Friday, September 03, 2004

James Wolcott is blogging. Jeff Jarvis has the back story. 12:26:34 PM    comment []

Red light cameras do not reduce crashes and may increase the incidence of some types of accident, says this report from NC A&T. Mark Burkey and Kofi Obeng of A&T's Urban Transit Institute wrote "A Detailed Investigation of Crash Risk Reduction Resulting from Red Light Cameras In Small Urban Areas" for the US Department of Transportation. From the report: "The results do not support the view that red light cameras reduce crashes. Instead, we find that RLCs are associated with higher levels of many types and severity categories of crashes." "There was a positive, but statistically insignificant estimated effect on severe (fatal, evident, and disabling) accidents." "These results run contrary to the many studies in the RLC literature...While this study incorporated many advances in methodology over previous studies, additional work remains to be done...additional careful study of RLCs is warranted to verify our results." I have not been an ardent opponent of these cameras -- the lack of due process and the role of private companies has bothered me, but the safety proposition seemed worthy. But according to the Ph.Ds over on East Market St., that may not be the case after all. 8:41:02 AM    comment []

Don't you just hate those stories about bloggers who get fired for blogging? This one seems particularly unfair. (via Dennis Elliott) 8:27:58 AM    comment []

Doc Searls is speaking in Chapel Hill on Tuesday night. I'll be in New York that evening, so I'm going to get my Doc fix this morning -- we're meeting for breakfast at the Bob Evans in Burlington. Last month, I ate at Stamey's in GSO with Dave Winer. When the A-list bloggers hit town, only the finest restaurants will do. UPDATE: That was fun. Doc's sister Jan came, too, she called him David, which I guess used to be his name. Fresh from Santa Barbara he was reacquainting himself with NC staples like grits and humidity. We talked shop (IT journalism, not blogging) plus important stuff like kids and cars. Then I went to work and they went to Emerald Isle. 8:25:42 AM    comment []

"Mr. Burr is running against Mr. Ballantine." An interesting analysis of the confilcting messages offered by North Carolina's GOP candidates for US Senate and governor, tendered on WUNC yesterday by Mike Munger, chairman of the poly sci department at Duke. Ballantine needs to say the economy is doing badly to make his case for the governor's job. Burr needs to say the economy is humming to promote the benefits of maintaining Republican control of the Senate. Munger calls it "intraparty competition." 8:20:49 AM    comment []