Free Republic

Seems that the glow provided by a red bulb doesn’t always provide enough light to draw attention to sex workers in a Spanish town… Having been fined by the local council for reportedly being a danger to moving traffic, prostitutes in Els Alamus have taken to wearing high visibility vests. Not sure how this look goes down with the kerb crawlers, but if these ladies of the night were to accessorise with a pneumatic drill and cement mixer, it’d give a whole new level of meaning to ‘street girl’.

There is a stretch of North Glebe Road, in Arlington, Virginia, that epitomizes the American approach to road safety. It’s a sloping curve, beginning on a four-lane divided highway and running down to Chain Bridge, on the Potomac River. Most drivers, absent a speed limit, would probably take the curve at 30 or 35 mph in good weather. But it has a 25-mph speed limit, vigorously enforced. As you approach the curve, a sign with flashing lights suggests slowing further, to 15 mph. A little later, another sign makes the same suggestion. Great! the neighborhood’s more cautious residents might think....

A new study found that if all vehicles were equipped with stability control, an electronic safety technology that the industry has been slow to adopt, some 7,000 lives a year could be saved. Stability control, which has sensors that determine when a driver is about to lose control of the vehicle and try to correct that course, reduced the risk of being in a fatal single-vehicle crash by 56%, according to the study to be released today by the Arlington, Va.-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. That group is the research arm of the insurance industry. It is the second...

Highway safety has been improving for years, and it's good to see the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration finally catching up with reality. In releasing its annual report on traffic fatalities Tuesday, the agency said U.S. roads are now safer than ever. That's good news, especially in August, when folks are packing up the family SUV for a week at the beach. But what a change from the doom and gloom of a year ago, when the agency warned that highway fatalities were at the "highest level since 1990" and suggested that the "grim" numbers were a reason to shame...

U.S. agency showcases alert system for inattentive drivers. MCLEAN, Va., June 25 — Federal highway officials think they’ve found a way to prevent thousands of traffic accidents every year: "smart intersections" that warn drivers when they’re about to run a red light or smash into a stopped truck. Government drivers demonstrated Tuesday just what the intersection of the future will be able to do. A car speeds toward an intersection, about to collide with a van. Sensors spot the car as it approaches the red light and emit a signal to the car, which triggers a high-pitched beep and a...