Two bills to put additional restrictions on young drivers and distracted drivers are moving to the state Senate after approval by the House Tuesday.

One limits the number of passengers that junior drivers, those age 16 and 17, can have in their car, and requires junior drivers to wear seat belts or risk being stopped by police.

The second bill is aimed at reducing careless or distracted driving, such as cell phone use or eating, drinking, combing hair or putting on makeup while driving.

However, such an offense would be considered secondary, meaning police would have to stop a driver for another reason, such as speeding or running a red light, before issuing a ticket for careless driving.

The junior driver bill was sponsored by Rep. Katharine Watson, R., Bucks, who said auto accidents are the leading cause of deaths of teens, Her legislation, House Bill 9, would increase, from 50 to 65, the number of hours a teen must have to get a license, and stipulate that some of the hours must be at night and in bad weather.

A junior driver could have no more than one teen passenger at a time, to cut down on chatting and other distractions. There is an exception for young siblings, meaning more than one younger brother or sister would be allowed.

Junior drivers could be stopped by police if they aren’t wearing seat belts. Some lawmakers asked Watson how police could tell if an unbelted young driver was 16 or 17, since some youths in their 20s look like teenagers. She said that if a police officer stops a car and the unbelted driver turns out to be 18 or older, the officer would just let him go.

To read the full story: Philly.com

Philadelphia’s tap water has been laced with fluctuating levels of radioactive iodine since at least 2007, but city officials say they only recently learned of the problem.

Iodine-131, which has no taste or smell, is a carcinogenic isotope, but federal environmental officials apparently weren’t concerned enough to tell you that it’s in your drinking water.

The Philadelphia Water Department, now participating in a multi-agency investigation, doesn’t know how the iodine is getting into the water supply.

“There’s something unusual here and we need to figure out what’s going on,” said Chris Crockett, the department’s acting deputy commissioner of environmental services.

You may ask: Does this have anything to do with the radioactive emissions from the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant in Japan?

The answer is no.

Although trace amounts of Iodine-131 have blown over to the United States from Japan, Philadelphia has a more serious – and mysterious – problem with an unidentified local source that predates Japan’s March nuclear disaster.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data show that the iodine in Philly’s water has exceeded federal drinking-water limit at least nine times since 2007 at two of the city’s three water-treatment plants.

And Philadelphia’s water has the highest iodine level among dozens of water systems in the U.S. tested by the EPA since the Japanese disaster.

To read the full story: Philly.com

Philadelphia Police officers are preparing to saddle up. The department’s mounted patrol unit expects to start trotting through the streets, fighting crime, later this spring.

Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said horses are good for crowd control, patrolling parks, and other areas it’s tough for cars to reach.

“So, should the Phillies win and we have a celebration of some kind, one will have a unit ready to go,” he said.

Ramsey said the unit will not be a drain on the department’s budget.

“They’re donated. There are horse farms that donate them. Philadelphia racetrack has agreed to donate some,” said Ramsey.

To read the full story: Newsworks.org

The Southwest Airlines jet that was cruising at 35,000 feet Friday when a hole opened in the roof was current with maintenance checks, including a major inspection last year, according to federal air-safety investigators.

The National Transportation Safety Board said the hole in the plane was caused by fatigue cracks in the aluminum underskin of “lap joints” – areas not previously subjected to detailed maintenance inspections.

Lap joints hold together two metal panels of the aircraft’s aluminum skin by overlapping the panels and fastening them with rivets.

Boeing Co. issued a service bulletin Monday to operators of certain older Boeing 737-300, 400, and 500 models to begin inspecting the lap joints after 30,000 takeoff and landing cycles.

Boeing said 570 planes manufactured between 1993 and 2000 would be subjected to the inspections, which use “eddy current” electromagnetic technology to test for micro cracks invisible to the eye.

Separately, the safety board said that Southwest had complied with all required aircraft inspections and that the 15-year-old plane that developed the five-foot fuselage tear had been “up to date” with maintenance inspections, including a “heavy maintenance” check in March 2010, according to safety investigator Robert Sumwalt.

