Archive for October, 2009

For the first time in four years, a new city has claimed the title as the worst in the U.S. for road rage. New York has unseated Miami as the least courteous city, as indicated by the fourth annual In the Driver’s Seat Road Rage Survey. The survey found the most courteous city — the one with the least road rage — to be Portland, Ore., which moved up from the number two spot in last year’s survey. Pittsburgh, Pa., was ranked number one in the 2008 study. Commissioned by a …

Could roads be fatality-free within a generation? Peter Evans, Toyota’s corporate manager of product planning predicted that evolving technology could improve road safety that much. Soon cars will keep to the speed limit, stay a safe distance from other traffic, not stray out of their lane and get warnings that help them avoid hitting pedestrians. Trucking has a similar array of safety features available now. Motorists could use the help. A driver traveling one block in a busy downt…

No, that’s no college prank. The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has begun a new project specifically intended to confuse drivers. Zig-zagging white lines are being painted on selected roadways. These markings are part of an experiment to cause motorists to slow down or brake instinctively before coming to high pedestrian and bicycle areas. The experiment is taking place in Virginia’s Loudoun County at several popular hiking and biking trails that cross roads with heavy…

A rare 1947 Mack FW truck, one of only 63 ever manufactured by Mack in that year, sold for $29,000 in an auction that both celebrated one of the largest private collections of trucks and service vehicles and helped raise money for scholarships and trust funds. On a sunny Saturday in July, bidders and collectors from all over the U.S. gathered in tiny Hillsborough, N.H., to bid on a piece of Kemp’s Truck Museum. Richard Kemp, who spent nearly 50 years amassing the collection of Ster…

There are some 90,000 plus dairy operations located throughout the U.S. Someday, these farms could also be producing fuel to run their trucks and generate electricity to power dairy operations. The nation’s first “cow-powered” trucks were unveiled earlier this year. These trucks, which normally run on diesel fuel, were modified to run on clean-burning biomethane. Biomethane is a renewable fuel, most commonly produced from organic wastes, in this case cow manure. Biomethane redu…