This is just one fine example of the countless excellent and usually unsung tasks done by on-duty and off-duty police officers, every single day of the year. It has been posted here with full permission from its author, Temporary Sergeant Karen Stanton, whose important goal is to highlight the crucial importance of cyclists wearing helmets. If you are not convinced, check out the image of the boy’s head scan, below.
One of the most inflammatory and divisive topics in road or highway safety is that of speed in relation to safety.
The first question that has to be addressed is what exactly do we mean in this context by the word “speed”? It is very important not to fall into the trap of thinking it only relates to breaking the posted speed limits, even though that is still a serious issue (see below).
Breaking the posted speed limit often contributes to serious or fatal crashes. However, if there are problems on the road, then it is easy to do a potentially dangerous speed even within the posted limit. This is called driving at an inappropriate speed for the circumstances, and it is particularly common — and deadly — on rural roads. (Copyright image.)
We are posting this saddening topic here on the ADoNA website in the hope that it helps in the THSO’s aim of persuading people not to become the cause of a tragedy which requires this terrible outcome.
Scene from the ‘Knock at the Door’ video
The Tennessee Highway Safety Office (THSO) recently distributed a public service announcement called “The Knock at the Door,” to show what easily qualifies as the worst job in the world, namely the personal delivery by police and other law enforcement officers of fatality messages to unsuspecting loved ones. A very large proportion of such messages relate to road and highway crashes. Continue reading “Tennessee Talks About the Horrors of ‘The Knock at the Door’”
Apart from saving lives by means of enforcement and obliging many errant drivers to drive more safely, highly-trained police motorcycle officers often help save lives in other ways, too.
This team of three are from the Netherlands, and this spectacular video brought back good memories from my own years on this job, in Britain. It gives a very good insight into this relatively rare task of facilitating the fastest possible, safe conveyance of a critically ill or injured person to the most appropriate hospital.
…More than 2,700 complaints have been filed with the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration regarding carbon monoxide leaking into Ford Explorers…
Among the complaints filed with [NHTSA], 41 injuries were caused by fumes, with three crashes taking place.
In a statement made Friday, Ford said that exhaust is entering the vehicles through holes in the underbody that were not properly sealed.
The police in Germany chase and catch a driver in a stolen Audi A5 on the Autobahn. He drove at over 240 km/h (150mph) but lost control, left the road then hurtled back on, hitting another vehicle in the process.
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The German courts sentenced him to 3 years and 9 months in prison.
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*****This type of event, even though rare, is just one excellent reason for repeatedly checking your mirrors every time you drive and on any type of road, to help you minimize risk from behind. Every 4-8 seconds is the usual guideline.*****
Excerpt: [A chief of police in Wisconsin] has serious concerns with proposals in Congress that would allow heavier and longer rigs on highways because these proposals would dramatically increase the danger faced by everyday drivers.
Semi-tractor-trailer. Copyright image.
The proposal calls for increasing trucks weights nationwide from 80,000 to 91,000 pounds, and another calls for increasing the length of double-trailer trucks by 10 feet, to 91 feet in length.
…Bigger trucks may mean increased profit margins for the handful of companies that would benefit, they also pose substantial safety risks to motorists…
Already more than 4,000 people are killed each year in the USA in crashes involving large trucks. One factor in this bad scenario is the long hours that drivers are allowed to work, behind the wheel, each week — far more than in other countries that have much lower road-death rates than does America. Making trucks larger and therefor even harder to stop should be seen as an extra factor that is likely to increase the number of deaths even further.
