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Data recently released by the National Center for Health Statistics shows that in 2008, the number and per capita rate of firearm accident deaths fell to an all-time low. There were 592 firearm accident deaths (0.19 such accidents per 100,000 population) in 2008, as compared to 613 accidents (.20 per 100,000) in 2007. In 2008, the chance of a child dying in a firearm accident was roughly one in a million. Firearm accidents accounted for 0.5% of all accidental deaths; well below the percentages accounted for by motor vehicle accidents, falls, fires, poisonings, and several other more common types of...

AN IRANIAN nuclear facility has been hit by a huge explosion, the second such blast in a month, prompting speculation that Tehran's military and atomic sites are under attack. Satellite imagery seen by The Times confirmed that a blast that rocked the city of Isfahan on Monday struck the uranium enrichment facility there, despite denials by Tehran. The images clearly showed billowing smoke and destruction, negating Iranian claims yesterday that no such explosion had taken place. Israeli intelligence officials told The Times that there was "no doubt" that the blast struck the nuclear facilities at Isfahan and that it was...

A glance in the half-opened bolt was enough to convince him that the Browning A-Bolt 7mm rifle was ready for the flight. But as he placed the gun in its case and headed off to the airport, Deubler, an officer with a variety of state and national hunting organizations, seems not to have thought to remove the rifle's internal magazine. The oversight led to an accidental discharge that left a United Airlines ticket agent wounded after a second check of the rifle --

WOODSTOCK -- The last few days have been busy for Shenandoah County emergency personnel on Interstate 81. Or, as some people may feel, it's been like old times. Four notable crashes in a 10-mile stretch since Thursday afternoon -- there were two that day, one on Friday and a tractor-trailer overturned Tuesday morning -- may have been the most in such a short period of time since the Virginia Department of Transportation raised the posted speed limit throughout most of the jurisdiction to 70 mph last the fall. Official crash data, though, is not yet available for the past few...

In the UK we call them lorries, not trucks and, of course, we drive on the left, not on the right, but whichever country you live in it must be a terrifying moment when you are on a dual carriageway and suddenly come face to face with a vehicle driving in the wrong direction….

SILVER SPRING, Md. - Traffic crews trying to get a Maryland highway ready for winter put down the wrong chemicals Friday morning. The error caused slick conditions on the road and at least 10 accidents. Dave Buck with Maryland State Highway confirms the bad mix of chemicals were applied near Georgia Avenue on I-495. Crews were supposed to apply only salt brine, but liquid magnesium was somehow mixed into one batch of the brine. Two trucks at different locations were loaded with the brine-magnesium mixture. The contractor’s trucks with the bad mixture has been identified. Maryland State Highway is investigating....

Airbus is drafting a worldwide safety warning about electrical problems on some of its aircraft. The company is investigating a fault that temporarily affected primary cockpit displays and computer controls on a BMI flight from Khartoum to Beirut in August. For years, safety investigators have been concerned about electrical system glitches resulting in dangerous shutdowns of flight control computers. But such incidents are hard to understand and replicate. Airbus says it is helping both the Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) and the BEA in France with the inquiry. But it has been reported that investigators have already urged Airbus to...

In this video you will see an officer giving a motorist a ticket. From the police car cam you see a gasoline tanker truck coming towards the scene in the other lane. The driver loses control of the semi as it jackknifes and falls onto it's side and slides into the police car and the car the officer is ticketing. Fear not because everyone was able to get out of the way, and except for a few cuts and bruises the driver of the truck was fine also. Follow the link below to see the video of theTanker Crashing...

New Technology Could Help Solve Texting While Driving Problem, Tennessee Attorney Says Morristown, Tennessee (PRWEB) August 4, 2010 – New software that blocks drivers from texting, e-mailing or Web surfing when behind the wheel could play a big role in reducing distracted driving accidents, says Tennessee personal injury attorney Brack Terry. The anti-texting applications, including CellSafety, iZup, tXtBlocker and ZoomSafer, generally use a phone’s GPS to determine when a car is moving and disable a cell phone or texting device when the car is going faster than 5 or 10 mph. The programs also have opt-out features. “These emerging technologies,...

For most lawmakers, DWI stands for “driving while intoxicated.” For Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), DWI stands for “driving while illegal.” In an appearance on "The O'Reilly Factor" on Tuesday Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said that illegal immigrants were intentionally causing car accidents along state freeways. (snip) "Look, our border is not secured. Our citizens are not safe," he said.

