Autoblog

A new report from The Onion details a new Department Of Transportation initiative to give reckless drivers their own space on highways, thus freeing them from the drudgery of actually driving. The new lanes will be of a special bowl design to keep cars on the right track while obviating the need for things like steering. Once the national highway system is fully upgraded with these lanes, that impatient meathead with the misaimed headlight won't have to ride your bumper in his pickup anymore. He'll have his own road space, complete with strategically stationed full-service hearses, ramps, padded embankments, and heavy guardrails to keep all those other idiots away from your close-following road compatriot, who's obviously a much more skillful driver.

For those of you that may not be aware: The Onion is satire!

Forbes and a few special guests play matchmaker, putting some magnificent stretches of blacktop together with some magnificent wheels. California is, of course, well represented among the entrants -- Danica Patrick likes Highway 1 around Monterey in a Bentley GTC, and Bob Bondurant likes Mulholland Drive in a 1965 'Stang. The rest of the country gets some love as well, though. A DB9 is best suited for the Las Vegas to Death Valley to Mammoth Lakes run (be sure to check out Dante's View in Death Valley). For the Easterners among you, the Tail of the Dragon in the Great Smoky Mountains, from Tennessee to North Carolina, is perfect for an '07 vintage Porsche Turbo. Being Forbes, all but one of the best rides are big money, but don't let that stop you -- the roads don't discriminate. Land Rover gets our vote for the best choice of best road: essentially, they chose Africa.

[Source: Forbes]

Whoa, they built a highway through a cranberry bog? Uh, no. Lowell Massachusetts is in the north central part of the state, miles removed from the bogs of the Cape. The orange hue that coated route 495's northbound lane did make for a colorful nighttime drive, however messy it ended up being. A tractor trailer carrying dye intended for mulch deposited some of its cargo on the highway after the load shifted.

The dye, colored with iron oxide, is generally considered harmless, and a local car wash ended up doing a booming business cleaning the orange schmutz from afflicted cars. The only danger from the spill seemed to be some obscuring of lane markings over the heaviest stretch of the roughly three miles the spill eventually occupied. Not that lane markings mean much to drivers here in Massachusetts, anyway, so that's a non-hazard. Nobody has been cited in the incident, which seems to have been mainly harmless. Some cars got messy, 495 now has a splash of color, and nobody got hurt. There is an insurance hotline to call for drivers affected, though we wonder how many car washes they're willing to pay for. Any residual dye will be gone after Thursday's forecast snow, we're sure.


[Source: Lowell Sun via Carscoop]

Just in time for those Spring remodeling projects, American artist Jim Termeer has a beautiful set of ceramic tiles featuring some of the most complex and graceful curves ever engineered by the world's Departments of Transportation. They are black on white depictions of the busiest freeway interchanges from around the globe. The original set of 8 designs was first released in 2004 and has been updated to include a total of 25 designs. Using satellite images, Termeer shows the complexity and fluidity of the designs. In his own words: "These interchanges are some of the most expensive public works projects that take place- which we simply take for granted. However, as seen from space they are beautifully complex and graceful." Within the set of black-on-white glazed tiles, you'll find interchanges from Barcelona, Birmingham, Istanbul, Las Vegas, Niteroi, Prague, Tokyo, and Vienna. Pretty cool and it lets our minds wander to when somebody will release famous racetracks too. Heck, even silhouettes of our favorite cars would be great. Or maybe head gaskets from the worlds most famous motors. Get to work, artists.

[Source: Transport Trends]

Here's something we wish every highway planner was required to use any time they had a bright idea (like those darned roundabouts they're so fond of calling "rotarys" here in Massachusetts!). This neat little Java-powered (much like us AutoBloggers!) website allows you to adjust and model traffic flows on a variety of road conditions. The Dresden University Institute for Economics and Traffic has made quite a study of traffic dynamics, and this website is just part of a larger study of where those pointless standstills for nothing come from. The microsimulation of traffic flow appears to treat traffic as a "fluid" and working the variables allows you to see how you could use traffic density to control speed limits, passing and light cycling.

