More fuel for the “no cell phones while driving” argument. A study out of the University of Utah found that drivers who are engaged in conversation on their cell phones are just as impaired as a driver with a blood alcohol level of .08. Supporting some earlier studies, this one found that it didn’t matter whether the cell phone was hands-free or not. The conversation itself was the distraction, slowing reaction times of the participants by 9 percent.
The Utah studies were conducted in driving simulators and had participants following a pace car that hit its brakes intermittently. The braking reaction time was measured among the four categories of drivers: those without any distraction; those on a handheld cell phone; those on a hands-free cell phone; and those who had been given enough vodka and orange juice to get their blood alcohol levels to .08, the legal minimum to be considered drunk behind the wheel.
Best secret in town
It looks like the reconstruction of Beach Drive is going to keep it closed off between Joyce Road and Broad Branch Road through the end of this week.
That means that you’re better off using Connecticut Avenue or 16th Street to get downtown from Maryland. Traffic signals will be modified for extended rush hour timing. Of course, I’ve been around long enough to remember when 13th Street was converted into one-way operation during rush hour and was the best secret in town — four lanes all going the same way unless one of the residents or their guests forgot to move their car from the curb.
‘Miracle that runs on oil’
Our longtime friend Carl has become sort of a one-issue writer these days as seen in his recent response:
“So, Chris says you can get Starbucks in Dupont Circle due to the interstate highway system. Yes, our highway system is a miracle. But it is a miracle that runs on oil, and won’t look all that miraculous as global oil production enters decline. The world has been burning more oil than is discovered since the early 1980s, and last year we burned five times more oil than we found. Many experts believe we are now at or very near the peak oil. I suspect that we will come to regret having dismantled our intercity passenger rail system and even regret building so much urban sprawl as our economy loses the cheap oil it was built on. But the past is over and can’t be changed. What we can change is the future. The interstate highway system should not be expanded. We should instead invest our limited transportation dollars on transit. The ICC should be dropped and the Purple Line and Corridor Cities Transitway fast tracked.”
I’ll say it again, Carl: The best thing that could ever happen for transit is having our oil supplies run out. That would also force auto manufacturers to bring to market all those alternative-fuel vehicles they’ve been so slow to release.
Questions, comments, random musings? Write to [email protected].
