“Fans Don’t Let Fans Drive Drunk” is the Superbowl Sunday-related safety message being shared with the public by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and allied agencies. The DOT and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Region 7 Office — with support from the National Football League (NFL) and Techniques for Effective Alcohol Management (TEAM) Coalition, and local highway safety and law enforcement officials — seek to prevent drunk drivers from taking the wheel on Sunday, the day of the most popular sporting event in the US, according to an NHTSA press release, “Designated Drivers Should Always Start.”

The DOT, NFL, and related partners have suggestions for ways that Superbowl fans can have a safe time celebrating. At the top of the list is that fans should designate a sober driver before the activities kick off, whether they are attending an event, hosting a game-watching party at home, or hanging at a sports bar.

Occupational Health and Safety reports that the Network of Employers for Traffic Safety advises that designated drivers be well rested “and prepared to drive any distance that is required to get their impaired passengers home safely.” As Amber Ruch writes for KFVS12.com, in 2010, driving fatalities related to drunk driving accounted for 31% of all motor vehicle traffic deaths in the U.S.:

‘This message is for everyone who will be drinking during the big game. Make the right play and pass your keys to a designated driver so they can get you home safely,’ said Romell Cooks, Regional Administrator, NHTSA Region 7. ‘On Super Bowl Sunday, make it a team effort to keep yourselves and your loved ones safe. If you plan on driving, do not drink alcohol.’

One Cleveland, Ohio, area community’s plans might inspire other communities to do something similar. The Solon and Moreland Hills, Ohio, police are making a Superbowl party kit available to party hosts while supplies last, writes Joan Rusek, Sun News, for Cleveland.com. The kits, also sponsored by the Cuyahoga County Safe Communities Coalition, include a football-shaped bowl that party guests can put their car keys into, a recipe guide with great non-alcoholic drinks, ice drink coasters, a $5 gift card for a local business, and a $5 taxi voucher.

The article suggests that in addition to providing non-alcoholic drinks, party hosts “avoid mixing alcohol with carbonated beverages because carbonation increases the speed that the body absorbs alcohol.” Rusek writes:

Stop serving alcohol two hours before the party is over, but continue serving non-alcoholic drinks and food. Be aware this two-hour wait is not enough time for most people to clear all the alcohol from their system. [...]

‘Remember, someone does not have to be heavily intoxicated to be impaired — impairment can begin with the first drink,’ [Solon Police Sgt. Jamey] Hofmann said. “Driving skills and abilities are impaired in most people long before they exhibit visible signs of drunkenness.’

DOT provides the following tips for party hosts:

Find unique ways to recognize the designated drivers at your party:

• Give them a great spot to watch the game.
• Make sure their glass is always filled with the non-alcoholic beverage of their choice.
• Let them be first in line at the buffet table.
• Make sure their cars are easy to access when it is time to start driving people home.

Also:

• Serve plenty of food.
• Offer a variety of non-alcoholic choices like soft drinks, juice, and water.
• Serve one alcoholic drink at a time and serve measured drinks.
• Only serve alcohol to guests over 21 years of age.
• Determine ahead of time when you’ll stop serving alcohol, such as one hour before the party ends or at the end of the third quarter (just like NFL stadiums) and begin serving coffee and dessert.
• Program the numbers of local cab companies into your phone so they are just one touch away.
• Be prepared for guests to spend the night if a safe way home is not available.
• Remember, you can be held liable and prosecuted if someone you served ends up in a drunk-driving car accident.

DOT tips for people attending parties or watching the Superbowl at a restaurant or bar include:

• Designate your sober driver before the party begins.
• If you don’t have a designated driver, ask a sober friend for a ride home; call a cab, friend, or family member to come and get you; or just stay where you are and sleep it off until you are sober.
• Always buckle up — it’s the best defense against drunk drivers.

Image by USDOT | National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, used under Fair Use: Reporting.

An Ignition Interlock Device.

Congress is showing interest in a House transportation bill that would get more states to require convicted drunk drivers to test their blood alcohol level before starting their cars. Fifteen states currently require use of ignition interlock devices (IID) by anyone convicted of drunk driving. The bill was introduced on Tuesday by Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman John Mica (R-Fla), and will significantly strengthen highway safety, and advance Mothers Against Drunk Driving’s (MADD’s) Campaign to Eliminate Drunk Driving®.

