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Norway's Electric Car Triumph Started With an '80s Pop Star

Will Doig

February 08, 2021 |

Reasons to be Cheerful |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: Norway

After Norwegian pop band A-ha made headlines for using an electric vehicle in 1989, the government began implementing incentives for people to drive the cars. These perks made electric vehicles so popular in the Scandinavian country that they had to start scaling some of them back. Still, by the end of 2020, nearly 90 percent of all cars sold were rechargeable.

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SC law enforcement agencies are supposed to report info on traffic stops, but most are not

Daniel J. Gross

January 28, 2021 |

The Greenville News |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, South Carolina

After the South Carolina legislature in 2005 began requiring police to enforce a seat-belt law with traffic stops, it imposed on all police departments a duty to track and report traffic-stop data on drivers' race. The law was meant as a way to prevent biased policing, through public disclosure of disparities. But only about one-third of the state's law enforcement agencies have consistently complied with the law, and some never have. Some blame ignorance of how the system should work. But another explanation is the state has done little or nothing to enforce the law.

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The U.S. Could Make New Cars a Lot Less Deadly

David Zipper

January 06, 2021 |

Bloomberg CityLab |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States

American cars made since the early 1980s have carried ratings from the federal New Car Assessment Program, showing how risky they are to human life in a crash. NCAP ratings motivated a host of safety enhancements by manufacturers. Since the 1990s, similar programs in the European Union, China, Australia, Korea, and Japan have also rated vehicles' risks to pedestrians and bicyclists, and their fatalities have dropped. Not so in the U.S., where industry resistance has stalled expansion of NCAP ratings. Advocates hope the Biden Transportation Department will finally expand the program.

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Stopped: Profiling the Police Town Hall

Nick Haines

November 19, 2020 |

KCPT |

Broadcast TV News |

Over 15 Minutes

Response Location: United States, Kansas City, Missouri

Missouri requires police to record the race of drivers from every traffic stop, a response meant to expose and ultimately reduce racial profiling in law enforcement. But, 20 years after that law took effect, Black drivers are 95% more likely to be stopped by police than white drivers, the biggest gap since the state started collecting the data. The policy was rendered meaningless because the data are collected inconsistently, high rates of noncompliance with the policy go unpunished, and individual officers' records go uncounted. As a result, there's no accountability for racist traffic enforcement.

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A pollution solution where the rubber meets the road

Lindsey McGinnis

November 09, 2020 |

The Christian Science Monitor |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United Kingdom, London

The Tyre Collective, a project by four recent graduate students in London, is seeking to capture vehicle tire pollution, the microplastics that go into the air from the friction of tires. They have been developing a device that attaches to the bottom of a car and uses electrostatic charges and airflow to collect up to 60 percent of tire particles as the car is driven. To reduce the amount of tire pollution, tire companies are seeking to balance safety requirements, tire durability, and making them out of more sustainable materials.

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Decades of Data Suggest Racial Profiling is Getting Worse, Not Better

Mike Sherry Mary Sanchez

October 28, 2020 |

Flatland |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Missouri

In 2000, Missouri passed one of the nation's first and most comprehensive laws aimed at ending racial profiling by police in traffic stops. But racial disparities have grown worse since then, with Black drivers far more likely than white drivers to be stopped and searched. The law relies on data collection to air the problem, which in turn was supposed to spur more reforms. But the state's lackluster efforts to enforce the law and lack of follow through on other reforms has turned the annual data gathering into "little more than exercises in futility."

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Polish Drivers Beware: Road Work Ahead

Kacper Sulowski

September 22, 2020 |

Gazeta Wyborcza |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Lithuania

A series of methodically planned and publicized measures to improve traffic safety have significantly lowered Lithuania's highway fatalities in what is now serving as a model for safety advocates in neighboring Poland. Starting nearly a decade ago, after traffic deaths peaked, Lithuania began increasing penalties for violations, toughening enforcement, and improving roadways. Each phase was accompanied by public education. More lenient laws and enforcement are blamed for Poland's relatively high traffic-death rate.

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They Stopped Suspending Licenses ... And Fine Collections Went Up

Bonita Gooch

July 27, 2020 |

The Community Voice |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, San Francisco, California

When San Francisco courts stopped suspending drivers' licenses for failure to pay fees and fines, revenues actually increased. The reform, aimed at avoiding trapping poor people in endless cycles of debt and incarceration, was paired with affordable payment plans and alternatives to cash fines and fees as ways to hold people accountable for traffic violations. The rest of California, and eventually six other states and the District of Columbia, followed suit. The reforms have countered a trend that turned a traffic safety measure into a revenue generator for governments, on the backs of the poor.

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Śmierć na polskich drogach. Jesteśmy w europejskiej czołówce pod względem liczby ofiar, Litwa dała radę

Kacper Sulowski

July 25, 2020 |

Gazeta Wyborcza |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: Lithuania

Liczba śmiertelnych wypadków drogowych na Litwie spadła w wyniku szeregu systematycznych i szeroko upublicznionych rozwiązań mających na celu poprawę bezpieczeństwa ruchu drogowego. Gdy prawie dekadę temu na Litwie nastąpił bezprecedensowy wzrost śmiertelności w wypadkach drogowych, zaczęto tam podwyższać kary za wykroczenia, wzmacniać egzekwowanie prawa oraz poprawiać stan dróg. Każdemu etapowi towarzyszyła kampania edukacji publicznej. Uważa się, że za stosunkowo wysoki wskaźnik śmiertelności na drogach w Polsce odpowiadają zbyt łagodne przepisy oraz zbyt liberalne ich egzekwowanie.

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She Ran Over and Killed 2 Children. Should She Have Had a Car?

Christina Goldbaum

February 10, 2020 |

The New York Times |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

New York City's traffic safety campaign Vision Zero has made heavy use of cameras to enforce speeding and red-law laws, with an 85% drop in severe injuries at the 150 intersections with red-light cameras. But, after an increase in 2019 in traffic deaths, and armed with a study showing how vehicles with multiple camera-related violations were far more likely to be involved in injury accidents, the city has decided it needs a more effective accountability mechanism than fines; namely, seizing the cars of repeat violators who refuse to take a traffic-safety course.

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