A couple of interesting odds and ends:
•AP reported last week that airplane pilots surveyed by NASA reported twice as many bird strikes, near-collisions and runway incursions as government statistics usually credit. The agency has refused to divulge the results and directed the contractor who made the research to purge the information from its computers.
According to NASA official Thomas Luedtke, if word of the higher risk got out “it could materially affect the public confidence in, and the commercial welfare of, the air carriers and general aviation companies whose pilots participated in the survey.”
•A Miami Herald article on using cameras to photograph drivers running red lights found that the accident rate at the intersections goes up—12 percent in a Virginia study—when the cameras go in. Why? Because drivers are more likely to brake at the last minute, just to be safe, which increases rear-end collisions, and wiping out the gains made by drivers not running the lights.
Another problem is that cities that use the technology can’t install the cameras on intersections on state roads, which are usually some of the worst problems.

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