Beginning October first, Oregonians can expect police to pay closer attention to their habits behind the wheel. On that day, the state’s new, fortified distracted driving law will have taken effect. The new law makes it easier for distracted drivers to get pulled over by police, who can now issue citations to anyone holding any…
The current administration’s goal to remove two existing regulations for each new one and cap the cost of new regulations, when applied to the trucking industry, may backfire. Many in the trucking industry believe that the government’s goal to eliminate “unnecessary rules” that supposedly are bad for business threatens the safety of truck drivers and…
As of May 26, 2017, all child passengers under age two must use a child seat with a rear-facing harness, unless the child turned one year of age prior to May 26, 2017. Children under age two must be securely fastened in a car seat with harness or in a booster seat until they reach…
Portland Oregon, at the confluence of two rivers with a population of over 600,000, is a bridge-dependent city. Each of its thirteen bridges spanning the Willamette River are vital to keeping transportation flowing. In 2011, the city of Portland began to prepare for the inevitability of destruction from a predicted major earthquake without any usable…
New research data from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) indicates that lane departure warning systems lower rates of single-vehicle, sideswipe, and head-on crashes of all severities by 11 percent and lower the rate of injury crashes of the same type by 21 percent. While encouraging, several limitations currently exist preventing this life-saving technology…
Although Portland is now the 26th largest city in the U.S., its traffic has quickly outpaced that. A comprehensive study on traffic patterns released by INRIX Inc. places Portland at #12 on a list of the nation’s top 15 cities with the worst traffic congestion. INRIX, a leader in transportation analytics, studied over one thousand…
The Oregon Legislative Assembly pulled off its biggest achievement of the 2017 session: it approved a huge transportation bill (House Bill 2017) that seeks to raise $5.3 billion over the next ten years. By introducing tolls on interstate highways, new taxes, and raising current transportation taxes and fees, the state hopes to raise enough revenue…
While crash trucks have been used for some time to successfully shield road construction workers from arrant vehicles, until now one worker has been required to sit behind the wheel and drive the truck. The Colorado Department of Transportation, with technology from Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, recently announced its plan to road-test an unmanned…
After over two years of planning, negotiating, and compromise, the Oregon State legislature has finally passed a transportation bill that will provide funding for needed repairs and upgrades to Oregon’s highway infrastructure and statewide expansion of transit. Earlier Funding Proposal Lacked Bipartisan Support In June 2015, Oregon lawmakers revealed a transportation package that would have…
US transport carries an estimated 50 million tons of cargo every day, according to 2010 numbers released by the US Department of Transportation. All that cargo is carried by rail, water, air, and above all, trucks. Nearly 70% of those fifty million tons per day is transported on heavy trucks, which are allowed to carry a maximum…