Blog Heap o' Transport Links

Apple will ban from its online store future applications that inform users of checkpoints not publicized by police. The move comes three months after four Democratic U.S. senators — Charles Schumer of New York, Harry Reid of Nevada, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey and Tom Udall of New Mexico — asked three smartphone manufacturers to quit selling such downloadable apps or to remove the DUI checkpoint function....

The family was going through security when two TSA agents singled Drew Mandy out for a special pat down. Drew is severely mentally disabled. He's 29, but his parents said he has the mental capacity of a two-year-old, which made the experience that followed at metro Detroit's McNamera Terminal that much harder to deal with. "You have got to be kidding me. I honestly felt that those two agents did not know what they were doing,"

During their £10,000, two-and-a-half month "Alaska Adventure" tour from the Arctic to the Caribbean, the passengers on the luxury P&O liner Arcadia had become more than accustomed to passing US immigration with little formality. By the time they docked at Los Angeles on May 26, for a one-day visit it was their 10th stop on US soil. But when a handful of them questioned whether the lengthy security checks at the port were strictly necessary for a group of largely elderly travellers officials were not amused. Although they had already been given advance clearance for multiple entries to the country during their trip, all 2,000 passengers were made to go through full security checks in a process which took seven hours to complete. The fingerprints of both hands were taken as well as retina scans and a detailed check of the passport as well as questioning as to their background. Passengers claim that the extra checks were carried out in "revenge" for what had been a minor spat over allegedly overzealous security.

An 11-year-old girl died after falling from the Ferris Wheel at Morey's Mariner's Landing Pier on Friday. She was on a field trip with her school.... about half-way up.... about as high as a five-story building....

On his way home Tuesday from Jim Plain Elementary School in Leander, fourth-grader Marshall May, sitting in the passenger seat of the family minivan, was ticketed for not wearing his seat belt properly. Problem is, Texas law says a person must be at least 15 years old to commit such an offense. ... "He made me sign my signature, but I don't have a signature because I'm 10 years old." ... Marshall was in the passenger seat when he decided to stick his head out the window for some air, he said. As he stretched, the seat belt slipped up toward his neck and shoulder area, he said. That's when the police officer pulled over the minivan....

An aspiring doctor was killed in a horrific subway accident yesterday when she passed out on a sweltering Upper East Side platform and fell onto the tracks -- realizing what happened too late to escape an uptown train bearing down on her.

The Maryland Transit Administration says more training may be called for after three MTA officers detained a man for taking pictures at a light rail station.

The bus was filled with soccer fans coming home after watching a match in Seattle.... bus driver tried to change lanes to avoid a disabled pickup truck in the right lane... a passenger car was in the left lane... both the bus and the car then swerved to avoid each other, rolling in the process... Two people in the bus died... 21 injured...

More than a dozen companies plan to drill up to 3,000 wells around here in the next 12 months. The Texas field, known as the Eagle Ford, is just one of about 20 new onshore oil fields that advocates say could collectively increase the nation's oil output by 25 percent within a decade — without the dangers of drilling in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico or the delicate coastal areas off Alaska. There is only one catch: the oil from the Eagle Ford and similar fields of tightly packed rock can be extracted only by using hydraulic fracturing

The pilot of a Delta jet that blew a tire and then caught fire as it landed in Atlanta today is being credited with getting the plane through it with no serious injuries to any of the passengers on board.

"By next month, every driver in the U.S. will be required to have a black box in their vehicle... in order to monitor driving habits..." Somehow, I completely missed this one sneaking up on us in the rear-view mirror. It's one thing to have a crash monitor, but with just the addition of transmitters -- and you know, if they aren't there already they soon will be -- any cop (or robocop automated traffic monitoring device) will be able to look inside your car and pull out everywhere you've been, every turn you took, whether you unbuckled your seat belt for a moment, and anything about your body that can be remotely monitored. If laws were reasonable, this would be offensively invasive. Since cops have increasingly become "[you name it] warriors" instead of peace officers, traffic cops are increasingly required (and some delight) to be unforgiving, and citizens are increasingly seen as "revenue enhancement" sources, this is FRIGHTENING TYRANNY.

