http://uk.reuters.com/article/...

We've seen the US go to war from much less "evidence". Can you say "WMD in Iraq"?

ok, so he can take comfort that he can blame a piece of metal for the accident rather than taking personal responsibility. if i had a car with a big honking A pillar, I would tilt my head a little to make sure there were no cars (or people) there before proceeding.

Yes, this works extremely well in Berkeley too. There are neighborhoods on both sides of Ashby (hwy 13) and along various other routes, but the streets are relatively quiet because traffic furniture either prevents entry from Ashby or directs the flow such that there's no point using them for the commute. And they don't inconvenience the residents either. For a resident or for local travel, entering and exiting only adds a few seconds. For a commuter, trying to use residential streets just doesn't work.

The barriers seem to be favored over speed bumps. Over the years the speed bumps have been made softer (15 mph bumps now instead of 5 or 10 mph bumps), and are generally concentrated only in areas that simply cannot be blocked off for fire and other safety reasons.

-Matt

Yes, because every individual's property is an island unto itself and totally disconnected from the properties and community around it. People should be able to do anything they want on/with their own property because, you know, fuck everyone else. /sarcasm

App or no app, traffic in cities and suburbs is something that is going to need to be dealt with somehow. Cities like Boston or New York at least have a workable public transit system to keep some cars off the roads. LA is totally different -- it was built around cars and is only now getting a very small set of public transit choices. Buses do nothing when they're stuck in the same traffic everyone else is. Whenever I go to California for work (either northern or southern,) it amazes me how much people put up with to live there. I would go nuts spending 2 hours doing a 10 mile trip each direction every day.

Some trends are encouraging from a traffic perspective, but maybe not from a demographic one. Younger people aren't buying suburban houses and having big families the way they used to, so it's possible cities will become denser like they are in Europe. The big thing that has to stop, especially in mid-size cities, is the suburban sprawl. The ability to expand for miles in every direction directly contributes to messy traffic problems. Urban planners need to look into reclaiming hollowed-out cities and first ring suburbs, and getting people to move back into them.

+1 insightful. People aren't running over pedestrians due to nefarious overly-wide A pillars; they're running over pedestrians because they're not paying attention and are talking on their phones and are more concerned with looking for a break in traffic so they can gun it through the intersection so they just run over people. it's ultimately because people are selfish. that's why when I'm a pedestrian I carry a "deterrent".

When people get their panties in a twist about how much "wealth" the Walton family has it just shows they don't understand what wealth is.

Their "wealth" is paper. They could be worth X millions one day and X - a butt load of money the next. It has no impact on how much they can spend at lunch or whether they get the premium cable package or the standard. It's not cash. They'd have to sell or take out loans against their shares if they wanted to go buy a Private Jet or something like that.

So the fact they are worth a few billion in paper doesn't diminish your pay check at all.

That's what they would do if they had a functioning police department or legal system in France, but they haven't had that for many years. You might remember that they had a plague of thugs setting cars on fire a year or so ago, and the cops didn't even try to arrest any of them.

-jcr

The reason it is common, is that the French government routinely caves in to the demands of whomever throws the biggest tantrum, and the French voters routinely support the appeasement. In America, causing disruption and chaos is the best way to lose public sympathy for your cause. In France it is the best way to get it.

You jest... but in Texas, we have over 800,000 concealed carry permit holders... and gun battles don't break out, well, ever between them...

I know that sometimes on Slashdot, we get 'stuff that matters,' but can't we at least talk about the police drones involved in the situation? Or even that Uber is reportedly charging users a minimum $100 to get out of Sydney CBD. At least attempt to make it seem relevant please?

The interesting thing is that, if they are using outsourced servers strategically located in Asia to avoid the long arm of the law, that people should be able attack those same servers and do pretty much anything they want to them without fear of consequences. Being beyond the law is a double edged sword, and I personally would not bet against all the hackers on the Internet in that fight...