Link Banana

The National Weather Service think they may have found a driver going 130 miles per hour around Chicago. Using a weather doppler. Who knew? As Gizmodo explains, It works something like this:

Sometimes, when a warm layer of air rolls in up above the surface, the beam from the Doppler radar can be deflected towards the ground—picking up traffic and other objects much like a police radar gun. The weather service alluded to the fact that the “speeder” could have been nothing more than noise, but it still makes you wonder how long it will be before they figure out how to bust motorists from space.

Though quotidien chaos in the streets is hardly unique to Iran, this video certainly makes me glad that I don’t have to drive there.

(via Donklephant)

Philadelphia has an interesting plan to get people to slow down: paint optical illusions onto the road.

(via Gizmodo)

There are so many of them that we’re ignoring the road. So says John Staddon:

And I began to think that the American system of traffic control, with its many signs and stops, and with its specific rules tailored to every bend in the road, has had the unintended consequence of causing more accidents than it prevents. Paradoxically, almost every new sign put up in the U.S. probably makes drivers a little safer on the stretch of road it guards. But collectively, the forests of signs along American roadways, and the multitude of rules to look out for, are quite deadly.

Despite my ambivalence about that thesis, I do enjoy his railing against stop signs: “The four-way stop deserves special recognition as a masterpiece of counterproductive public-safety efforts.”

(via Slate)

Firm evidence that high gas prices really make people think more and drive less.

At 11 billion miles less in March 2008 than in the previous March, this is the sharpest yearly drop for any month in FHWA history.

(via Marginal Revolution)

Matt Yglesias has compiled a chart showing that population density — on a country-wide basis — is not a strong determinant of how frequently people drive. It is worth noting, as he does, that this probably doesn’t reflect practical density.