It is amazing how perceptions of distance can differ between modes of transportation. One of the reasons I mostly stopped mountain biking years ago was the unfavorable comparison of total time dedicated to a ride and the actual ride time spent riding. The closest off road spot is a frustrating 25 minute or so drive [...]
Since the weather has been so warm and dry this year, the fair-weather bicyclists and motorcyclists are already out. That means it’s a good time to post a link to the Motorcycle Safety Foundation’s For Car Drivers website, and my own page on Safe driving around bicycles. It is also a good time to recommend [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
I ran across the paper ‘Public perceptions of energy consumption and savings’. The authors conducted a survey to study how perceptions of energy use compares to the actual use of various appliances and transportation methods. For the appliances, they had people compare energy used to the power a 100 W lightbulb consumes in one hour. [...]