It'd be great if more attention could be paid to maximizing the efficiency of the infrastructure we've already got. Sure, we need a new infrastructure to go along with the massive volume in some areas, but some thought and calculations would go a long way in smoothing out the flow on existing roads. There's lots of information and different simulations at your fingertips here. We don't pretend to understand all of it, but it looks like just a little bit of this deeper thinking would go a long way to alleviating the pressure on our backsides every morning. Very cool little toy, bring your slide rule!

Thanks for the tip, mfridman!

We previously brought you the skinny on the Italian police's Gallardo supercar, presented to the state officials by Lamborghini to celebrate the department's 152nd anniversary, providing them with a high-speed vehicle for law enforcement and emergency duties. But like the London police discovered with their demo-only Murcielago, Bologna Police Officer Daniele Turrini (that's a guy) admits the head-turning squad car is capable of causing more accidents than it prevents.

The video comes from CH7's tech show Beyond Tomorrow, and despite butchering the pronunciation (the double-L is pronounced as a Y), the Australian program gives an interesting up-close look at the technology on board the super-speedway patrol car.

[Source: High T3ch]

The argument for SUVs may be a little stronger in California after a report released by TRIP, a national transportation research group, shows that five cities in the Golden state rank among the top ten urban areas with the roughest roads. The Cali towns with the roughest rides include San Jose, Los Angeles, San Francisco-Oakland, San Diego and Sacramento. They're joined by other U.S. cities with pot hole-ridden roads like St. Louis, Omaha, New York City and New Orleans (pre-Katrina).

California also beats out the industry average for the percentage of its roads that are in poor condition. TRIP estimates that one-half to two-thirds of California's interstates, freeways and local roads are rough riding, compared to the national average for states, which is just 25 percent.

Of course, the failure of California or any state to maintain all that ribbon of road hits motorists right in the pocketbook in the form of higher operating costs. Not only is the life of one's vehicle dramatically reduced from the incessant pounding it receives, but increased repairs and poorer gas mileage also ding the driver in his wallet.

What are TRIP's predictions: it's only going to get worse. Population in these urban areas is ever increasing, and with more people comes more cars. At some point calling these areas urban will be a stretch, as their roads are beginning to resemble places like the Rubicon Trail more and more each day.

[Source: The Auto Channel]

At a recent gathering at the United Nations World Urban Forum, representatives cheered to one single theme: The automobile has put us (humanity) on the road to destruction.

The most ardent enemy of the automobile was Enrique Penalosa (pictured). He espoused the idea that streets be 'returned' to the citizen who would either walk, use personal transporation like bicycles, or public means like buses. Expanding streets or building new roads for cars, he argued, brings inequality between those who own vehicles and those who do not.

Penalosa has backed his views with action. As the former mayor of Bogota, Colombia, he diverted a $5 million highway expansion project into human services such as libraries, schools, and assisting the poor.

"The public good must prevail over private interest," statedd Penalosa. "Cities need to have great public pedestrian space; that's not a luxury, it is a minimum a democracy (can) offer its citizens. Building bigger roads only leads to more traffic congestion. We are taking money away from the needs of the poor to serve the needs of the minority that drives a car."

Famed environmentalist David Suzuki also spoke at the forum. However, Penalosa was the only speaker who received standing ovations.

While we don't have the numbers in front of us, calling the car-driving portion of most populations a "minority" is a little misleading. While that may be the case in some countries like Colombia, it certainly is not in many heavily industrialized nations like the U.S. Anyway, we'll get off our soapbox and let you get on yours in the comments section.

[Source: Toronto Star]

Dr. Bernd Pischetsrieder, Volkswagen’s Chairman of the Board, has gone on record criticizing the current state of German roads and is urging the country’s gov’t for swift action. According to a recent study, the country’s road conditions and lack of capacity are approaching a limit at which the economic prosperity of Germnay is at risk.

Pischetsrieder is particularly miffed at the fact Germany’s auto industry has invested billions in cutting fuel consumption, which has effectively been nullified by frequent stop-and-go traffic situations resulting from poor road work management.

Having been a resident of the state of Michigan for two years, I feel Dr. Pischetsrieder’s pain.

See VW’s full release on the doctor’s remarks after the jump.

[Source: Volkswagen]