Inspectors have cited hundreds of safety violations at Massey Energy coal mines in Kentucky since an April 5 explosion at one of the company's mines in West Virginia killed 29 employees, federal records show. The 279 citations and orders in Kentucky, more than 80 of them alleging significant and substantial violations, were among a total of 442 issued to Massey underground mines in Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia from April 5 through Thursday. Of those 442, more than half — 222 — were issued to one Massey property in Kentucky, Freedom Energy Mining Co. in Pike County, according to a...

Elderly drivers’ risk not clear-cut The debate about when to take the keys away from the elderly flared up again when 86-year-old driver struck three teenage Chicago cyclists on March 24 By Erika Slife and Bonnie Miller Rubin, Tribune reporters April 3, 2010 Alice Topping was in her convertible, soaking in one of fall's last nice days, when she came to a four-way stop in her Evanston neighborhood just as another car approached. Assuming the other driver would stop at the sign, she began to drive through the intersection when she felt a hard crash. "Look what you've done to...

Researchers trying to protect pregnant drivers

instead of fewer accidents, the number of traffic accidents has gone up at most of the Los Angeles intersections where red-light cameras have been installed.

...There was this old Buick, a big late 60’s road yacht, crammed into the back of the trailer. The man and wife inside were hurt although not terribly so. But behind them was the little Datsun pickup truck (remember those?) that had hit the Buick hard enough to shove it into my trailer. The two girls inside were badly injured. The driver’s forehead had been essentially peeled back and the flap of skin was hanging down over her face. I eased it back into place and held it there to slow her bleeding until an ambulance arrived. The other girl’s...

love the Kern River. I've probably driven there a hundred times or more over the past 20 years. But it can be a dangerous place for the young, the inexperienced, the careless, as evidenced by a sign warning of lives lost just before you enter the gorge en route to Lake Isabella from Bakersfield. Which makes this Bakersfield.com report even more sobering: Pools now claiming more victims than Kern River... So far this year there have been seven drownings in pools compared to just four in the river... So far, five local children under the age of 10 have drowned...

To hear the media darlings at the anti-gun Joyce Foundation-funded International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) tell it, guns - the tools some criminals use - are responsible for violence and accidental deaths in America, rather than the criminal or the ignorant. And every police office thinks so. Or do they? In the wake of two tragic accidents in Ohio involving small children and guns, several state media outlets have addressed the issue of kids and guns. In addition to contacting Buckeye Firearms Association, several reporters interviewed area law enforcement officers. Their comments put the anti-gun front group known...

Driving and using cell phones - we all know the dangers. But now, new evidence suggests it's not only dangerous, but deadly. Federal officials have long had the evidence that shows drivers on the roads, who are talking on a cell phone, hands free or not, are running the risk of getting involved in a deadly accident. Officials recommend talking on a cell phone while driving should only be done in an emergency. However, this evidence never saw the light of day. A long-term study the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration suggested to fully assess the threat was never done....

THURSDAY, July 16 (HealthDay News) -- Deaths and injuries on America's interstates have increased since the repeal of the federal 55-mile-per-hour speed limit in 1995, a new study finds, and some believe it's time to slow down again. Researchers tracking fatalities attributed 12,545 deaths and 36,582 injuries in fatal crashes to higher speed limits implemented during the 1995-2005 study period. "Our study clearly shows that policy can directly result in more deaths as well as reducing deaths on our country's roads," said lead researcher Lee S. Friedman of the division of environmental and occupational health sciences in the School of...

May 28, 2009 A good product must be perfectly adapted to its market - and the Spira looks like an excellent fit for the chaotic conditions of South-East Asian roads. This odd little three-wheel two-seater weighs only 300-odd pounds (130kg) - that's because it uses a super-lightweight reinforced foam for 90 percent of the bodywork. It gets well over 100mpg from its 110cc engine, it's light enough to lift by hand, and the foam shell has huge safety benefits, both for the occupants and for the legions of pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists that swarm the roads of Thailand. Oh, and...

Despite a decade of promises, little has been done to fix the problem of preventable medical errors that kill nearly 98,000 people in the United States each year, a consumer group said on Tuesday. Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, said lawmakers largely have failed to enact patient safety reforms recommended by a 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine or IOM that found that medical errors cost the United States $17 billion to $29 billion a year.

