April 23, 2008
Journal photo / Bill Murphy
Nami Moghadan, director of maintenance for the Rhode Island Department of Transportation, stands next to trash collected from the state's roadsides on Monday. The pile was the focus of an Earth Day press event aimed at asking motorists to help keep the state's roads, highways and bridges clean.
Eight hundred bags of trash.
That's the result of one day's work cleaning up roads in Rhode Island this week.
The pile was used by the state Department of Transportation to illustrate the trash problem in the state.
DOT Director Michael Lewis said, “Every piece of trash we had to pick up was disposed of improperly and that’s a shame.”
The biggest litter problems in Rhode Island are beverage containers, including water, soda and alcohol bottles, fast food packaging, and cigarette butts, according to the DOT. Nationally, the top three litter problems are fast food waste, paper products, and aluminum beer cans.
The DOT says debris on roadways nationwide causes 25,000 accidents and over 80 fatalities each year. About 55 percent of roadside litter occurs intentionally by people dropping their trash on the road. The other 45 percent of roadside litter is caused by trash blowing out of uncovered trucks or falling off of unsecured loads.
“While it might only take two to five weeks for a banana peel to decompose, it takes 200 to 500 years for an aluminum can to do the same. RIDOT is asking motorists to take their trash home and dispose of it properly because Earth Day isn’t just today but every day,” said Lewis.
Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth 
at 11:23 AM | Permalink
September 4, 2007
MILLIONS of pack rats have connected with bargain hunters via eBay, and untold numbers of lonely souls have found companionship through MySpace. Now GoLoco.org wants to use the matchmaking potential of the Internet to simplify carpooling, pairing solo drivers with people in need of a lift, according to the New York Times.
The GoLoco.org Web site goes beyond filling empty seats with people who would rather avoid owning or renting a car for a specific trip: drivers can screen potential riders by checking the descriptions and photos they have posted, and riders can rate drivers they’ve experienced.
Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth at 10:24 AM | Permalink
August 6, 2007
Many connoisseurs of the highway are championing the use of slow roads — back roads with scenery and history — instead of faceless Interstates, according to the New York Times. The idea emphasizes savoring local detail and culture.
“Taking the slow road is the best way to taste and feel the country, to use all your senses,” said Michael Wallis, author of “The Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate,” with photographs by Michael S. Williamson. (W. W. Norton, 2007) .
Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth at 4:08 PM | Permalink
August 2, 2007
Buying an expensive car can bring an owner style, prestige and repair bills in the thousands of dollars to fix damage caused by minor fender-benders, according to USA Today.
Repairing damage to luxury vehicles involved in crashes of 3 to 6 miles per hour, which typically happen in commuter traffic or parking lots, can cost significantly more than for other cars, according to data released Thursday by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Posted by Peter C. T. Elsworth at 11:05 AM | Permalink
July 30, 2007
Rhode Island may soon join much of the rest of the Eastern Seaboard in allowing motorists to pay tolls Claiborne Pell Bridge to Newport through the E-ZPass system, according the Providence Journal.
Posted by at 11:56 AM | Permalink
July 12, 2007
Gas prices may have hit all-time highs, but cruising — that great American pastime of driving just to drive, hanging out in parking lots and watching others drive — is back, according to a report in USAToday.
"We're the next generation of cruisers from our parents, who used to cruise up and down this same road," said Angie Guerra, 23, a receptionist who spent Friday night in a parking lot off Woodward Avenue, a main artery connecting Detroit with its northern suburbs. "We hang out and socialize and watch the nice cars go by. It's fun."
She and her boyfriend, Brian Meissen, 20, brought folding chairs and drinks. They met up with fellow car-lovers who stopped in and out of parking lots like party-hoppers on a social circuit. When cruisers got hungry, they left their cars parked and walked across the street to a nearby KFC.
Posted by at 9:45 AM | Permalink
July 10, 2007
The Second International Teardrop Gathering, held June 16-17 at Pioneer Village, a campground in Minden, Neb., was not a convention for people with hay fever, contact lenses or sad stories to tell. Rather, it was a get-together of more than 100 rounded-off camping trailers called teardrops, according to the New York Times.
