Recently one or two Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner aircrafts have had serious safety problems from batteries catching fire. An article in the Washington Post by Craig Timberg indicates that airplane model builders are entirely familiar with issues associated with the use of the lithium ion batteries that feature in this airplane. In the view of the […]
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What a Quebec cartoonist sees when he looks over the border
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Gun control lessons from Australia
Editors note: On Jan 16 the following appeared on The New York Times Opinion Page. In my view it is a critically important contribution to the gun control debate. John Howard was a brave politician who defied the odds after the rampage in Tasmania when a deranged person using an assault rifle killed 35 people. […]
Injury Research in LMICs Requires a Fundamental Directional Change
I want to make the point that an essential shift in injury research from burden assessment to hypothesis testing is still lagging in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) Every month hundreds of injury research publications originating from Low- and Middle-Income Countries find a place in scientific journals. Recent bibliographic analysis has revealed that the numbers […]
Recent French Intervention to Increase Drunk Drivers’ Self-Accountability
France has achieved remarkable road safety results in the last decade. It almost halved its road fatalities from 2002 to 2005, and the decreasing trend has continued. Most of these reductions are attributed to rigorous speed control, particularly by automated cameras and the issuance of speed tickets. Drunk driving, however, remains a major problem as […]
When religion and safety clash, who wins?
Rafael Consunji sent me this interesting and somewhat troubling report about a recent law in Aceh, Indonesia that would prohibit women from ‘straddling’ motorcycles or bicycles. He said “this is causing an uproar in Indonesia. The driving force behind the law is not safety but concern about breaking Shari’a law when straddling. The Jakarta Globe […]
What questions about gun violence should new research address?
One of the executive actions taken today by President Obama in response to recent mass shootings was to “direct the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.” This is a major shift away from federal policy of the last 15+ years which has effectively suppressed funding of public health research into firearm injury and […]
Good news and bad news on U.S. attempts to improve gun control
The good news is that FairWarning reports that public support for many reforms is now at its highest level since 2001. Specifically, a new Gallup poll showed that 38% of Americans want stricter gun controls now compared with only 25% last year. The Scientist tells us that 100 American researchers have signed a letter asking […]
Billboard industry uses disputed research to support safety of electronic sign
A report on FairWarning calls attention to a study from Sweden revealing that drivers stare longer at electronic billboards which may, in turn, increase the risk of a crash. In response the U.S. billboard industry has cited “an unpublished U.S. government study” that purports to deny that these displays affect traffic safety. The wrinkle is […]
Mobile phones in safety helmets?
A questionable new device is available from a company called uClear that will permit safety helmets to receive and transmit signals. The question is whether this is a good idea or fundamentally dangerous. This revolutionary system includes microphones in two earpieces and a controller on the side of the helmet, connected by Bluetooth to various […]