This billboard is catching people's attention as they drive on 101. California Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, is the target of a billboard advertisement attracting attention alongside Highway 101 in Palo Alto. Grant Paulson of Pleasanton spent $10,000 to post a verbose message to Simitian, criticizing him for his efforts to pass a cell phone ban for California drivers. "Your Cell Phone Law Sucks," the message reads. "Amazing how one man's bad idea can screw over and inconvenience millions of people in California." Some drivers have complained that the sign has caused them to nearly get into accidents because of...

There is news that the plane had some problems a few days before it landed safely on the Hudson River in NYC. This article looks at the background events and some of the breaking news on this development.

Do you sing in the car? Or shout at the bonehead on your radio? If so, you could get pulled over. That's one of the potentical consequences of a stupid suggestion this week -- by the self-proclaimed National Safety Council -- that cell phones be banned in cars. They want them done away with. They say that the piecemeal banning of cell phones -- mostly in our most liberal states -- doesn't go far enough. They won't be happy until every cell phone in every car is turned off or broken. Specifically, they say that talking on a cell phone...

This week, a toddler fatally shot himself after finding a gun in his parent's car. According to Jackson, Miss., authorities, the 3-year-old was sitting in the car at a gas station when he found the gun in the front seat and shot himself in the face. Police questioned the boy's parents, but no charges have been filed. But these aren't freak accidents. More than 500 children die annually from accidental gunshots. Some shoot themselves, while others kill friends or siblings after discovering a gun. Here are more scary stats: Americans own 200 million firearms, and 35 percent of homes contain...

There’s a reason cars have bumpers. They’re designed to absorb the impact of a minor crash to prevent damage to fenders, grilles, headlights, taillights, and other expensive parts. For this to work, bumpers on both vehicles must be the same height. That’s why federal regulations require all car bumpers to be 16 to 20 inches off the ground. But federal bumper regulations do not apply to SUVs, pickups, and minivans. Without a regulatory height requirement, the bumpers on these vehicles tend to be higher than car bumpers. It makes them look more sporty and rugged. But in a crash —...

Bear attacks. You hear about them all the time, but this one in Vermont takes it to the new level. (BERLIN, Vt. — Motorcyclist Neale Gow struck a bear on his way home from work on Sunday and police say he’s lucky to be alive. “At one point, I noticed something appearing in my vision from the left,” Gow said, “It turned out to be a pretty good-sized bear.” Gow said he had little time to react to a large black bear running his way at full speed. He hit the animal in its side.) This makes me wonder whether...

I’ve tried to show the world that dogs are harmless creatures, just looking to make a positive mark on this world. Then some numbskull canine, thinking he’s above it all,comes along and ruins all my good work. Who’s the dog this time? Well it’s a German Shepherd named Ranger, and get this, he’s a police dog to boot. (OGDEN, Utah — A police dog that was left in a pickup with the engine running apparently knocked the vehicle into gear and ran down a woman who was walking to her mailbox.

Regulating Trucks by: Melinda Zosh, July 08, 2008 When Atlanta residents Stephen and Susan Owings ate breakfast, prayed and said good-bye to their two college-age sons after Thanksgiving, they had no idea that only one of their sons would return for Christmas. Nearly six years ago, on Dec. 1, 2002, 22-year-old Washington and Lee student Cullum Owings, a business major, died when a 70,000-pound tractor-railer driving 72 m.p.h., the equivalent of a car driving more than 300 m.p.h., slammed into his door. “My rear-view mirror has turned into a time machine,” said Stephen Owings. “Every now and then when I...

The number of fatal firearms accidents for the last five years of record are: 2002 - 762; 2003 - 730; 2004 - 649; 2005 - 630; 2006 - 680. I had to hunt a bit for this information, which I think many are interested in. The accidental firearm death rate is down 94% since 1905. You have to scroll down a bit on the link to find the figures in the source.

Cars have been a huge part of our lives. We use them to get around anywhere. It might have been the best invention mankind came up with, but we all hate several common things about cars, such as the cost of gas prices and traffic. We think sometimes in our imagination how awesome it would be if cars had wings, so maybe one day we will fly through terrific! We also despise accidents, high insurance and drunk driving. Sometimes, I feel that we need other alternative means of transportation, such as a subway system in the state of Texas; maybe...

