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A deeply disliked stretch of road has proven a powerful inspiration for a symphony written by musician Sufjan Stevens. The man was commissioned to write a piece of music about his home city by the Brooklyn Academy of Music and he opted to compose his piece about the infamous Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. Called the BQE by New Yorkers, the flyover features narrow lanes, has no hard shoulder and is badly potholed, while high traffic volumes mean that jams and accidents are frequent and it has the dubious honour

A British motorist was recently stopped by police and charged for the offence of blowing his nose while his vehicle was at a standstill. The man had stopped his van in traffic and opted to use the time to wipe his nose with a handkerchief. He was then stopped by police who told him he had not been in control of his vehicle. For this offence he was fined €5.76 and given three points on his driving licence. The driver said that he thought the policeman was joking at first but quickly realised that the officer

Drivers on the busy New Jersey Turnpike in the US faced even longer delays when a Cessna light aircraft made an emergency landing on the highway. The road, one of the world's busiest, had to be closed when the aircraft glided over the vehicles using the road and came to a stop, tucked in as close to the hard shoulder as its starboard wing would allow. Somewhat ironically, the aircraft had been monitoring traffic flow on the highway. Following the incident, the highway had to be closed until the aircraft cou

The speedy and safe removal of old or unwanted structures is made easier with modern, sophisticated equipment, Patrick Smith reports. The power and versatility of modern demolition tools and machines was demonstrated when a bridge was removed overnight as part of a motorway widening project.

A cyclist in New Zealand appealed against a fine he was given for offensive behaviour when caught cycling in the nude. The man claimed that the country is becoming more tolerant towards nudity and that his ride along a quiet rural road 32km to the north of the city of Wellington was not offensive. Police acted when a passing motorist objected. The offence was committee on World Nude Bike Day. The man explained that he is uncomfortable wearing clothes and regularly walks around his house and carries out hous

A taxi driver in New York City went to great lengths to track the passenger who accidentally left a bag containing US$21,000 in his cab. The Bangladeshi taxi driver drove 80km to the address he found along with the money to hand back the missing sum. Finding no-one at home, he left his phone number instead. The person who had left the money, an Italian pensioner visiting her family, was extremely grateful and offered a reward although the man politely declined, saying that to accept would be against his rel

Two Italian policemen were left somewhat red-faced after being involved in an accident when returning from a convention where they had been speaking to students about road safety. The policemen crashed their Lamborghini high-speed pursuit vehicle, one two donated by the manufacturer to the police, into a rather more mundane Seat Ibiza. During the incident the Lamborghini slammed into a line of parked cars, with one of the vehicles then ending up on the roof of the high performance pursuit car. The front of