As a MADD press release says:

Specifically, the bill includes an ignition interlock incentive grant provision which will encourage states to adopt all offender ignition interlock laws, a key component of the Campaign to Eliminate Drunk Driving. In addition, the measure includes important provisions which will help streamline highway safety, providing states more flexibility while holding them accountable for highway safety improvements. It also continues critical paid-ad funding for the annual law enforcement crackdowns on drunk driving and seatbelt use. [...]

An ignition interlock is a breath test device linked to a vehicle’s ignition system. When a convicted drunk driver wishes to start his or her vehicle, he or she must first blow into the device. The vehicle will not start unless the driver’s Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC) is below a preset level. After passing laws requiring ignition interlock devices for all offenders in Oregon and Arizona, those states saw drunk driving deaths decrease by 52 and 51 percent, respectively.

In addition to saving lives, ignition interlocks also save taxpayers money. The DWI/DUI offender pays for the installation and monitoring of the interlock… In November of last year, MADD released a Report to the Nation showing that drunk driving costs this country $132 billion.

MADD is hoping Congress will add to the bill’s safety provisions by also providing funding for the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS) advanced technology program, as covered in the ROADS Safe Act. The Act is sponsored by committee members Reps. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and Heath Shuler (D-NC), and is not included in Mica’s legislation. DADSS is a cooperative research project between the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and leading automakers through the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety to encourage and support the development of new technology that would stop drivers whose blood alcohol level is over the legal limit from operating a vehicle.

In a phone conversation with this blog, Anne Teigen, senior policy specialist in the Denver office of the National Conference of State Legislatures, explained the difference between an ignition interlock device and DADSS. IID is installed after somebody has been convicted of drunk driving. The idea with DADSS is to have something installed in new vehicles that would apply to everybody, including people never arrested for drunk driving. “There has not been a policy saying we’re going to do this or anything like that,” she emphasized.

Teigen said:

‘[With DADSS] they’re looking for the potential to find a system that would be reliable, easy to use in extreme temperatures — from Alaska to the heat of Arizona –  that is small and non-invasive, and would prevent a vehicle from being driven when a driver’s blood alcohol level is over the legal limit. They’re looking to see if it’s possible to integrate DADSS into the vehicle much like a seat belt.’

Richard Simon reports in the Los Angeles Times that the American Beverage Institute, a restaurant trade association, opposed the idea of requiring ignition interlock devices for all drunk drivers. But Congress appears to be getting behind the bill. Simon writes: “Dangling money in front of financially strapped states to nudge them into requiring the devices has emerged as one area of agreement in a divided Congress trying to write a new transportation spending bill in a politically charged election year.” There is a similar bill headed for the Senate.

MADD writes that in 2010, 10,228 people in the United States were killed in car accidents involving a drunk driver, and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) estimates that DADSS could save almost 8,000 lives per year.

“While drunk driving remains the primary threat to American families traveling on our roadways, we are closer than ever to making sure no family must endure the pain of losing a loved one to this 100-percent preventable crime,” said MADD National President Jan Withers. “Chairman Mica and Ranking Member Rahall are to be commended for the interlock section of this legislation which validates MADD’s Campaign to Eliminate Drunk Driving through its strong support of ignition interlocks.”

Image by Preventing DWI in New Mexico, used under Fair Use: Reporting.

Colorado Representative Laura Bradford

Colorado State Rep. Laura Bradford spoke to colleagues on the State House Floor on Monday regarding being pulled over by police last Wednesday for drunk driving. There have been questions as to whether she invoked legislative immunity to avoid a drunk-driving arrest after a happy hour at a Colfax bar.

Tim Hoover and Sara Burnett report in The Denver Post that Bradford said:

‘I am not above the law. I am bound to the same laws and standards as every other citizen,’ said Bradford, R-Collbran, in a speech on the House floor, her voice shaking at times. ‘I am sorry that my actions have cast a shadow on this House and the entire General Assembly.’

Denver police said Bradford was pulled over in the Capitol Hill area just after 10 p.m. Wednesday when an officer saw her making an illegal turn. The officer smelled alcohol on Bradford’s breath, and she admitted to having been drinking, police said.

The police office called a supervisor for advice after giving Bradford roadside sobriety tests, which indicate whether there is a need for further tests. Police said Bradford invoked Article 5, Section 16, of the Colorado Constitution, which says:

The members of the general assembly shall, in all cases except treason or felony, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the sessions of their respective houses, or any committees thereof, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either house, or any committees thereof, they shall not be questioned in any other place.