Boeing, in a conference call Tuesday, said that its testing and analysis had showed the lap joints had not been expected to crack because of metal fatigue until after 60,000 takeoff and landing cycles.

The Southwest jet flying from Phoenix to Sacramento, Calif., and forced to make an emergency landing Friday in Yuma, Ariz., had accumulated 39,780 takeoffs and landings.

The new inspections will focus on a “lower row of fasteners” in a 50-foot-long area on the crown of the airplane, on the left and right sides, said Boeing chief project engineer Paul Richter.

The electromagnetic inspections “can look through the aluminum for disruptions in the magnetic field, which are signatures for cracks that are in the base metal below,” he said in a conference call.

Boeing is recommending a one-time inspection, but the Federal Aviation Administration plans to require repeat checks for every 500 takeoffs and landings above 30,000 cycles on some 737 models, Boeing said.

“Until we, Boeing Co., and the NTSB understand the root cause, and we can fully anticipate the rate in which these cracks might grow,” the FAA is imposing a “very conservative repeat” check on the fleet “as a precautionary measure,” Richter said.

Boeing has made design changes in its newer, “next-generation” 737 models 600, 700, 800, and 900 that reduce stress on the lap joints when the aircraft is constantly pressurized during takeoffs and landings that can lead to fatigue cracking.

To read the full story: Philly.com

The Federal Trade Commission said Wednesday that Google agreed to settle a complaint that it violated its own privacy promises to consumers when it rolled out its Buzz social networking application.

The settlement requires Google to adopt a comprehensive privacy program and to submit to an independent privacy audit every two years for the next two decades. This is the first time the FTC has required a company to implement such a program.

The FTC’s action follows a recent spate of Internet privacy investigations that include Twitter and Facebook, and it underscoresgrowing interest by federal regulators to protect consumers online.

In the Google case, the FTC said in a release that the Internet giant “used deceptive tactics” when it launched Buzz through the accounts of its Gmail users.

The company did not inform its estimated 200 million Gmail users that it would launch a social networking application using information in its e-mail accounts. Some users complained that contact lists and other data were publicly exposed and that they had a hard time opting out of the social application.

Buzz, launched in February 2010, allows users to post updates and share pictures and videos much in the same way Facebook operates.

Google, in its terms of service, had promised that information by Gmail users would be used only for the e-mail application. If the company wanted to use those data for other services, it promised it would inform users and ask permission.

“When companies make privacy pledges, they need to honor them,” said Jon Leibowitz, chairman of the FTC. “This is a tough settlement that ensures that Google will honor its commitments to consumers and build strong privacy protections.”

Google announced in October that it would beef up privacy training for all employees and created a position to oversee privacy efforts.

That move prompted the FTC in October to drop a separate investigation of the privacy flap over data collected by Google cars that take pictures for Street View maps. Those cars also collected information from WiFi networks around the world. The Federal Communications Commission is conducting a separate investigation into Google’s scarfing of WiFi data, as are several privacy regulators in other countries. Google has apologized for the Street View incident.

On its official blog, Google apologized again for catching users off guard with Buzz.

“The launch of Google Buzz fell short of our usual standards for transparency and user control — letting our users and Google down,” Alma Whitten, the company’s privacy director, wrote in the blog. “While we worked quickly to make improvements, regulators — including the U.S. Federal Trade Commission — unsurprisingly wanted more detail about what went wrong and how we could prevent it from happening again.”

Privacy advocates said the investigation was a signal to Silicon Valley that the federal government has become aggressive in enforcing consumer protections online.

The White House said this month that it supports legislation for online privacy that would protect information that can pinpoint users. Lawmakers including Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) have called for a law that makes the FTC the top cop of online privacy legislation and limits targeted advertising.