Teardrop trailers are throwbacks, reminders of a time when people got by on less, because they were flat broke. Teardrops were products of the Great Depression.
Posted by at 12:12 PM | Permalink
July 3, 2007
The prevalence of rear seat DVD players has already made the road trip game I Spy seem as quaint as Howdy Doody. But endless viewings of “Shrek 2” or “Over the Hedge” can generate boredom in the back seat, too, which is why the next big thing for in-car entertainment may be live TV, accoding to the New York Times.
Posted by at 12:29 PM | Permalink
June 25, 2007
The Vatican has issued a document - "Guidelines for the Patoral Care of the Road" - which addresses a number of issues, such as problems of the international transportation of women and children for prostitution as well as the homeless on the world's roads.
It also addresses driving itself, particularly the issue of manners or consideration for others, going as far as drawing up a ten commandments of the road:
I. You shall not kill.
II. The road shall be for you a means of communion between people and not of mortal harm.
III. Courtesy, uprightness and prudence will help you deal with unforeseen events.
IV. Be charitable and help your neighbour in need, especially victims of accidents.
V. Cars shall not be for you an expression of power and domination, and an occasion of sin.
VI. Charitably convince the young and not so young not to drive when they are not in a fitting condition to do so.
VII. Support the families of accident victims.
VIII. Bring guilty motorists and their victims together, at the appropriate time, so that they can undergo the liberating experience of forgiveness.
IX. On the road, protect the more vulnerable party.
X. Feel responsible towards others.
Posted by at 11:55 AM | Permalink
June 19, 2007
A unanimous Supreme Court ruled Monday that passengers in vehicles pulled over by the police have the same rights as drivers to challenge the legality of the traffic stop when it results in an arrest, according to the Washington Post.
The court said that passengers, like the driver, are "seized" by police when the vehicle they are traveling in is stopped and are thus covered by the Fourth Amendment and allowed to challenge unreasonable searches and seizures.
Posted by at 2:39 PM | Permalink
The breathtaking cost of gas has companies adopting programs to curb commuting costs and employees developing more economical alternatives to driving to work, according to USA Today.
Employers are taking action as average national gas prices persist above $3 a gallon. Nearly 90% of employees drive to work, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Thirteen percent of companies offer transit subsidies, and 7% subsidize carpooling, according to a 2006 survey by the Society for Human Resource Management. Twenty-six percent allow telecommuting on a part-time basis.
Posted by at 2:31 PM | Permalink
As the price of gasoline rises, limits on transaction amounts — or the total dollar amount of gas a customer can pump into their car — are limiting some drivers, according to USA Today.
"Using my Visa card, I commonly hit a limit and I would be standing there scratching my head," Shawn Bloomfield, who pumps premium gas into his SUV, said from his home in Allentown, Pa. "I would always assume it is the gas station setting a limit on how much gas I could purchase. It felt like a ration scenario."
Posted by at 2:28 PM | Permalink
June 13, 2007
Summertime is when America hits the road, and — if you believe some people — it’s also when too many slow drivers clog the fast lane. Well, help is on the way for that beloved character, the Assertive American, according to the cars.com.
Left Lane Drivers of America has taken the lead in this national aggravation, and it wants to keep slower drivers where they belong — on the right-hand side of the road.
“As traffic gets increasingly congested, it’s time for citizens to reclaim the left lane,” J.A. Tosti, a spokesman for the group, said in a press release.
Tosti and his group are offering backward-reading “Move Over” windshield decal (complete with an arrow that points to the right) that “gently prods” those slower drivers into, well, getting the hell out of the way when they see it in their rearview mirror.
Posted by at 10:20 AM | Permalink
June 4, 2007
There is no one secret to getting your car to live to a ripe old odometer reading. Luck could get you there, but it is no surprise that many vehicles that have reached 200,000, 400,000 and even 500,000 miles have received extraordinary care and maintenance, often with the owners doing the routine work themselves, according to the New York Times.
Posted by at 10:33 AM | Permalink
