The collapse of an I-5 bridge into the Skagit River in Washington reminds us, again, that our bridges are literally falling down around us. There are an estimated 66,000 structurally deficient across the country. In Georgia, there are 941, which ironically is quite good, placing the state 42nd in total number of structurally deficient bridges. But the news is not quite grounds for celebrating. There are three bridges in Georgia like the I-5 bridge that collapsed. They are functionally obsolete and fracture critical. This means they are well beyond their design thresholds for the number of vehicles they carry and the weight of those loads. This increases the risk of car accidents, which as the I-5 Bridge demonstrated, can bring the structure crashing down. The problem is many of these bridges were built as inexpensively as possible. They have no structural redundancies, so if a single girder or truss fails,…

You know the feeling. Driving along I-75, heading out of Macon to Florida, down I-16 Savannah, or even going home after a long day at work following a late night with too little sleep. Your eyelids feel heavy and you catch your head dropping. No, you didn't just nod off, just a little tired, that's all. But you did. You just experienced drowsy driving. While much less recognized than its more famous relative drunken driving, but it is still a killer. In the last decade ending in 2010, 11,000 people died in drowsy driving car accidents. The larger question is how to deal with this problem. Unlike other causes of accidents, drunk driving, illegal or prescription drugs, or cellphone use, there is no easy test that can be used to obtain some evidence of how sleepy someone was at the time of an accident. Even the number of deaths may be…

Few events are more exciting to a teen than the first time they get behind the wheel of a car alone. Sadly, it may be more exciting for some than they are equipped to handle. One of the most dangerous times for a new driver is during their first time driving alone. While they may have the basics of driving down, it is a very different thing to control a car on a rain-slicked road when another driver unexpectedly changes lanes directly in front of them. Figuring out how to keep teen drivers out of car accidents is a challenge for any parent. You want them to drive and gain experience, but you worry that they will become distracted by modern conveniences, especially cellphones. Now there is an app that may help, rather than hinder your teen driver. The University of North Carolina has been working on these issues for many years…

One minute, you are driving along with normal or near-normal visibility, and you can see a few hundred yards in front of your vehicle. Then, suddenly with little or no warning, you can barely see two car lengths in front of your vehicle. If you see taillights, it's probably too late to attempt to stop. This type of nightmare driving condition is common throughout the East Coast and the Appalachians in Georgia, and Easter Sunday, it occurred on the border of North Carolina and Virginia, as the fog closed around dozens of motorists, causing fatal, chain-reaction accidents. Three people were killed and 25 were injured in car and truck accidents involving 95 vehicles. Fog and highway driving makes for a particularly deadly mix, because even if you slow enough to avoid hitting another vehicle, and manage to stop, you have no assurance that any vehicles following yours are going to…

Drunk driving has been subject to a sustained attack on all fronts, from increasingly severe punishments and greater restrictions to a decade's long publicity campaign by organizations like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). And there has been progress. The decline in highway fatalities has in part been attributed to increased enforcement of drunk driving laws. In 2011, highway deaths fell to 32,367, the lowest number in absolute terms, since recordkeeping of these statistics began in 1949. Nonetheless, in 2010, 31 percent or 10,228 deaths resulted from alcohol-impaired motor vehicle accidents. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) notes that 30 people die every day in the U.S. in drunk driving accidents. In Columbia County last week, one of those deaths resulted in the conviction of an Evans man. He was charged with first-degree vehicular homicide and running a red light. Prosecutors asked for, and obtained, a 12-year prison sentence…