Author: Joan Lowy
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Accident rates improving for older drivers
WASHINGTON (AP) — Safety researchers expressed concern a decade ago that traffic accidents would increase as the nation’s aging population swelled the number of older drivers on the road. Now, they say they’ve been proved wrong. Today’s drivers aged 70 and older are less likely to be involved in crashes than previous generations and are…
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Car-to-car talk: Hey, look out for that collision!
WASHINGTON — Your car might see a deadly crash coming even if you don’t, the government says, indicating it will require automakers to equip new vehicles with technology that lets cars warn each other if they’re plunging toward peril. The action, still some years off, has “game-changing potential” to cut collisions, deaths and injuries, federal…
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Traffic deaths involving cyclists rose sharply in 2011
WASHINGTON — Deaths of bicyclists rose sharply last year even as total traffic fatalities dropped to their lowest level since 1949, federal safety officials said Monday. Bicyclist deaths jumped 8.7 percent, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in an analysis of 2011 traffic deaths. Overall traffic fatalities dropped 1.9 percent, to 32,367. The decline…
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Aging drivers present new transportation challenge
Editor’s note: The latest installment in the joint AP-APME project examining the aging of the baby boomers and the impact that this so-called silver tsunami will have on society WASHINGTON — Baby boomers started driving at a young age and became more mobile than any generation before or since. They practically invented the two-car family…
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Young Americans less likely to drive
WASHINGTON — Driving is becoming so last century. Since the end of World War II, getting a driver’s license has been a rite of passage for teens, but that’s less and less the case. The share of people in their teens, 20s and 30s with driver’s licenses has dropped significantly over the past three decades,…
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Young Americans less likely to drive
WASHINGTON — Driving is becoming so last century. Since the end of World War II, getting a driver’s license has been a rite of passage for teens, but that’s less and less the case. The share of people in their teens, 20s and 30s with driver’s licenses has dropped significantly over the past three decades,…
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Airline passengers might get a break on electronics
Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save WASHINGTON — The government is taking a tentative step toward making it easier for airlines to allow passengers to use personal electronic devices such as tablets, e-readers and music players during takeoffs and landings. The…
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Airline passengers might get a break on electronics
WASHINGTON — The government is taking a tentative step toward making it easier for airlines to allow passengers to use personal electronic devices such as tablets, e-readers and music players during takeoffs and landings. The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday it is “exploring ways to bring together all of the key stakeholders involved” — including…
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Are ‘automation-addicted’ pilots forgetting how to fly?
WASHINGTON (AP) — Are airline pilots forgetting how to fly? As planes become ever more reliant on automation to navigate crowded skies, safety officials worry there will be more deadly accidents traced to pilots who have lost their hands-on instincts in the air.Hundreds of people have died over the past five years in “loss of…
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Udall: Help needed for troops at ‘breaking point’
WASHINGTON (AP) Senator Mark Udall says the shootings at Fort Hood in Texas underscore that more needs to be done to help “troops who find themselves at the breaking point.” The Colorado Democrat was briefed by Army officials on Friday along with other members of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He said in an interview…