Free Republic

Being proved right isn't always fun. Just weeks after my warning in the March issue that our modern high-tech cars are tracking us and sharing data with manufacturers, cops, and parties unknown, came a report of soaring auto insurance premiums because of snitching vehicles. The consequences get worse from there. Fortunately, there are ways to keep your snoopy ride from contacting the mothership. Your Driving History May Be Transmitted and Stored "Car companies are collecting information directly from internet-connected vehicles for use by the insurance industry," Kashmir Hill reported this month for The New York Times. "Sometimes this is happening...

KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine (AP) — It seems former President George H.W. Bush felt the need for speed in the waters off Maine, where he kept a nearly 1,000 horsepower speedboat. And for the right price, someone else can experience its excitement. The vessel is set to go up for auction on Thursday during the 2024 Presidential Salute auction in Houston, said Hutton Higgins, a spokesperson for the George & Barbara Bush Foundation. Proceeds from selling the 38-foot (11.5-meter) speedboat “Fidelity V” will be used to expand offerings at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library & Museum and The Bush School of...

Drivers may soon get speeding tickets without ever talking to an officer, if a bill gets approved authorizing speed limit cameras. The program would give speeding drivers a ticket by using speed cameras and an automatic billing system, according to Assembly Bill 645. "The speed safety system shall capture images of the rear license plate of vehicles that are traveling 11 miles per hour or more over the posted speed limit and notices of violation shall only be issued to vehicles based on that evidence," the bill states. Fines would start at $50 for going 11 mph over the posted...

Graham Sykes from Bedale has set a new 1/8th-mile record on his motorcycle...It uses "steam-based science" to achieve incredible speeds with zero emissions...See the blisteringly fast bike accelerate to 163.8mph at an airfield in the UK...[Includes "steam" video!]

Save Share Bank runs are always extraordinary. But the first bank run of the social media age has been something else. The speed with which Silicon Valley Bank collapsed on Friday night under the staggering weight of $US42 billion ($63 billion) of withdrawals, and then had its depositors bailed out on Sunday night in similarly short order, is in part due to the power of social media, and the speed with which information travels across it.

The average top speed of a zebra is believed to be up between 35 and 43 miles-per-hour. A camel has a top speed of up to 40 miles-per-hour and can hold a 25 miles-per-hour pace up to an hour long. Today, Evangeline Downs, typically occupied by horses, hosted an event to put the top speed of camels and zebras to the test. WINNER! WINNER! Tammy’s Grocery on Jefferson Street in Lafayette sells winning scratch off ticket Director of Operations at Evangeline Downs Anthony Breaux says they have been planning an event like this for several years before finally getting the...

The National Transportation Safety Board is recommending new speed limiter technology. According to a CNN Business report, an electric car equipped with this intelligence speed assistance program knows the speed limit wherever the particular car is traveling. A video demonstrating this speed-limiting program on the CNN Business website showed New York City Deputy Mayor of Operations Meera Joshi is driving a vehicle equipped with the program. While demonstrating the speed limiter program Joshi, formerly FMCSA’s acting administrator, said, “I’m pressing the pedal, but you see actually the number is going down.”

What in the world is going on? In the past, we were told that monkeypox was not a major concern because it was so difficult to spread it from person to person. But now monkeypox seems to be spreading like wildfire. On May 7th, the very first case in the western world in 2022 was confirmed in the United Kingdom. Now here we are less than two weeks later and there are now dozens of confirmed and suspected cases in eight different countries outside of Africa. Yesterday, I discussed the cases that have popped up in Spain, Portugal and the...

BEIJING (AP) — Erin Jackson became the first Black woman to win a speedskating medal at the Winter Olympics. A gold one, at that. Jackson won the 500 meters Sunday with a time of 37.04 seconds, giving the American speedskating program its first medal of the Beijing Games and first individual medal since 2010. But this one meant much more than national pride. The 29-year-old Jackson, a former inline skater who switched to the ice shortly before the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, joined fellow American Shani Davis as the only Black athletes to win long-track speedskating medals at the Olympics. Now,...

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg assured that "the passage of the $1.2 trillion infrastructure legislation will not go down the tired old path of providing more lane-miles of roads and bridges that has been the traditional transportation strategy in the past. Traveling on roadways is one of the most dangerous things most Americans do on a regular basis. Reducing this travel will be the core objective of my plan." "The first prong of my plan will be to get people out of their cars," the Secretary said. "This means making alternatives to driving crucial. We need to improve crosswalks, add...

