My first time getting caught by photo enforcement of a traffic violation.

It didn’t take long to realize what that that "Photo Enforcement Program" letter from the City of St. Louis was all about.   As I opened the letter, the only thing that occurred to me was to make sure whether the letter was for me (as opposed to my wife).  It was for me.  I had gotten nailed by the new photo traffic enforcement system that the City of St. Louis installed near my house.   Over the past 30 years, I've received a total of 2 traffic tickets.  I guess I was due. I was pissed, of course.  This was going to cost me $100 even though I didn’t do anything flagrant.  I had rolled a right turn onto a high entrance ramp through a red light.  This occurred at a traffic light 1/2 mile from my house.  I had done it hundreds of times; hundreds of other safe drivers do it every day.   My crime is that I failed to come to a complete stop before turning right to accelerate down that highway ramp.  I was going about 5 mph around that corner. I remembered the strobe flash going off that day last week; at the time, I wondered whether it was aimed at me.  Sure enough.  I should clarify:  I don't always roll through that right turn.  If ever there is any traffic in the area, or any pedestrians, I always come to a complete stop.

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Sorry for the hiccup

DI was down for a couple hours early this afternoon.   Thanks to the smart guys at our hosting service to resurrect the site quickly. BTW, for those of you wondering about DI's traffic, during October, 2008, we had: 108,322 visits 72,012 unique visitors 396,280 pages downloaded. 1,053,050 files downloaded, and…

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Dangerous safety signs

In this month's Wilson Quarterly, you can read Tom Vanderbilt's delightful story about a Dutch traffic engineer  who made a town safer by making the people feel unsafe. In the last few years, however, one traffic engineer did achieve a measure of global celebrity, known, if not exactly by name, then…

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How dangerous is it to ride a bicycle?

Here's a thoughtful and well-researched article on the safety of bicycling by Alan Durning of Grist.  Here's his bottom line: Biking is safer than it used to be. It's safer than you might think. It does incur the risk of collision, but its other health benefits massively outweigh these risks.…

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To make the roads safer, get rid of some of those traffic safety signs

According to this article in Discover, less can be more when it comes to road signs.   The "risk compensation effect" is a recognition that animals "tend to adjust their behavior to compensate for perceived risk." A team of urban planners has concluded that traffic signs and signals actually make the…

Continue ReadingTo make the roads safer, get rid of some of those traffic safety signs