants were pretty trace.

No particulates to speak of.

So we do come out wayyy ahead.

Even without pie-in-sky naivete.

Ryan countered my H2 storage criticism.

He pointed out all the systems that a car needs due to gasoline.

Initially gasoline (or diesel fuel) seems ideal, due to its compact nature and being liquid

at room temperature.

BUT. Once we factor in all the pollution scrubbing systems necessary, that changes.

Ryan crunched the numbers. Once we pull all those systems in an H2 car, the H2 storage unit is a mass-neutral prospect.

H2 is energy-intensive to make. In general, yes. Particularly if we use cryogenic liquid H2.

However, when solar or wind (or for that matter, idling generators that still consume most of the power to run them!) is not being used, we can store it as H2.

H2 or batteries. H2 is best thought of as a storage medium and not an energy source.

Since H2 is not very usefully available in nature in that form, we must 'process' it.

Mating wind/solar/et al with a H2 combustion generator would address a criticism of alternative power sources- that they are not reliable.

Wind comes and then goes. Solar is strictly daytime.

Whereas, presumably, coal is reliable.

And H2 could do so without needing to send energy long distance on power lines, complete with heat loss.

The loss is less with DC proposals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current

The transit of our society has 2 aspects:

1) personal cars and

2) fuel source.

These lead to the costs of

1) many many accidents and

2) pollution health costs.

As rule of thumb

1) cars kill the young(er)

2) fuel kills the old(er).

Once we factor in the hidden costs, the ones ignored by market forces...

a) is mass public transit and carpooling etc. expensive?

b) are cleaner fuels?

All my earlier research suggests the gas tax should be at least twice as high as it is.

The user should pay.

Not the poor sod walking by on the sidewalk...

UK study: 40kph zones would reduce pedestrian deaths

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091210193202.htm

ScienceDaily (Dec. 14, 2009) — Traffic speed zones with a limit of 20 miles per hour reduce casualties by 41.9% with the greatest reduction in child casualties, according to research published today in the British Medical Journal.

D: not surprisingly.

Every second of additional reaction time would 1/2 accidents.

But roads all made for full-width emergency vehicles 'feel' safe at higher speeds.

Without traffic enforcement or 'calming measures', that means folks will drive as fast as they feel safe.

I'd like to see smaller emergency vehicles. Suddenly tight narrow back streets with severe turn ogives on corners would take care of speeding.

You gonna do it if yer tire will clip the curb?

Wide lanes and gradual ogives allow hi-G non-stop turns.