Deb Stanley writes for ABC7 News that although Bradford told lawmakers that Denver police pulled her over, she did not say why. “I was driving my personal car with legislative license plates. In response to the officer’s inquiry, I stated that I was leaving a legislative function, was on my way home and was expected to be at the capitol the next day,” Bradford said.

As The Denver Post reports:

It’s not clear what official business Bradford would have been coming from or going to at 10 p.m. on a Wednesday night. She didn’t address that question in her statement on the House floor and refused to answer further questions later.

However, multiple sources confirmed to The Denver Post that Bradford had attended a happy hour at Prohibition, a bar just a few blocks east of the Capitol. Sources told The Post that Bradford was at the bar for several hours.

According to Denver Police spokesman Sonny Jackson, the license plates on the car she was driving indicated she was a state lawmaker. “She was given a field sobriety test, and there were enough indicators that the officer on the scene wanted to take her into custody for a blood test,” said Denver Police spokesman Lt. Matt Murray. “But under the constitution, we couldn’t detain her.”

7NEWS spoke with legal experts and Democrat and Republican lawmakers, who said the law was misapplied:

‘It’s poppycock that she’s immune from arrest for driving while drunk,’ said Professor Tom Russell with the University of Denver Sturm College of Law. ‘The Denver police are giving legislators a break that they don’t deserve under the Constitution. Rep. Bradford may make the law, but she’s not above the law.’

‘In the current situation, Denver police may have applied the privilege more broadly than the Constitution does,’ said Rep. Bob Gardner, R-Colorado Springs.

Gardner said the provision is intended to prevent the governor or judicial branch from interfering with lawmakers as they work.

After police gave Bradford a traffic ticket and locked up her car, she took a cab to her Denver residence. Bradford released a statement Friday night saying, “I look forward to continuing my work on behalf of the people of my district and Colorado. I understand the speaker’s decision, and I look forward to having the facts brought to light.”

Bradford was suspended from her post as chairman of the House Local Government Committee after being given the traffic ticket, according to Owen K. Loftus, majority communications director. Ballotpedia.org reports that Bradford began serving as a State representative in 2009 and that her term runs through January 12, 2013.

Image by Laura Bradford for Colorado House, used under Fair Use: Reporting.

Drugged driving is on the rise, causing many serious accidents, and police have no way to test for it, say U.S. Senators Charles E. Schumer of New York and Mark Pryor of Arkansas, who are calling for passage of legislation. The legislation, the Motor Vehicle and Highway Safety Improvement Act of 2011, otherwise known as Mariah’s Act of 2011, would provide $140 million to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) to allow scientists — for the first time — to develop technologies to help identify drugged drivers. It would also provide funds to help states increase training of officers to spot the tell-tale signs of drugged drivers, a Schumer press release says.

According to an Associated Press article in USA TODAY, the senators cite a 2009 federal report finding that 10.5 million Americans acknowledge having driven under the influence of drugs, and that NHTSA found that a third of 12,055 drivers tested who died in car crashes had used drugs.

And Schumer’s press release says:

The scourge of drugged driving is also having a serious impact on America’s youth. A 2006 study published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs showed that 30% of high school seniors reported that they have either driven under the influence of drugs themselves, or been a passenger in a car driven by a drugged driver.

The New York Daily News reports: “If people next year knew that they’d be tested for drugged driving just like they are tested for drunk driving, it might deter them from doing it to begin with and save lives,” Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters.

In New York State alone, drugged driving arrests have increased 35% since 2001, Schumer says, in a period when prescription drug abuse is becoming epidemic. “Despite the growth in drugged driving arrests over the last 10 years, however, the total number of arrests pale in comparison to drunk driving arrests, in large part because of the difficulty in identifying drugged drivers on the road,” Schumer’s press release says.

Unlike drunk driving, which police can test for with breathalyzers, police departments do not have the technology to detect drugged drivers, who do not always demonstrate the same level of disorientation that drunk drivers do. That makes it more difficult for police to identify drivers who are under the influence of narcotics during routine traffic stops.

“Drugged driving is on the rise and our cops need state-of-the-art equipment and better training to identify and apprehend those who are putting innocent victims at risk as a result of their reckless behavior,” Schumer said.

Image by Stop Drugged Driving, used under Fair Use: Reporting.