High speed carrier turns, click here => https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M-Q8P049-2Q

WILLIAMSPORT — Shane Burkett has been watching the Interstate 81 Potomac River bridge work from the cab of a tractor-trailer. Now that the new third lanes are open in each direction, the semi driver likes what he sees. "I think it's great. I-81 is a massive highway. ... It's a big help having that third lane now," the Williamsport resident said. The Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration formally announced completion of the $104.6 million project Thursday. The work, which has been years in the making, widened the interstate from two lanes to three lanes in each direction from...

SSC announced a customer-owned Tuatara set a new production-vehicle land-speed record of 316.11 mph. The run took place on Oct. 10 on a seven-mile stretch of State Route 160 in Nevada and required a two-way average with both runs within an hour of each other to account for wind and gradients; a public road; street tires; street fuel; and satellite tracking. The car was stock...with a four-point seating harness and no roll cage...the team overfilled the Cup 2 tires with nitrogen...the active rear wing was locked in top-speed mode so it couldn't retract or angle for braking if anything were...

There's a new record in Cannonball land: Drivers Arne Toman and Doug Tabbutt announced today that they completed the cross-country drive from New York City to Los Angeles in 25 hours, 39 minutes, narrowly beating a claimed "sub-26-hour" record publicized in May and besting their own record of 27 hours, 25 minutes that was announced in November 2019. Toman and Tabbutt's November attempt kicked off a spate of copycat record-chasers, many of whom took advantage of reduced traffic during COVID lockdown to set cross-country times that would seem impossible under normal driving conditions. An unnamed trio wedged a giant auxiliary...

At age 12, Keegan Sobilo of New Baltimore carefully tucks his legs and arms into a fire suit, pulls on a helmet and climbs into a race car that exceeds 80 mph. He has been doing this since age 8. "I’d stand underneath the grandstand, and whenever somebody would get close to Keegan on the track, I’d have to walk away," said his mother, Hillary Sobilo, 46, a kindergarten teacher at Cleveland Elementary School in Port Huron.

On Monday, during an interview with the Des Moines Register, 2020 presidential hopeful mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg said drug possession should not result in jail time. Buttigieg said, “Incarceration should not even be a response to drug possession. What I have seen is while there continues to be all kinds of harms associated with drug possession and use, it is also the case that we have created in an effort to deal with a public health problem, we have created an even bigger problem — a justice problem, and it’s own form of a health problem when...

Ever since the Bugatti Chiron was launched, with a 261-mph speed limiter, we've been desperate to know what it could manage if let off the leash. Now Bugatti has done that at the vast Ehra-Lessien test track in Germany; the car smashed both the production-car record and the 300-mph barrier. Factory test driver Andy Wallace, who previously set production-car records in both the Jaguar XJ220 and the McLaren F1, drove a slightly modified Chiron to a time, certified by the German TÜV organization, of 304.773 mph. The Chiron used was in what is described by Bugatti as "near production" spec,...

Well, California Governor Gavin Newsom has abandoned plans to build a high-speed railroad between Los Angeles and San Francisco. After spending billions of dollars in funds, much of it from the Federal government, the Governor said that the project should be shelved. He cited that the project was too expensive. The face of American politics today. This is the slick and well-packaged oligarchy pick for California. Mr. California Governor Gavin Newsom. Look how plastic he appears. Why, he could be right out of one of those political villains from a 1980’s John Cusack movie. California Is Abandoning A Plan To...

Police officers can only drive faster than the speed limit when they are responding to an emergency situation where they believe there is an immediate and serious risk to life. Not only do we have to adhere to the speed limit like every other driver - unless we are responding to a situation where a person is in danger - but there is also technology in our vehicles that monitors the speed at which we are travelling. If we go over that limit it triggers an alert and we have to justify to our bosses why we breached that limit.

URGENT ALERT: IF YOU DON'T WANT TO DOUBLE YOUR TRIP TIMES AROUND TOWN - AND LIKELY YOUR TAXES - READ THIS AND COME TO COUNCIL NEXT TUES With zero public notice, the City of Phoenix has put a plan on agenda for next week called "Vision Zero". The major policy focus of this plan is a massive reduction in speed limits across ALL city streets. Boston adopted this program a few years ago and reduced all City streets to 25MPH. When that didn't work - and by "work" they mean eliminating ALL roadway fatalities - they developed a plan to...