Miscellaneous

I live in a strata with a straight fire lane running through it. The speed limit is clearly marked by signs and large print on the road. Residents (owner and counsel members) from the units farthest the street willfully speed past my unit in excess of thrice the limit of 15km/h. I have tried talking to them and informed strata bit all to no avail - in fact speed bumps were removed.

This video from Consumer Reports explains what to do if you vehicle is subject to sudden, uncontrolled acceleration.

Question: Two years ago an elderly woman ran into me with her personal go-cart. She hit me from behind, at full throttle as I sat on a chair in the back row of an outdoor concert. The force of the collision was enough to drive me and my chair under the chair of the man in front of me. Her intent was to stop and park, but she was white-knuckled on the throttle and her attendant daughter was not paying attention.

The Road Safety Toolkit provides free information on the causes and prevention of serious road crashes. Building on decades of road safety research, the Toolkit helps engineers, planners and policy makers develop safety plans for car occupants, motorcyclists, pedestrians, bicyclists, heavy vehicle occupants and public transport users.

Link:

I've had a couple of regular correspondents ask me recently about night driving glasses. These glasses have yellow lenses and are supposed to cut glare and increase contrast allowing you to see better in the darkness. After a bit of research, it appears that using these glasses is not a good idea.

In the time that I have been writing this column I have accumulated many different topics. The requests have been varied, but I must admit, I never would have come up with this week's topic myself. A reader has asked about vehicles owned by dead people.

We strongly believe that now is the time to focus on changing the way that transportation planning is being conducted! Not only does every community have a network of roads and streets, but people in just about every community we have worked with for the last 34 years, have experienced problems related to their streets.

Please think twice before you toss that item out the window or fail to secure a load properly. Litter on our highways can cost as much as $500 per lane mile to clean up, causes damage to vehicles and might even result in an injury or fatal collision. This US report on reducing litter at roadsides contains Canadian content as well as experiences from other parts of the world.

Link:

The Global Status Report on Road Safety reaffirms our understanding of road traffic fatalities as a global health and development problem. More than 1.2 million people die on the world's roads every year, and as many as 50 million others are injured. Over 90% or the deaths occur in low-income and middle-income countries.

This is a dangerous time of year for my morning commute. The sun is just above the horizon and in four locations I am looking directly into it while I drive. Even with my visor down and one hand up to block the reflection from the hood, it is still very difficult to see ahead of me.