Teens ages 14 to 18 are invited to enter a national contest to create a radio public service announcement (PSA) to help get the word out about the dangers of distracted driving. The second annual JST DRV! Radio PSA Contest — sponsored by The National Road Safety Foundation, the National Student Safety Program of the American Driver (NSSP), and Traffic Safety Education Association — begins on Thursday, Feb. 2.

The top prize is $1,000 and an expenses-paid trip to Wisconsin to the NSSP youth conference in mid-July, and the winning PSA will be broadcast nationally on the air and online. Three runners-up will each receive a $500 prize.

The National Road Safety Program writes in a press release in The Sacramento Bee:

Last year’s winner, Avneet Singh, a ninth-grader from Clinton, Mississippi, submitted a radio PSA that begins with the sound of a car engine starting, followed by the sound of fingers texting on a cell phone. We hear the engine revving, and then tires squealing and a crash. The voiceover says, ‘Texting is a leading cause of teenage deaths. Dying to text is no LOL (laughing out loud) matter.’

Entries should be recorded and must be 15 or 30 seconds in length. Entries must include a wmv file or a live link, and should be mailed by April 30 to National Road Safety Foundation JST DRV Contest, 18 East 50th St., New York, NY 10022. They can also be emailed to jstdrv@nrsf.org.

Distraction.gov, the official U.S. government website for distracted driving, reports that according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), car accidents caused by distracted driving in 2009 killed 5,474 people and injured an estimated 448,000 people, and that 16% of fatal crashes in 2009 involved reports of distracted driving.

And texting has been increasing. Distraction.gov also reports that according to CTIA (The Wireless Association), in the month of June 2011, more than 196 billion text messages were sent or received in the U.S. — an increase of nearly 50% since June 2009.

All distractions endanger drivers, passengers, and bystanders, says Distraction.gov, including:
•    Texting
•    Using a cell phone or smartphone
•    Eating and drinking
•    Talking to passengers
•    Grooming
•    Reading, including maps
•    Using a navigation system
•    Watching a video
•    Adjusting a radio, CD player, or MP3 player

You can find information about distracted driving laws in every state at distraction.gov. For example, in Colorado there is a ban on all cell phone use (handheld and hand-free) for novice drivers, and a ban on texting for all drivers.

“Traffic crashes are the number one cause of death among U.S. teens, with 5,000 young people killed annually and thousands more injured,” said Michelle Anderson of The National Road Safety Foundation. “The U.S. Secretary of Transportation has called distracted driving a national epidemic, and this contest will encourage young people to communicate important messages about the issue to peers in their own voice.”

You can hear previous winning entries at: http://www.nrsf.org/teenlane/pastwinners/

Image by The National Road Safety Foundation, used under Fair Use: Reporting.

Boulder real estate developer Stephen Tebo is the new owner of the 1964 white Cadillac Miller-Meteor hearse that transported President John F. Kennedy’s body following his assassination on Nov. 22, 1963. Tebo, who collects classic cars, bought the hearse for $176,000 at auction on Saturday via Barrett-Jackson Auction Co. of Scottsdale, Arizona. He plans to display it in a museum he hopes to create in five to 10 years.

A CBS Denver article quotes Tebo as saying: “To be able to own this as a piece of history like that is very amazing for me.” The 67-year-old Tebo has loved cars since he was a boy, but wasn’t able to afford one in high school, reports Mitchell Byars in a Daily Camera article.

Tebo has about 400 cars in his collection in Longmont (just outside of Boulder), which is not open to the public, although he does open it up to four times a year to help various nonprofit groups. According to Jamie Stengle writing for Associated Press on sacbee.com, Tebo’s collection includes such vehicles as a 1965 Rolls Royce that was custom-made for John Lennon, a Batmobile, a jeep that Frank Sinatra used on his ranch, and a taxi used on the TV show “Seinfeld.”

Associated Press writes that the hearse had been on display in October 1963 at a Dallas, Texas, convention for funeral home directors, after which it was purchased by O’Neal Funeral Home of Dallas. On Nov. 22, 1963, O’Neal transported Kennedy’s body and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy from Parkland Memorial Hospital to Air Force One at Dallas’ Love Field for the flight back to Washington.

According to AP:

‘It was a solemn duty that it had taking him from the hospital where he was pronounced dead to Air Force One,’ said Craig Jackson, CEO and chairman of the auction company. ‘I think everybody in the world remembers watching the hearse leave the hospital, heading toward Air Force One. It just sort of sunk into everybody that he’s gone.’