Engineers at Ford have developed a prototype car seat that uses electrocardiograph (ECG) technology to monitor the heart's electrical impulses and detect signs of irregularity, resulting in an early warning that a driver should seek medical assistance, such as for a heart attack, high blood pressure, electrolyte imbalances or other cardiovascular issue.

A long commute to work might further job prospects and put more money in the bank but it could also increase the risk for divorce by 40 percent

Within seconds, TSA officials notified police that the bomb was fake and the incident was merely a drill to test the response of screeners and the communication system. For security reasons, Hogan declined to say how many officers responded to the incident.

Southwest Airlines has apologized to a mother and daughter... were told by a gate agent they each had to purchase two seats. "And said that we were, in fact, too fat to fly, without an additional ticket,"

Nearly two dozen men were injured in an elevator accident Wednesday morning in Chelsea. It happened around 7 a.m. at the Bed, Bath and Beyond on 6th Avenue near 18th Street. Authorities said a freight elevator dropped three floors to the ground when cables supporting the elevator snapped.

LOUISVILLE, Ky - One child is dead and more than 20 hurt after a school bus crash... bus swerved to miss a deer in the road, then overturned in a ditch... the 29 children aboard were returning from a field trip to Paducah...

some scientists with expertise in imaging and cancer... question why the TSA won't make the scanners available for independent testing by outside scientists....

France's BEA air crash investigation agency said yesterday it had managed to transfer all the information stored in the devices hauled from the seabed two weeks ago, almost two years after the Airbus A330 vanished.

Two leading makers of lighting products are showcasing LED bulbs that are bright enough to replace energy-guzzling 100-watt light bulbs set to disappear from stores in January. ... The new bulbs will also be expensive — about $50 each — so the development may not prevent consumers from hoarding traditional bulbs.

"The new paradigm is $10,000. Anything under $10,000 is considered an inexpensive car." Low supply and high demand, a flat economy and a rush to trade in larger vehicles that consume a lot of gas for smaller ones are all reasons for the shortage of used cars, several local dealers said. ... The nation's Cash for Clunkers program took almost 1 million vehicles off the road. People who got $3,500 for the cars they turned in would probably get $5,000 to $7,000 for the same trade today ... The Cash for Clunkers program was an example of government shortsightedness, which contributed to the lack of used cars on the market today, Lookingbill said. The 800,000 vehicles that were junked through the clunkers program would have been sold three to five times for a total of 3 million sales, Lookingbill said. The number of available older cars on the market used to peak at about 20 million, but the number is nowhere near that today ...

FlyerTalk members are outraged not so much because the baby food and juice box were taken away from their rightful owners, but rather that if they indeed tested positive for trace amounts of explosive materials, why was further testing not performed by the Transportation Security Administration personnel — or, at least, treat the items as if they were indeed dangerous?

Swiss adventurer, Yves Rossy, has finally completed his flight over the Grand Canyon in a custom-made jet suit after being forced to cancel last week due to red tape.

A crazed naked man seen menacing New York City subway passengers on a scary new viral video was handcuffed and transported to a Bronx hospital last week, but not charged in connection with the bizarre incident

Does it really come as a surprise to anyone that al-Qaeda targets train and subway systems? As far back as seven years ago, AQ killed almost 200 people in Madrid, and the next year killed dozens in London by attacking public rail systems. Now, however, Senator Chuck Schumer wants Homeland Security to step up screening at rail stations with a "do not ride" list after discovering that Osama bin Laden had planned to attack our train systems....

