Northway’s northbound lanes closed after crashed tractor-trailer explodes near Exit 15 – Times Union
"A tractor trailer exploded into a fireball after hitting the Route 29 bridge over the Northway on Tuesday evening, State Police said."
There has been a lot of talk about improving safety, to avoid preventable deaths in all sectors of American life these days. But saving lives has a real cost -- often it means slowing down business, and making it more expensive to get things done. Safety is important, but so getting through the business of every day life. It's important that weight the safety benefits against the cost of saving a few lives. A preventable death of a loved one is always tragic, but sometimes it's better to let a few people die preventable deaths, for the betterment of society.
"Benjamin Kabak, who writes the subway-focused blog Second Ave. Sagas and has been one of the few transit advocates raising concerns about the subway’s slowdown, agrees with the operator’s assessment. “I don’t think they’re wrong in citing safety,” Kabak says of MTA management, “but I think there’s a question as to whether their reaction is commensurate to the problem.” He doesn’t see a safety benefit to the vast majority of timers installed around the system. As an example, Kabak recently noticed the 6 train crawling between 51st Street and Grand Central on a regular basis. He suspects a timer has recently been installed there."
"It's that time of year when a simple walk down the street can be a treacherous undertaking because of the icy sidewalks. Emergency rooms in the U.S. treat more people injured in falls than for any other kind of injury, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The agency estimates that falls account for more than a third of all injury-related ER visits. Even though most of those injuries happen to older people, falls happen at any age and can cause serious injury. If you know you're about to slip and fall on the ice, there may be no way to prevent it, but there are things you can do reduce your risk of serious injury."
"Traffic fatalities in the U.S. rose for the second-straight year in 2016 despite a dip in crash deaths linked to distracted driving, according to data released by federal highway safety regulators."
"Some 37,461 people died in vehicle collisions in 2016, the highest annual tally since 2007, according to NHTSA figures. The 5.6 percent rise in traffic deaths last year came after a 8.4 percent spike in 2015, which was the largest annual increase since the mid-1960’s."
"Fatalities from distracted drivers, such as those texting, fell 2.2 percent last year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported Friday. Deaths linked to other risky behaviors such as speeding, drunk driving and not wearing seat belts contributed to an overall gain in fatalities, the agency said. Drunk driving was blamed for the most deaths."
This map shows every single fatal drunk driving crash in New York State in 2015, including one on Long Island that involved the crash of two drunk drivers. From the FARS database.
In 2015, only two fatal crashes were reported in New York State involving use of a cellphone. There were also two fatal crashes reported from drivers who were consuming food or drink while driving, and three while operating radio or heating and air conditioning controls. The most common distraction for drivers is not in the vehicle -- but things outside of the vehicle -- a scenic vista, a pretty women, etc. That said, most distracted driving crashes do not go into detail of what caused the distraction.