A Texas man named Arrdeen Vaughan, who was in the funeral home and funeral vehicle business, bought the hearse in the late 1960s and kept it in a private collection for more than 40 years before selling it to the person who put it up for auction recently.

Associated Press reports that:

Tebo said he wanted the hearse because of its historical significance.

‘We remember specifically seeing the hearse leaving the hospital and driving very, very slowing to Air Force One and loading the casket on Air Force One. It was just an incredibly dramatic time in our lives,’ Tebo said.

Image by Barrett-Jackson, used under Fair Use: Reporting.

The photographer writes: "I got to race around in the back seat of one of the Google robocars, and it was thrilling."

At a recent daylong symposium held in Santa Clara, California, legal scholars, government regulators, and Silicon Valley technology experts discussed problems likely to arise once self-driving cars are in wide use on the roadways. The symposium, held last week, was sponsored by Santa Clara University’s Law Review and High Tech Law Institute.

Self-driving cars — which Google calls autonomous vehicles — whose computerized systems would replace human drivers, are already “largely workable and could greatly limit human error, which causes most of the 33,000 deaths and 1.2 million injuries that now occur each year on the nation’s roads,” reports John Markoff in the Business Day/Technology section of The New York Times.

In his January 23 article, “Collision in the Making Between Self-Driving Cars and How the World Works,” Markoff mentions some issues raised at the symposium:

What happens if a police officer wants to pull one of these vehicles over? When it stops at a four-way intersection, would it be too polite to take its turn ahead of aggressive human drivers (or equally polite robots)? What sort of insurance would it need? [...]

There will also be unpredictable technological risks, several participants said. For example, future autonomous vehicles will rely heavily on global positioning satellite data and other systems, which are vulnerable to jamming by malicious computer hackers.

Despite the reservations the symposium participants had, there are other people who can’t wait for self-driving cars to be available to buy, such as Molly Wood, an executive editor at CNET, who is totally enthusiastic about the technology. In a column for CNET entitled “Self-driving cars: Yes, please! Now, please!,” she acknowledges those people who say they don’t trust self-driving cars, and others who enjoy driving too much to hand the steering wheel over to a computer.

But Wood is emphatically not in those camps. She writes:

I love to drive. And yet, I cannot *wait* for self-driving cars. Question is: who will bring them to the masses first? And how soon? [...]

Let’s try to separate the mind from the machine, because trust me: mainstream adoption of automated cars will help improve the environment, use less fuel, reduce traffic to virtually zero, save billions of dollars per year, and most importantly: save a lot of lives and limbs.

This is the kind of argument that we in the geek community inherently understand. Computers are better at certain things than humans are. They don’t get competitive, stressed out, angry, confused, or drunk — and they are perfectly capable of texting while driving, unlike us. They can negotiate merges, calculate stopping distance, maintain speed, and react more quickly than we can. This isn’t just about bad driving, although self-driving cars could solve that problem, too. It’s about human inefficiency, and safety.

Markoff quotes Stanford University’s Beiker as saying completely autonomous vehicles might exist on limited roads in 20 years. Wood writes that GM predicts fully autonomous vehicles by 2020, whereas Audi is moving towards semi-autonomous drive mode, and BMW and Volkswagen plan on incremental rollouts of semi-autonomous features, with some available now.

A Volvo engineer was quoted in Digital Trends this week as saying he would like to see fully autonomous driving sooner rather than later, Wood reports. She suggests that carmakers equip all new cars with autonomous mode by 2015 and give drivers the option to turn it on as needed. She also suggests mandatory auto-mode zones or drive times, such as “The San Francisco Bay Bridge between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m.?”

In his New York Times piece, Markoff writes that some have questioned the term “autonomous vehicles” as not being quite correct: “It won’t truly be an autonomous vehicle,” said Brad Templeton, a software designer and a consultant for the Google project, “until you instruct it to drive to work and it heads to the beach instead.”

Here is a video of BMW’s highly automated driving mode:

Image by jurvetson (Steve Jurvetson), used under its Creative Commons license.

A law enforcement group has sent a strongly worded letter to U.S. Attorney John Walsh protesting his crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries within 1,000 feet of schools in Colorado. The Massachusetts-based group, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), is comprised of police officers, judges, and prosecutors who once enforced drug law and are now trying to end the war on drugs.

