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Driving safely to cut risks for road users

August 24, 2015

Regulations in France covering driving have become tougher. In a bid to tackle distracted driving, French drivers are now banned from using hands-free phone kits that use headsets while at the wheel. This follows research showing that the use of hands-free kits is only slightly less dangerous than holding a phone in the hand while at the wheel. French drivers are also forbidden to eat, apply make-up, read a map or listen to very loud music when behind the wheel. Meanwhile headphones or wireless earpieces ar

July August 2015

August 24, 2015

Photo of the month July August 2015. Flying Ferrari finds fleeting freedom from police parking problems

Demolition and destruction

August 24, 2015

In China an irate man used a wheeled loader with which to display his anger, forcing police to intervene. The man had recently found a job driving the wheeled loader following a period of unemployment. While out of work, the man had fallen out of favour with his in-laws, his father-in-law particularly so. While trying to make amends with his father-in-law and his, by now, estranged wife and children, the man became involved in a heated argument. In a display of anger, he then drove the wheeled loader at his

Road-rage rodent

August 24, 2015

An American cyclist suffered a road rage attack from a rather unusual source recently. The cyclist went to retrieve his bicycle and was intrigued to see that a squirrel was sitting on the saddle and sizing up the handlebars. The cyclist was amused but when he got too close, the squirrel sprang at him and the man retreated accordingly. Bicycle-riding animals are rare although chimpanzees and even dogs have been trained to do so. Quite how the squirrel intended to ride the bicycle away is unclear.

Mirror, signal, manoeuvre

August 24, 2015

A German driver has had a rather abrupt reminder as to why it is necessary to look properly before pulling out at a junction. The driver, a young woman, drove her small VW from a side road and straight into the path of an oncoming British Army tank, which was on its way to military manoeuvres. Luckily for the woman, the tank driver was rather more attentive and he managed to halt his heavy-armoured vehicle before it completely crushed the car. Fortunately the VW’s driver was unhurt in the incident, although

Risky reversing

August 24, 2015

Many motorcyclists are well aware that car drivers do not look properly before manoeuvring, which is borne out by analysis of crash results. But one lucky biker in Australia found to his surprise that one car driver was even less aware than usual. The motorcycle rider was waiting at a junction when a 4x4, which had come to a halt ahead of the stop line when the lights changed, suddenly reversed. Seeing the car about to impact, the biker jumped aside from his motorcycle. The 4x4 driver, a learner, ignored th

Animal rescue

August 21, 2015

A quick-thinking excavator operator managed to come to the aid of an elephant in danger in Kenya. The fact that the animal was both large and strong did not prevent it from facing death when it became trapped in a mud pool. Such incidents are not uncommon and generally result in death for a trapped elephant. But hearing the elephant shrieking in distress nearby, the excavator operator quickly drove his machine to the side of the mud pool and by carefully digging around the trapped animal, was able to help i

Bus record

August 21, 2015

A methane-powered bus has set a speed record of nearly 124km/h at a test track in the UK. The bus, from the southern city of Reading, was converted to run on compressed methane from cow manure and was painted black and white like a Friesian cow. Mechanics removed the bus’s engine governor that restricted the vehicle’s speed to 90km/h. The bus then broke the record on the banked high-speed circuit at Millbrook Proving Ground, near the city of Bedford. The cow waste was broken down by anaerobic digestion to p

Parking problems in Bristol

August 21, 2015

It seems that people will park in the smallest of places, despite the efforts of urban street designers and town planners to ensure an orderly arrangement of suitably spaced cars. The advent of smaller-than-small cars has meant that drivers will park in smaller-and-smaller spaces. Surely some spaces are just too small to attract drivers of even the smallest car. But the city of Bristol, in southwest England, has taken no chances and has painted the double-yellow ‘no parking’ lines in areas where no one in t

Parsons wins 407 Transitway contract around the Toronto area in Canada

August 21, 2015

Parsons has been selected by the Canadian province of Ontario to provide environmental assessment planning and preliminary design for the next section of the 407 Transitway. Work will include 23km of bus rapid transit lanes, from west of Hurontario Street to east of Highway 400, as well as 11 transit stations, all around the provincial capital Toronto area. The project is part of the 150km cross-regional rapid transit corridor planned to parallel Highway 407 Express Toll Route freeway, a 107km control