Yesterday was a good example of why it is important to always clean your car’s windshield completely before driving. I didn’t see the accident take place, but a car that was parked on the street was pushed about fifty feet down the road, onto the grass, and into a tree. This caused quite a bit [...]
For some reason Indiana doesn’t have an explicit law defining a minimum safe passing separation for cars and bikes passing each other. One law was almost passed a couple years ago, but ended up not being enacted. This needs to be addressed. Why is this important? The current law uses a subjective definition of safe [...]
Now that the slippery season is here, it’s time for a friendly reminder to drivers: Respect pedestrians and cyclists In addition to the general caution required of all drivers at all times, please remember to avoid splashing those of us on foot or bicycle. There is usually enough space on the road to move over [...]
Yesterday I mentioned that a car met the goal in the Vetter Fuel Challenge. This 100 mpg car is the MAX, a very small diesel car created by Jack McCornack. I was skimming his development blog and saw a good summary of the 1970s oil crises: Back in the ’70s, we experienced what I’ve been [...]
I’ve been following Craig Vetter’s motorcycle fuel economy projects for a couple years, and just noticed that he posted impressive new results. His goal is to create a vehicle that can safely and comfortably carry four bags of groceries on the highway on a windy day, and still get over 100 miles per gallon. In [...]
I just found Fuelly, and I immediately thought “Why didn’t I create this website?” Fuelly looks like a nice simple (and easy to write) site that allows users to track their fuel economy. It uses this data to generate histograms of mileage for any model of car with a sufficient number of entries. Of course, [...]
Since the price of gasoline in the US is increasing again, the talk making ridiculous claims about gas prices are too. For example, I recently received a chain email titled “Buy AMERICAN Gasoline”. This particular email (which I won’t help spread by posting a link) claims that we should buy “AMERICAN” gasoline or we will [...]
Yesterday I was talking with another grad student, and the topic of self-driving cars came up. He thinks they are a good idea, I don’t. In high school and college, I would have thought they are an interesting project that I would like to work on. I still think the research is interesting, but I [...]
To continue on my latest post… GMAC Insurance released their 2010 National Drivers Test results. The findings are interesting: If taken today, 18.4 percent of drivers on the road – amounting to roughly 38 million licensed Americans – would not pass a written drivers test exam. The national average score was 76.2 percent; a score [...]
This is surprising, according to the latest ‘Allstate America’s Best Drivers Report,’ Fort Wayne ranks eleventh for longest time between accidents among drivers in the two hundred largest cities in the country. Even more surprising, 11th is down from 6th last year. I never would have guessed, but apparently drivers in Fort Wayne are involved [...]