As Huff Post Denver reports:

The reasoning behind the 1,000 foot boundary stems from federal law which uses that measurement as a factor in drug crime sentencing. There are many dispensaries in Colorado that are within 1,000 feet of schools, according to High Times, because they were approved by local laws to do so. However, the federal law trumps the state law.

Huff Post goes on to say that according to The Denver Post, Colorado is a model of how to properly handle the medical marijuana business, with its tracking, measurement, and taxation of the pot plant “from seed to sale.” Walsh sent letters on January 12 to 23 medical marijuana dispensaries within 1,000 feet of schools, saying they have to move or close within 45 days of receiving the letter.

As this blog has reported, he cited data showing that many school districts in Colorado had seen an increase of marijuana abuse by students since the state began allowing medical marijuana to be sold. And as Greg Campbell reports in Yellow Scene Magazine, Walsh will be sending many more such letters out: “Those 23 are just our first wave,” U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman Jeff Dorschner is quoted as saying in the Daily Camera. “There are many more, and after we complete the first wave, there will be a second wave and then possibly a third and a fourth.”

According to Huff Post:

At the very least, the Colorado crackdown seems oddly timed. It arrives on the heels of the state’s Department of Revenue seeking reclassification of marijuana as a Schedule 2 drug as to allow doctors to prescribe it as medical treatment.

There’s also the December 2011 poll released by Public Policy Polling showing that a large group of Coloradans believe that marijuana should not just be legal medically, but fully legalized.

Michael Roberts, reporting for blogs.westword.com, interviewed Neill Franklin, executive director of LEAP and co-author of the letter to Walsh. Roberts writes:

In Franklin’s view, Walsh’s actions ‘will lead to a couple of things. Those patients who have been receiving their medicine from these dispensaries will now have to seek out other avenues, and I’m afraid that many of them may resort to what is most convenient. That’s the illegal trade, which the last place we want people to turn, because it’s a dangerous environment — a market run by criminals who use violence to control market share.’

Moreover, ‘the medication these patients will receive through the illegal market has no quality control standards. They’ll have no idea what they’re going to be ingesting. And the illegal system makes drugs more accessible to our kids. We know that. In the illicit market, we have a drug dealer on every corner and in every one of our schools. But we can begin to eliminate that trade through regulation and control — and that’s what dispensaries are for when it comes to people who use medical marijuana. They give us a much better chance of keeping marijuana away from our children.’

Franklin told Roberts that Walsh and other Attorneys General are targeting states like Colorado, California, and Washington where there have been or probably will be efforts to legalize marijuana, whereas they are not targeting the other states that have approved the sale of medical marijuana. “There’s no doubt in my mind that they’re trying to discourage not just policy-makers, but they’re trying to discourage voters,” he said.

Image by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, used under Fair Use: Reporting.

The AARP and The Newnan Times-Herald featured tips on Monday for pedestrians and drivers who are distracted when they should be focused on safety.

Julie Lee writes for AARP:

Like many traffic fatalities, pedestrian accidents are fully preventable. And yet nearly 47,000 people were killed and 688,000 were injured in the U.S. while crossing or walking along a street between 2000 and 2009 according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. This means that a pedestrian is struck by a vehicle nearly every 7 minutes.

John Winters writes for The Newnan Times-Herald that according to the “City of Newnan Pedestrian Awareness Campaign” brochure, there are myths about pedestrian safety. One such myth is that a “walk” signal means it is safe for pedestrians to cross the street. But the fact is, although a “walk” signal means pedestrians have the right of way, those on foot still need to wait and search for vehicles before stepping onto the street.

Another myth, as Winters reports, is that pedestrians are safe in crosswalks. However, many pedestrians have been in crosswalks when being hit by vehicles. “Many motorists do not look for pedestrians when approaching a cross walk, especially when preparing to make a turn. A motorist may be looking for a gap in traffic or distracted,” Winters writes.

When walking at night, it is important to wear reflective clothing (not just white or light-colored clothing) and to carry a flashlight, because it is difficult for drivers to see at night.

Drivers have a greater responsibility than pedestrians do, because a vehicle is capable of causing serious and fatal injuries to pedestrians, due to its size and speed.

AARP writes that pedestrians should always walk on the sidewalk, and never on highways, and that they should heed the “walk” and “do not walk” signs, and not jaywalk.

As Winters writes:

Do not walk long distances under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Just as you should never drive under the influence, do not walk long distances or in traffic-heavy areas when you are under the influence. Call a taxi or use public transportation.

