What Happened to Actual Cars?: NMA E-Newsletter #560
By guest writer Jim Millick Automakers have made some big announcements this past year regarding cars—I’m talking about sedans, coupes and smaller runabouts that we have all owned in the past. The car companies have decided to stop manufacturing most related models. The SUV (“sport” utility vehicle) and pickup trucks, which the U.S. Environmental Protection […]
Do Vision Zero Programs equal more Traffic Accidents?: NMA E-Newsletter #559
Many cities and states around the country have adopted a Vision Zero program which strives for zero traffic deaths, usually by a specific year. Some of the oldest programs, though, are finding that the ideal of zero traffic deaths is becoming ever more elusive and expensive over time. Instead of decreasing, traffic deaths involving accidents […]
War on Cars at a Fever Pitch in NYC: NMA E-Newsletter #557
In our experience, we have never seen the likes of what is going on in New York City with the war on cars. Not only has the city become one giant speed trap with over 2000 “school zone” speed cameras, soon the city/state plans to implement congestion pricing below 60th street. The government expects motorists […]
Are Cyclists Vision Zero Zealots?
Eric Berg is an NMA director and life member since the Citizens Coalition for Rational Traffic Law days. Eric is an avid sport bicyclist as well as staunch defender of motorists’ rights. He is well positioned to provide observations from both vantage points. This thinkpiece first appeared in January 2019 as NMA E-Newsletter #524. One […]
All Traffic is Local: A Look at Force-Fed Road Diets
This post originally appeared as the cover story for the NMA Foundation’s Driving Freedoms Magazine Spring 2019. Driving can sometimes be a daily grind. But when cities reconfigure the streets you take every day—presumably, to make them safer—that daily grind often seems much worse. The war on cars, for many drivers, is no longer an […]
10 Reasons to Fight against Road Diets in your Community
This list first appeared as a sidebar in the NMA Foundation’s Driving Freedoms Magazine Spring 2019 article All Traffic is Local. You just learned that your city intends to install a road diet on an arterial route you take every day. You are not alone—this now happens regularly all over the country. Here are 10 […]
The Not-So-Hidden Cost of Vision Zero
Originally posted on August 12, 2018, this NMA newsletter is #500. The implementation of Vision Zero programs, with the goal of eliminating all traffic fatalities through various means including reducing vehicle speed and movement, is spreading to many U.S. cities seemingly without concern for cost. If Vision Zero had a goal of minimizing road deaths […]
Road Diets….They Demand a Closer Look
From guest writer Matthew Schneider, Keep Waverly (Iowa) Moving. He is also working with the newly formed national coalition Keep the US Moving which is working to help local residents across the country fight road diets and traffic calming in their cities and towns. Tahlequah, Oklahoma At the end of an extremely tense two-hour long […]
Little-Vehicle-Topia: Micromobility and the Rest of Us
I was exercise walking in my local park last fall and suddenly out of nowhere, a young woman on a scooter zipped past me and we almost collided. She cut me off as she headed for the grass to take a short cut. Not only was this rude, but scary. As someone walking on a […]
Are Drivers Losing the War on Cars?
This piece first appeared as weekly NMA E-Newsletter #511 on October 28, 2018. Even though drivers constitute what should be the largest voting block in the country, you would never know it by apathetic motorists who drive blissfully unaware until they are confronted with the reality of the war on cars—which is essentially an effort […]