Safety

“Can you name the truck with four-wheel drive, smells like a steak, and seats 35?” Back in 1998, “The Simpsons” joked about the Canyonero, an SUV so big that they were obviously kidding. At that time, it was preposterous to think anyone would drive something that was “12 yards long, two lanes wide, 65 tons of American Pride.” In 2024, that joke isn’t far from reality. And our reality is one where more pedestrians and bicyclists are getting killed on U.S. streets than at any time in the past 45 years – over 1,000 bicyclists and 7,500 pedestrians in 2022 alone. Vehicle size is a big part of this problem. A recent paper by urban economist Justin Tyndall found that increasing the front-end height of a vehicle by roughly 4 inches (10 centimeters) increases the chance of a pedestrian fatality by 22%. The risk increases by 31% for female pedestrians or those over 65 years, and by 81% for children. It’s hard to argue with physics...

As the weather warms, people spend more time outdoors, going to barbecues, beaches and ballgames. But summer isn’t just the season of baseball and outdoor festivals – it’s also lightning season. Each year in the United States, lightning strikes around 37 million times. It kills 21 people a year in the U.S. on average. For as often as lightning occurs – there are only a few days each year nationwide without lightning – there are still a lot of misunderstandings about nature’s largest spark. Because of this, a lot of people take unnecessary risks when thunderstorms are nearby. I am a meteorologist who studies lightning and lightning safety, and a member of the National Lightning Safety Council. Here are some fast facts to keep your family and friends safe this summer. What is lightning, and where does it come from? Lightning is a giant electric spark in the atmosphere and is classified based on whether it hits the ground or not. In-cloud li...

Four recent catastrophic building collapses and a near miss are raising concerns about the state of America’s aging buildings and questions about who, if anyone, is checking their safety. Many cities have buildings showing signs of aging and in need of repair. In New York City, where a seven-story apartment building partially collapsed in December 2023, the median building age is about 90 years, and many neighborhoods were built before 1900. As a civil engineer, I study building failures, and I have seen how crucial structural inspections and careful maintenance are – and how often the signs of trouble are ignored in the U.S. until a problem becomes a crisis. Too often, it is up to residents to call attention to the risks. A video from 2020 shows moisture stains and evidence of failed repairs at the bottom of the basement level parking garage slab in Champlain Towers South condominium before it collapsed. Fiorella Terenzi. Many...

Deadly traffic incidents have declined in most developed countries in recent years. But in the U.S. they’re becoming more common. Deaths in motor vehicle crashes rose more than 33% from 2011 to 2021. Since 2010, pedestrian deaths nationwide have climbed a shocking 77%, compared with a 25% increase in all other types of traffic fatalities. Light trucks injure pedestrians more severely than passenger cars in crashes, and the size of cars and trucks sold in the U.S. continues to swell. Some current models, such as the Toyota Rav4, are one-third larger than they were 15 years ago. Based on my experience researching urban planning and street design for the past three decades, I know that U.S. cities are primarily vehicle-centered rather than human-centered. Rules established in the 1920s govern how people use vehicles in public streets, and other governmental controls tell manufacturers how big those vehicles can be. Today, these sets of rules have created public spaces w...

As Hurricane Milton roared ashore near Sarasota, Florida, tens of thousands of people were in evacuation shelters. Hundreds of thousands more had fled coastal regions ahead of the storm, crowding highways headed north and south as their counties issued evacuation orders. But not everyone left, despite dire warnings about a hurricane that had been one of the strongest on record two days earlier. As Milton’s rain and storm surge flooded neighborhoods late on Oct. 9, 2024, 911 calls poured in. In Tampa’s Hillsborough County, more than 500 people had to be rescued, including residents of an assisted living community and families trapped in a flooding home after a tree crashed though the roof at the height of the storm. In Plant City, 20 miles inland from Tampa, at least 35 people had been rescued by dawn, City Manager Bill McDaniel said. While the storm wasn’t as extreme as feared, McDaniel said his city had flooded in places and to levels he had never seen. Traf...