Be courteous. When a driver stops to allow you to cross, give him or her a quick wave to demonstrate your appreciation.

You wouldn’t drive distracted, so don’t walk distracted. Stay aware of your surroundings by not texting, using headphones, or talking on your cell phone.

AARP’s tips for drivers include the following:

Always be on the lookout for pedestrians, who can be found anywhere.

Stay alert and avoid distracted driving to make sure you are aware of pedestrians, like children, who could appear from between parked cars or behind other objects. “To avoid an accident, stay alert by avoiding distractions. Do not eat or drink, fiddle with the radio or navigation units, or use a cell phone while driving,” advises Lee.

Show caution by driving slowly in places like crosswalks and intersections where pedestrians might be looking to cross, and be on the lookout for children in school zones and residential areas.

AARP’s Lee advises further:

When stopping at an unmarked point, stop far enough in advance so that the drivers behind you can also prepare to stop. Furthermore, when approaching a red light, be sure to stop far enough behind the line for pedestrians to cross safely.

Image by The Tire Zoo, used under its Creative Commons license.

The photographer writes: "There are times when I want to drive, and times when being a driving machine feels more like the drudgery that is better left to the machines. Or when you are tired, or want a designated driver for an evening out."

Hawaii could be the next state to legalize driverless cars, a technology that promises to go a long way towards preventing car accidents, which the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says cause around 40,000 deaths per year on America’s roads. Nevada has already made progress in driverless car law, and Florida is looking into such laws as well.

In a news report on Thursday, Michele Van Hessen wrote in Hawaii Reporter that Hawaii Rep. Gene Ward (R-Hawaii Kai — Kalama Valley) has introduced legislation to allow driverless cars in Hawaii. Ward’s bill is modeled after Nevada’s law that allowed Google to test its driverless car technology in that state.

Referring to testing of the Google autonomous car in California, Ward said, “In road tests conducted on the West Coast with a driverless vehicle for over 100,000 miles, there was not a single accident, according to my discussions with Google executives. If we want Hawaii to be energy independent, and if we want safer and less congested roads, then we need legislation that paves the way for technological advances like driverless cars.”

As Van Hessen writes:

Google’s driverless cars use artificial intelligence software, global positioning systems and sensors to navigate. Because machines don’t become angry, distracted or tired, and because they can be aware of more things at once, they can potentially operate vehicles more safely than human drivers. The two accidents that Google’s driverless cars have been involved in since 2010 were caused by human drivers.

You can see this blog’s report about one of those human-driver-caused accidents here.

Last Tuesday (before the Hawaii news was announced), NPR’s Audie Cornish interviewed Bryant Walker Smith, who studies driverless car technology and policy at Stanford University, for a segment called “Where is Driverless Car Technology Now?” Here is an excerpt from that audio interview, as it appears transcribed on NPR.org:

CORNISH: So, Bryant, to start, where is driverless car technology at this point?

SMITH: It’s on the horizon. The engineers in industry that I talk with say that the technical obstacles, while there still are some, are on their way to being solved. Now, predictions for when we might actually be able to buy that technology, I’ve heard in the order of 10 years as being the most optimistic.

CORNISH: Describe a little what Nevada and Florida are trying to do in terms of their regulations.

SMITH: So Nevada is much further along in the process, which is to say that the two Houses have passed and the governor had signed a law, and their Department of Motor Vehicles is currently developing draft regulations implementing that law. What those regulations will do when they’re ultimately finalized is say explicitly, under certain conditions, driverless vehicles are legal in the state. Before we get to that stage, though, the legislation and the regulations also set up a regime for testing so that automobile manufacturers and others can come into the state and actually test these vehicles on the road.

CORNISH: And can you describe what you think is the biggest legal question that’s going to face this technology as it moves forward?

DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: One of the big questions is: At what point does the driver become the machine? If you think about autonomous technology as a spectrum, on one hand, we have basic cruise control in most cars today. On the other hand, we have the visions that we’ve been talking about of a vehicle without anybody in it or with everybody who’s in it asleep or completely distracted. At what point can we say, as a legal matter, the driver does not need to pay attention, the driver is not responsible for what the car does? When we reach that point, then we reach some real value judgments.

You can hear the entire NPR audio interview in a link on the same page.

Image by jurvetson (Steve Jurvetson), used under its Creative Commons license.