A group of 20 prominent Hillary Clinton donors sent a letter to House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) warning her to retract her comments that superdelegates ought to mirror the voters’ choice in the primaries. The Clinton supporters wrote Pelosi “we don’t want our investment to be undermined by your uncalled for meddling.” The letter went on to point out that Pelosi’s position could be considered risky, reminding her that “a number of others who have undertaken actions that were detrimental to the Clintons have met with unfortunate accidents. By no means are we saying that the Clintons bear...

By T.J. Pignataro - News Staff Reporter 03/26/08 A public alert was issued early this evening by Buffalo Police, warning that a gang could be staging rear-end collisions tonight on area roadways and then attacking drivers as part of an initiation ritual. Commissioner H. McCarthy Gipson called an emergency news conference at police headquarters just before 6:30 p.m. to make the announcement. He said police received "credible information" late this afternoon suggesting that the initiation ritual could involve gang member recruits intentionally causing rear-end collisions and then robbing or assaulting the other driver. Gipson suggested motorists be aware of their...

My daughter, who is 22 now, was in an auto accident last year. She flipped and totalled her car, and damaged her knee. All is ok, thank God. She is on my auto insurance policy. She had health care through her employer. I let her handle all the contacts and coordinate her benefits. Here is the situation. Auto insurance had $10k medical payments. They paid their obligation. Her healthcare insurance has a $2k deductible. The healthcare insurance tells her the auto insurance payments have no effect on the deductible, even though that $10k reduced what the healthcare insurance paid by...

A 63-year-old woman died on Saturday night after falling down a well while trying to fish out a dead chicken. The accident occurred near Ed in Dalsland in western Sweden. According to local police officer Patrik Ahlbom the woman was trying to fish out a dead hen from the well when she fell in herself. The woman fell 2-3 metres and probably died immediately, Ahlbom said. The 63-year-old was found by her husband. The woman was taken to Dalsland's hospital in Bäckefors where she was confirmed dead. Ahlbom reports that the woman's husband suffered from shock following the accident.

More than two dozens cars, trucks and big rigs became entangled in a series of collisions that brought the busy Highway 99 to a virtual standstill Monday morning.

November 27, 2007 (by Asif Shamim) - Air Force Times is reporting that an accident investigation board has concluded its investigation and released a report on Monday saying that F-16C (#91-0386) crashed due to a jammed throttle cable during a night training mission over the Nevada test range. The pilot, Maj. David Epperson declared an in-flight emergency 46 minutes into his mission when he discovered the engine throttle was stuck at max settings for the engine. With the jet stuck with afterburners on, he realised he would be unable to make a landing at the Tonopah Test Range Airfield on...

CHICAGO (AP) -- A man who was driving the wrong way on an expressway west of downtown early Sunday caused a fiery crash that left five people dead, including himself, state police said. The accident closed all the lanes on Interstate 290 for nearly three hours, said Illinois State Trooper Ivan Bukaczyk. "A man was driving a Volvo westbound in the eastbound lanes when he collided head-on with a BMW carrying four people," Bukaczyk said. "The BMW then burst into flames -- almost an explosion. It was also hit by a van that couldn't stop in time." The van driver...

By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 10:01pm BST 24/09/2007 Road safety campaigners could cut the death rate by lobbying for cars to be made to look more like animals, and for pedestrians at night to use fluorescent markers that highlight the way they move. In the study people detected changes to animals quicker than changes to vehicles In the study people detected changes to animals quicker than changes to vehicles That is one implication of an experiment to show that people have stone age brains that are unconsciously attuned to detecting the movement of animals, rather than inanimate objects...

More than a week after two New York City firefighters died in a smoky fire at the former Deutsche Bank building, city officials relieved three senior fire officers of their posts yesterday, asserting they had failed to inspect the building or to draw up a specific plan on how to fight a fire inside the contaminated tower. At a City Hall news conference yesterday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said the local firehouse had not performed any of the required inspections of the building on the edge of ground zero since 2006, even though the 41-story building, damaged in the Sept....

Deadly germs may be more likely to be spread due to a biodefence lab accident than a biological attack by terrorists. Plague, anthrax, Rocky Mountain spotted fever - these are among the bioweapons some experts fear could be used in a germ warfare attack against the US. But the public has had near-misses with those diseases and others over the past five years, ironically because of accidents in labs that were working to defend against bioterrorists. Even worse, they may be only the tip of an iceberg. The revelations come from Ed Hammond of the Sunshine Project, a biosafety pressure...

