Autoblog

Problems caused by disappearing traction when roads get icy will be solved when we all get our flying cars - it is the 21st century, after all. Until that long overdue promise is fulfilled, we're all relegated to putting rubber to the road to reach our destinations. The way winter road conditions are currently mitigated involves lots of salt and many trucks. The trucks are pretty much necessary for removal of heavy precipitation, but salting exacts an environmental, as well as financial price. Motorists, too, could benefit from a warning that road surfaces are less than optimal. To that end, France's Eurovia is developing a temperature-sensitive varnish that changes color to provide a visual indication to all road users that the pavement is freezing. Once it warms back up again, the varnish returns to its default hue. Durability trials are underway in several areas of France that experience severe weather, and if the coating holds up well, we could all be watching out for pink stripes in the winter. Thanks for the tip, akhel.

Translated press release after the jump.

[Source: Eurovia via Transport Trends; Photo: news.fr]

We aren't conspiracy theorists, and we believe that government usually wants to do the right thing. Nevertheless, we do wonder sometimes how large groups of smart people come up with such dumb ideas. In this case, it's wire rope barriers used to act as a median on rural roads.

The barriers, already in use in Sweden, the Netherlands and New Zealand, are used to prevent head-on collisions between automobiles on narrower roads that don't allow for thick concrete barriers. The UK was in favor of installing them, until a study by a motorcycle group showed that they would be fatal for motorcyclists. In New Zealand, the barriers were nicknamed "cheese cutters" after a 22-year-old motorcyclist encountered them at speed and was sliced in two like a brick of fromage.

Now the Institute of Advanced Motorists, the group that had been lobbying for them in the UK, has withdrawn its endorsement. It now wants to "ensure that any barrier system proposed anywhere on our roads places the safety needs of motorcyclists at the top of the list."

Thanks for the tip, Adam!

[Source: Motorcycle News]

A tragedy on Toronto streets that claimed the lives of a pair of enthusiasts has once again set alight political fires alight by those looking to ban performance modifications to automobiles.

Whether the deaths are attributable to street racing remains up for debate, but the event has triggered calls for the banning of go-fast bits like nitrous oxide.

Wheels' chief scribe Jim Kenzie rants in the Toronto Star that taking such action is little better than conclusions drawn from overly simplistic metaphors like:

Prostitutes wear short skirts. That woman is wearing a short skirt.
Therefore, she's a prostitute.

Said another way, banning aftermarket parts and the tuner culture would be to wrongly attack a symptom, not the problem of street racing itself.

What do you think about street racing and the efforts made to prevent it?  Sound off in comments!

[Sources: Toronto Star; PopCenter.org]

Volvo continues to burnish its halo for building safety-conscious vehicles. This time, the Ford Motor Company's Swedish imprint is teaming up with no fewer than 40 different global humanitarian aid organizations to talk traffic safety.

Volvo will share its knowledge and analysis with Fleet Forum, a voluntary collective of humanitarian aid organizations, in the hopes of increasing the safety of road systems around the world. By offering reports and analysis from its own accident research team, the automaker believes it can help lessen the number of accidents among humanitarian aid transport missions.

The partnership is set to last until 2009.

[Source: Easier UK; NewStreet.It]

 

Somewhere, Sammy Hagar is smiling. Texas' Transportation Commision will consider raising the speed limit on Interstates 10 and 20 next week. The Texas Department of Transportation's proposal would bump the speed limit to 80 mph to better reflect the rate of speed that traffic presently travels at anyway. A survey of the West Texas roads found that 85 percent of drivers regularly travel at up to 79 mph.

Of course, the proposed change has environmentalists and road safety advocates audibly concerned, but advocates maintain that raising the legal limit will make the roadways safer by encouraging a more universal pace.

What do you think? Sound off in 'Comments.'

[Sources: Associated Press via Houston Chronicle; Motomania; Lyricsbox]