Author name: Steven Edwards

News from Elsewhere

Colorado winter wildfires destroy hundreds of homes as thousands flee – theguardian.com


Gabrielle Canon 31/12/2021
Two fast-moving wildfires driven by strong winds erupted in northern Colorado on Thursday afternoon, destroying close to 600 homes and forcing tens of thousands of residents to flee.
At least one first responder and six others were injured, though Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle acknowledged there could be more injuries and deaths could be possible due to the intensity of fires that quickly swept across the region as winds gusted up to 105 mph (169 km/h).

News from Elsewhere

BMW Drivers Are Most Likely to be Psychopaths, According to Study – motorbiscuit.com


According to a study done by ScrapCarComparison (SCC), BMW drivers are most likely to be psychopaths. That doesn’t indicate all BMW drivers are psychopaths; it just means more are than any other car brand. Drivers of BMW models already have a negative reputation, between failure to use turn signals and much worse offenses. SCC noted that a Google search of the phrase “why are BMW drivers…” is followed up with words like “arrogant,” “idiots,” and “so hated.”

News from Elsewhere

Bicycle bus four metres long could transport children to school – East Anglian Daily Times


Mariam Ghaemi 31/12/2021
A bicycle bus is being trialled in a Suffolk town by a charity with the motto “more smiles per mile”.
Bury St Edmunds Rickshaw has loaned the four-metre long bike, which is believed to be one of only a couple in the country, with a view to buying its own to transport children to school to cut down on emissions.
If the trial goes well, Libby Ranzetta, one of the founders of Bury Rickshaw, said they would look to raise the £15,000 to purchase one of these bikes from the Netherlands where they are made.

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Opinion: D.C. can’t fix distracted driving. It can fix street design – Washington Post


Allison Hart was hit and killed as she rode her bike in a D.C. crosswalk on Sept. 13.

Matthew Koehler
There was another traffic crash involving a child. This one was in the 3300 block of Wheeler Road SE. A 9-year-old child is paralyzed. D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) made what WAMU reporter Martin Austermuhle identified as a rare appearance to urge “especially drivers … to slow down, put the phones down, and in school zones be mindful of our young people”

News from Elsewhere

Big Cars Are Killing Americans – theatlantic.com


Angie Schmitt
The government can no longer allow the auto industry to treat walkers and bikers like collateral damage.
After a decade of steady increases, the newest Ford F-250—part of Ford’s F-Series of pickups, the No. 1 selling vehicle model in America—measures some 55 inches tall at the hood. That’s “as tall as the roof of some sedans,” a Consumer Reports writer remarked in a recent analysis examining the mega-truck trend. This height would easily render someone in a wheelchair, or a child, totally invisible at close range. If I, a tallish woman at 5 foot 6, were hit by a new F-250, I would be struck above the chest. The face, head, neck: These are not great places to suffer a forceful blow—like the kind that an up-to-7,500-pound F-250 can deliver.

News from Elsewhere

Build Cities for Bikes, Buses, and Feet—Not Cars – wired.com


Adam Rogers
New York drivers, never shy, complained about losing lanes. Retailers worried about losing customers. But polling showed that pretty much everyone else loved Sadik-Khan’s changes. She got 400 miles of bikeways built. She turned Times Square car-free, started a bike-share program, and helped found a national organization of city planners that could teach US cities to push these kinds of ideas as hard as the old car-forward ones. “We just lit the spark, gave cities permission to innovate,” Sadik-Khan says. “Change is difficult. A lot of cities are debating whether to build more roads and highways. They need to stop repeating the failures of the last century.”

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