Van owner accidentally runs over her family Annapolis woman had just bought car; 2 hurt seriously, including infant By Nia-Malika Henderson and Andrea F. Siegel sun reporters Originally published June 2, 2007 Hours after buying a new van, Urvashiben Patel took the silver Honda Odyssey for a spin around the parking lot of her family's Annapolis apartment complex. But as Patel, who had earned her driver's license 10 days earlier, pulled into a parking space in front of her family and friends waiting on the steps of the community leasing center, she pressed the accelerator instead of the brake pedal....

Safety coalition criticizes federal rules as 'putting cargo over people' WASHINGTON - More than 100 people a week are killed in large-truck crashes in this country, according to safety groups that called Monday for reducing how long big-rig drivers can work without rest. Wyoming, Arkansas and Oklahoma are the deadliest states for big truck crashes; Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut are the safest, according to The Truck Safety Coalition. It released state rankings, based on the number of fatalities per 100,000 residents during 2005, the most recent year with complete federal government figures. Created by Congress in 1999, the federal...

CHICAGO, Oct. 26 — The farm-produced fuel that is supposed to help wean America from its oil addiction is under scrutiny for its potentially corrosive qualities. E85, a blend of 85 percent corn-based ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, could be eating away at metal and plastic parts in pumps being used to dispense the fuel at gasoline stations, Underwriters Laboratories, the private product-safety testing group, said this month. BP, the British oil company, said on Thursday that it would delay the expansion of E85 at its American gasoline outlets until the laboratories certified an E85 dispensing system. “BP is tracking...

A household cleaning product that researchers say looks and smells like a soft drink has been the cause of more than 100 accidental ingestions, according to a study published in the journal Pediatrics in August and presented Sunday at a conference of the American College of Emergency Physicians. From Jan. 1 to April 20, researchers found 104 records in the Texas Poison Center database of human ingestion of Fabuloso, manufactured by Colgate-Palmolive. Of these, 94 were unintentional and 2 were occupational exposures. The rest were either related to self-harm or not characterized as to cause. None caused serious harm. Fabuloso...

LEXINGTON, Ky. - What is known is that a string of mistakes preceded the deadly crash of Comair Flight 5191, but what is less clear is which one was the crucial turning point. Was the problem the airport itself? The captain had to follow an unfamiliar taxi route that had been changed by a repaving project just a week earlier. Or, was it a decision by the tower manager to break the federal rule that two controllers should be working there at all times? Or even earlier, when the airport built intersecting runways rather than parallel ones? "It just breaks...

School bus crashes on I-95 July 05, 2006 19:06 EDT ABERDEEN, Md. (AP) -- A Harford County emergency official says 57 people have been injured -- four seriously -- in a bus crash on northbound Interstate 95 in the Aberdeen area. Harford County Fire E-M-S spokesman Rich Gardner says there are NO fatalities. Gardner says four children in serious condition were flown to Johns Hopkins Children's Center. He says 27 people with minor injuries were taken to local hospitals. State police Sergeant David Jones says the bus involved in the crash was one of six returning to Norris Square Day...

No room for mistakes in a nuclear Navy Shishir Gupta With only two years to go before the Indian Navy is to transform itself to a blue water Navy—an elite club comprising mostly of the P5 countries—a string of incidents give clue to how unprepared the force is for it.Consider the following: • Last month, the sonar dome—an anti-submarine device—of the guided missile warship Talwar, got seriously damaged after the ship’s anchor was accidentally dropped on it. • In April, missile corvette Prahar sank after colliding with merchant ship Rajiv Gandhi. • In December 2005, a speeding INS Trishul, another...

In Colombia, beauty can kill. Drivers ogling attractive women rather than paying attention to the road are one of the South American country's leading causes of car accidents. Distraction was the No. 1 cause of the 115,000 road accidents in Colombia last year, costing the equivalent of about $250 million Cdn, according to research by the Road Safety Fund, a private organization. The cell phone was the biggest distraction for drivers, accounting for about 10 per cent of all accidents. Second was men staring at women, which accounted for nearly one in 20 crashes. "It's a culture here of drivers...