Free Republic

A new collection of transportation agencies and universities is taking one small step toward transforming the Rust Belt into a place associated with the future instead of the past. Eleven agencies and institutions located in Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania have formed the Smart Belt Coalition, which will spur joint efforts on the testing and deployment of autonomous and connected cars. The collaboration comes on the heels of a legislative overhaul of Michigan regulations last month, which have been relaxed to spur the testing of self-driving technology on the state’s public roads. Ohio and Pennsylvania do not have laws on the...

TOLEDO (13abc Action News) - Self-driving cars are getting closer to becoming a reality in America. Testing is underway in a few places around the country and if you travel the Ohio Turnpike, you'll soon be sharing the road with them. We spoke with drivers and the head of the Ohio Turnpike Commission about the testing. The autonomous vehicles could be on the turnpike by the end of the year. The Ohio Turnpike will be turned into a test track of sorts for the emerging technology. Randy Cole is the Executive Director of the Turnpike Commission, "It's 241 miles of...

The problem is clear: Traffic congestion will become significantly worse and more widespread without big changes in how people and products get around. Build more roads. Build more public transit. Rely on new technology. The possible solutions are many, but none is easy or cheap. A few ways to ease the nation's gridlock: ——— PUBLIC TRANSIT RENAISSANCE Ridership on public buses, trains and subways has reached its highest level nationally since the 1950s, and transit boosters cite this as evidence that expanded service and routes is a good investment. The nation's driving capital, Los Angeles, is making a multibillion-dollar investment...

Two more instances of Smart car "tipping" occurred overnight in San Francisco's Twin Peaks and Cole Valley neighborhoods, according to police. The latest "tippings" of the small two-seat cars were reported at 3:41 a.m. at Clayton Street and Parnassus Avenue and at 5:38 a.m. in the 1300 block of Clayton Street, near 17th Street, according to police. These incident follow a series of tippings reported about two months ago. Three Smart cars were tipped early one morning in April within a 10-block radius near Bernal Heights. The prank is considered felony vandalism, according to police.

Someone's been vandalizing compact Smart cars in San Francisco, flipping the tiny vehicles on their front and rear ends in the city's streets. NBC Bay Area found four of the targeted Smart cars between Sunday night and Monday morning. Two were found in the Bernal Heights neighborhood on Anderson Street, and another was found a bit south on Sweeny and Bowdoin streets, closer to the Portola district. They were either sitting on their headlights, rear bumpers high in the air, or vice versa. A fourth Smart car -- a small white one with a faded "Obama-Biden" bumper sticker -- was...

Hooded Car-Tipping Vandals Flip Over Smart Cars In San Francisco April 7, 2014 3:00 PM Holly Quan SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) — San Francisco police are looking for vandals who tipped over four Smart Cars in two different neighborhoods early Monday morning. Police received a call about 1 a.m. that about six to eight hooded suspects were roaming the area near Bowdoin and Sweeny Streets in the city’s Portola District around the same time that a silver Smart Car—the compact eco-friendly vehicles—was found turned on it’s backend on the corner. Three other similar car tipping incidents were reported in the Bernal...

One of the latest badges of greenie virtue is the mini-car. Supposedly, if you drive one of these contraptions, you demonstrate your concern for Mother Gaia and help diminish the risk that catastrophic global warming will engulf low lying coastal areas and fry the rest of us in temperatures that will be a couple of degrees higher in the next hundred years. In this worldview, people who drive around in SUVs are carelessly risking the very future of humanity. That's quite a serious risk; never mind that temperatures have failed to rise for the last 16 years as the models...

<p>Strong winds and torrential rain buffeted much of the Midwest Tuesday, sending a tree branch crashing into a Smart Car in the far north suburbs, partially impaling the driver, and spawning tornadoes in the far south and west suburbs.</p> <p>"She considers herself extremely lucky," said her husband, Todd.</p>

Tata CEO Ratan Tata said that his company could modify a European version of the Nano to meet U.S. safety standards within three years. The biggest change would be making the micro-car meet rear-crash safety standards for the U.S. Ever since Tata first announced plans to sell a $2,500 car for its home market of India, many have been asking when it will get a version of the pint-size ride. Watch videos of the car...

The tiny car that won over Europeans with its cute looks and very high mileage is finally coming to America, just not in the way you might expect it to. The 60-mpg, two-seat coupes are made by a European company called smart, but the DaimlerChrysler division is not the one selling them here anytime soon. True, they will be sold in Canada starting in September, but not so in the United States. Instead, smart USA is betting Americans won't want the small smarts, at least not yet, and has taken a different strategy: a smart SUV, available here in...

Can the Smart car move America? By André Vornic BBC News, New York The Smart car is a familiar sight in Europe as it squeezes through traffic to find parking spaces too small for anyone else. But how will the tiny car fare on the streets of the US where size really matters? Big, as far as most US car-makers is concerned, is definitely beautiful. Anyone trying to convince drivers to take to a Smart car in the States may well have their work cut out. Which may be the reason why, even though the car is being promoted aggressively...