SAN FRANCISCO - Crew members and passengers wrestled a 28-year-old man to the cabin floor after he began pounding on the cockpit as an American Airlines flight approached San Francisco.... yelling unintelligibly... 28-year-old Rageit Almurisi. He carried a Yemen passport, but it wasn't clear if his nationality was also Yemeni... no clear or known ties to terrorism.... A Continental Airlines flight from Houston to Chicago diverted in St. Louis after a 34-year-old man from Illinois tried to open a plane door during the flight... a Delta Air Lines flight from Detroit to San Diego was landed instead in Albuquerque, New Mexico, because of a security scare but authorities found "no suspicious devices" on the plane ... declined to clarify the nature of the "potential security threat" ...

A Swiss adventurer dubbed "JetMan" told a TV station in Los Angeles that his planned flight over the Grand Canyon was canceled Friday. It would have been the first time he made the attempt in the U.S. and three years after he flew into the record books by crossing the Channel between Britain and France.

The PaperPhone has a flexible electronic display that is set to herald a new generation of computers. Extremely lightweight and made out of a thin-film, the prototype device can do everything a smartphone currently does.

Two Muslim religious leaders say they were asked to leave a commercial airliner in Memphis on Friday and were told it was because the pilot refused to fly with them aboard. [There's more to the story]

The Obama administration has floated a transportation authorization bill that would require the study and implementation of a plan to tax automobile drivers based on how many miles they drive.

A black box flight recorder from an Air France plane that crashed off the coast of Brazil in 2009, killing 228 people, has been recovered by a deep-sea search team, reviving hopes of understanding what caused the crash. French investigators said one of the plane's two data recorders had been located by a robot submarine about 3,900 metres (12,800ft) below the Atlantic ocean's surface.

The girl's father, Todd Drexel, says Anna was confused by the search and started crying afterward because she thought she'd done something wrong. Selena Drexel says such searches are inappropriate for children because they're usually told not to let adults touch them in sensitive areas.

Search teams have found the tail section of Air France Flight 447, two years after the jet plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, victims' families say.

A superjumbo jet taxiing out to the runway clipped the tail of another plane at New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport on Monday night, spinning it like a toy.

The speed limit on some highways in Texas may be raised to 85 mph, the highest in the nation, under legislation the Texas House approved Wednesday. The measure passed on a voice vote was part of a larger transportation bill. It would authorize the Texas Department of Transportation to raise the speed limit on designated lanes or entire stretches of roads after doing engineering and traffic studies,

An Alaska Airlines flight Saturday from Sacramento to Hawaii returned to Sacramento safely after suffering engine trouble from a bird strike...

Authorities say a small plane carrying four people has crashed into a storage facility in Ventura County.... caught fire after going down... Three... with minor injuries. One... in serious condition....

Billionaire adventurer Richard Branson on Tuesday unveiled a new single-person submarine that he said will be used to set new world records by exploring the five deepest parts of the world's oceans.

The debris is from a Chinese satellite that was deliberately destroyed in 2007 as part of a weapons test. It's projected to pass within a couple miles of the space station. It's possible the risk of a collision will diminish. If that happens, the three station residents won't have to close themselves off in the Soyuz spacecraft.

A United Airlines flight that left Louis Armstrong International Airport Monday morning was forced to turn around and make an emergency landing minutes after takeoff when smoke was reported in the cockpit... Passengers reported an unusual amount of turbulence that never subsided....

Federal officials said it was a "fuselage rupture" -- a large hole on the top of the Boeing 737 -- that led to a drop in cabin pressure and a terrifying descent from 36,000 feet to an emergency landing at a military base in the Arizona desert. No serious injuries were reported among the 118 aboard, according to Southwest Airlines, and the FBI said it was a "mechanical failure," not an act of terror or other foul play. The cause of the hole was not immediately known.

Southwest Airlines could cancel 300 flights on Sunday as it continues to inspect 79 aircraft from its Boeing 737 fleet, after one of its planes with a gaping hole in the fuselage made an emergency landing, a company spokeswoman said.

DAYTON — Pilots on an American Airlines flight headed to Chicago declared an emergency then landed in Dayton after several of the 140 people aboard complained of illnesses Friday morning.

