The tech from the link below interests me. I'd like to see something like that tied to vehicle tax fees for pay as you drive efficiency. Eventually this could evolve into an aviation-style control system like a TCA for heavily used corridors during peak use for a more fair distribution of taxes and fees, an incentive to reduce congestion, reduce accidents, and perhaps the ability to fine tune traffic flow on the fly. I don't particularly care for the little fiberglass bubble cars, but the "Minority Report" freeway is an eventual must-have. An e-highway system might be able to pay for itself along the way, whereas these muni train fiascos are unaffordable, and inappropriate on many levels. They're ramming one down our throats here (Oahu) with a 6++ billion price tag, and we can't even pay to keep our kids in school now even though wealready pay some of the highest taxes in the country.
http://insurancetech.com/business-intelligence/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=2 22002974 R. From: Jed Rothwell [mailto:jedrothw...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, January 04, 2010 7:00 AM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com Subject: Re: [Vo]:Traffic accident deaths in Japan hit 57-year low Okay, I found the graph. The article is in Japanese but the graph has Western dates, from 1950 to 2009 (as opposed to the Japanese date system): http://mainichi.jp/select/jiken/news/20100103k0000m040014000c.html There was a slight increase in the late 1980s. The decline after 1992 is attributed to increased severity and enforcement of the drunken driving laws and reckless driving laws, which seems likely to me. The total number of accidents was 736,160 (29,987 fewer than 2008), with 908,874 people injured. Drunken driving caused 264 fatalities, compared the peak of 1,161 in 2000. (They only began recording this category separately around 1992.) In 1970 they launched the "first war against traffic accidents" mainly with improvements to roads and traffic signals (it says here) but also with seat belt laws. The "second war" to reduce accidents began in 1988. Other news articles on this subject say that roughly half of the fatalities in 2009 were attributed to elderly drivers. The minimum age for a driver's license in Japan is 18, and most people do not drive before age 20, so accidents by young drivers and teenagers are rarer than in the U.S. Driver education courses and the test you have to pass to get a license are much more strict, and expensive, than in the U.S. The fatality rate is lower per capita than the U.S. I expect because people drive less, and speeds are lower. Pedestrian fatalities used to be higher per capita than the U.S., because urban roads are crowded and many do not have sidewalks. - Jed