An intense fire that broke out Wednesday night at a fuel tank farm at the Miami International Airport has canceled 36 flights. The blaze broke out at 11 p.m. at the airport's fuel farm, an area where fuel is stored for planes. Six fuel tanks, with the total capacity to hold six million gallons of fuel, were at the center of the blaze. However, it is not known how much fuel those tanks contained when the fire broke out. "Preliminary information that we're gathering is that, it was a malfunction,"

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has ordered a second air traffic controller to be on duty overnight at Reagan National Airport, after the lone controller was unavailable as two planes were trying to land. LaHood alsoordered a review of staffing levels at other airports around the country.

Pilots on an Alaska Airlines flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles locked down the cockpit and alerted authorities Sunday when a flight crew grew alarmed at the behavior of three men who turned out to be conducting an elaborate orthodox Jewish prayer ritual, officials said.

French green groups renewed a call on Saturday for France to end its dependence on nuclear power, saying a radiation leak at a Japanese atomic power plant showed there were no safety guarantees in the industry. [Oooof course they do....]

A bus crash in the Bronx killed at least 14 people on its way back from a casino.

The keys were left with the teens so they could listen to the radio, he said. One girl went to the casino while the daughter stayed behind and began huffing compressed air from a can, O'Mara said. The girl told deputies she was circling the parking lot in the van when she blacked out. The van jumped three curbs, hit a security car and then hit the casino building about 3 p.m., O'Mara said. No one was injured, he said. The girl who drove the van told deputies that she had taken an unknown number of prescription pills, not knowing what effect the pills would have

Inhofe called the administration's $556 billion proposal for the next rewrite of the nation's massive transportation bill the most unusual budget request for highways he has seen in his 20-plus years in Congress. "What is unusual is that it ignores the fact that there is no money to fund it," the Oklahoma Republican said.

Two teenage girls were arrested Wednesday after crashing a van into the Will Rogers Casino near Claremore... Deputies said the girls, both 15, had been huffing compressed air....

The last two years have seen unprecedented attempts by Washington to socially engineer people away from the lifestyles that modern conditions make necessary. One such effort was to attract people away from cars to intercity rail services and transit instead. Never mind that there is no U.S. evidence that material diversion is possible (at any expense), and never mind that such programs would make travel more expensive and usually slower. The Oklahoma Department of Transportation (ODOT) has been a willing participant in these efforts [h/t Cuz BD]

Inhofe viewed the move as over-reaching by a federal government.

Speeding, driving erratically, smelled of booze, open container, and possibly getting BJ while driving. YOU BE THE JUDGE! [Thx2 News of the Weird and Weird Universe]

The bill, which would require only that the notices appear on newspaper websites, is similar to a Senate bill that would demand only that the notices appear on county-controlled websites.

Is a greener future just around the corner for the automobile? Or is it last call — and while you're pouring, let's make it a double — at the horsepower party?

A laptop that will recognize your eyes and the movement you make with them, to open emails, browse online, scroll through websites, among other small tasks. There is also a green feature built in that would brighten the screen once the user looks at it.

A passenger managed to waltz past JFK's ramped-up security gantlet with three boxcutters in his carry-on luggage -- easily boarding an international flight while carrying the weapon of choice of the 9/11 hijackers... Once aboard Santiago-bound Flight 837, flight attendant Fausto Penaloda, 40, asked him to stow his luggage in the overhead storage bin. As Peraltalajara's shoved it into the compartment, Penaloda saw the boxcutters fall out of the bag, according to a police report. He grabbed the boxcutters and alerted the captain and first officer.... told authorities that he used the boxcutters for work at a Secaucus manufacturing plant and simply forgot that they were in his luggage. He was not charged..

He said he assumed Via had moved away when he began to pull the car, but the woman's husband approached him and said his wife was trapped under the Buick.

His wife clung to the minivan's windshield wiper and side mirror as the vehicle accelerated to more than 100 MPH. Carroll allegedly didn't slow down until he reached Pleasanton, more than 40 miles away, according to witness reports to police "There's a purpose that I'm still alive, because it was a miracle," the victim said. The woman was able to roll off the hood safely when Carroll finally pulled over, and due to the 45 degree temperatures and high speeds, she was suffering from hypothermia when emergency crews found her.

...stuck with an 800-pound pump in his hands for nearly a half-hour... Good thing it was weightless.... "I'm fine as long as it's not too much longer," Bowen radioed. "How much longer?"... perched on a small platform at the end of the 58-foot robotic arm... [All part of the job....]

"When you are looking at purely dollars and cents, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. The Volt isn't particularly efficient as an electric vehicle and it's not particularly good as a gas vehicle either in terms of fuel economy," said David Champion, the senior director of Consumer Reports auto testing center at a meeting with reporters here. "This is going to be a tough sell to the average consumer."

OKLAHOMA CITY — An Oklahoma House committee has approved anti-illegal immigrant legislation that would give Oklahoma law enforcement officials new authority to assess the immigration status of motorists.

Some surprised drivers were unable to avoid the nearly 200 goats that walked onto the southbound lanes of traffic near the Twin Cities Road off-ramp, causing several accidents and inflicting non-life threatening injuries to one driver.

Congo.... A small airliner crashed into a house, killing a British pilot and 19 others after a crocodile smuggled into the aircraft in a sports bag escaped and started a panic.... lone survivor... "The terrified air hostess hurried towards the cockpit, followed by the passengers." The plane was then sent off-balance "despite the desperate efforts of the pilot...." crocodile survived the crash, only to be dispatched with a blow from a machete....

Walking through a park in Chicago a few years back we saw a police officer on a Segway. How cool we thought, until she reached up with both hands to try to adjust her helmet. She ended up on the ground while the Segway took off on its own, luckily only running into a wall in that crowded park. That scene sure came back to me today when I read this story!

The multi-millionaire owner of the Segway company died in a freak accident yesterday when he rode one of the high-tech two-wheel machines off a cliff and into a river...Jimi Heselden, 62, plunged into the River Wharfe while riding around his West Yorkshire estate on a rugged country version of the Segway...He bought the firm last December...Mr Heselden was worth £166million thanks to his defence company Hesco Bastion

Ironically

the world's leading manufacturer of protective barriers...in 1990 pioneered 'blast walls'...initially meant to help prevent land erosion...which replaced sandbags as protection for soldiers on the frontline in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Best known for his charity work with Leeds Community Foundation and Help for Heroes, a military charity.He said 'We often get thank-you letters from troops, saying how one of our walls saved their lives when a bomb went off and (Help for Heroes)is our way of showing them how much we appreciate what they do.'

His death comes just a week after he became one of the UK's most generous philanthropists, having given £10million to the Leeds Community Foundation a charity foundation he set up in 2008 which helps disadvantaged youngsters, vulnerable elderly people and health improvement projects in the south and east of the city of Leeds.

The company's latest innovation is the R-House, a new style of temporary housing or shelter that provides protection and comfortable living space for up to eight people in the aftermath of disasters.

ODOT admits the scope of the IDL construction project made signage for it a challenge - but they believe once everything is in place - drivers will be able to understand what's ahead.

Ulysses, a joint NASA and European Space Agency mission, will officially cease operations Monday, June 30, when the command to switch off the transmitter is uplinked to the spacecraft. Ulysses, which operated for more than 18 years, had charted the unexplored regions of space above the poles of the sun.

...tractor-trailer slammed into a line of cars stopped by an earlier accident... about 1 p.m. on the Will Rogers Turnpike northeast of Miami.... "quite possibly the largest death toll in a single crash" in state history... Investigators don't think the truck driver tried to stop before the crash... Three more accidents happened in the eastbound lanes as cars slowed following the tractor-trailer wreck, and later a four-car crash occurred on the westbound side of the turnpike... wreckage and emergency vehicles covered an estimated three-quarters of a mile....