The FTC wants to give Internet users more control over how their information is used by creating a Do Not Track industry standard. That mechanism would probably come in the form of a browser-based technology that allows users to block firms from tracking their activity on the Web. Microsoft and Mozilla have recently announced technologies on their browsers for users to block tracking.

Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) said he commended the FTC for its aggressive enforcement of consumer protection laws.

“This should be a wake-up call for online businesses — both large and small — of the need to be clear and honest about how the personal information of consumers is collected and used,” he said in a statement.

To read the full story: The Washington Post

Proposed federal funding for alcohol-detection devices could make them available as a new car option within 10 years, but some hope — and others fret — it will speed installation in every car.

“What we’d like to see is it used as much as possible,” says Laura Dean-Mooney, national president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). Although she doesn’t think the devices, which stop drunken drivers from starting their cars, will ever be mandatory, she says the devices could solve the problem.

“We’ve worked on behavior modification for the last 30 years, but we’re still killing almost 11,000 Americans a year,” she says.

Legislation sponsored by Sens. Tom Udall, D-N.M., andBob Corker, R-Tenn., would redirect $60 million in highway safety money over five years to a government-industry research project developing a prototype alcohol-detection device for cars. These aren’t the clunky ignition interlocks or “breathalyzers” now used on convicted drunken drivers’ vehicles that require drivers to blow into them, often repeatedly.

“As long as you are under the legal limit of .08, it will operate seamlessly, and you won’t even know it’s in the vehicle,” says Robert Strassburger, safety chief for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. He says the funding would help automakers offer the devices as options in eight to 10 years.

The two technologies being considered would use sensors that detect alcohol when drivers touch a button, perhaps to start the car, or that can gauge the alcohol on a driver’s breath by testing the air.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says alcohol-detection devices would have saved 8,000 lives in 2008 if they were on all cars. In a 2009 IIHS survey, two out of three respondents thought the devices were a “good” or “very good” idea for all vehicles. IIHS research chief Anne McCartt doesn’t think even mandatory devices would meet much opposition if the technology were reliable: “Public opinion is ahead of the technology in this case.”

To read the full story: USA Today

Today’s teenagers came of age at the same time cellphones displaced spare change in every purse or pants pocket, so it’s no surprise that younger people are more at ease chatting while they drive.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on Monday used another survey showing just that to launch an effort to help parents and teachers educate teens about the risks of distracted driving.

Speaking at the Consumer Reports headquarters in Yonkers, N.Y., he said the survey by the Consumers Union found that younger drivers were less likely to see texting or talking on cellphones while behind the wheel as a danger.

The poll says 63 percent of young people acknowledge driving while using a cellphone, and 30 percent say they have sent text messages while driving.

To read the full story: Washington Post

The recall involves about 500,000 bassinets — all bassinets made by the company before June last year.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission says the bassinets can collapse if the support rails that hold the basket are not fully locked into place.

The company, based in Burlington, Iowa, is not offering to take back the bassinets, but rather is giving consumers free repair kits to show exactly how to install the support rails. Consumers should check to make sure their bassinet has the support rails properly locked in place.

CPSC and the company have received 10 reports of incidents in which the bassinets collapsed when the folding legs were not locked properly. Two infants received minor injuries, including a bruise to the head.

To read the full story: USA Today

The recall covers a wide range of booster, convertible and infant seats, including some sold as part of a stroller travel system, made by the Dorel Juvenile Group of Columbus, Ind. The action was prompted by the safety agency, which began an investigation of the restraints last year after receiving several consumer complaints that the restraining straps on the seats had loosened.

The restraints were sold under the brand names Safety 1st, Maxi-Cosi, Cosco and Eddie Bauer, Julie Vallese, a Dorel spokeswoman, said in a telephone interview. They were manufactured from May 1, 2008, to April 30, 2009. A list of the affected models can be found here.

In a filing with N.H.T.S.A., Dorel said, “There have been no reports of center front adjuster failure in real world crashes, no injuries and no deaths reported to the company.”

To read the full story: The New York Times

Red-light cameras may be controversial, but — according to a new study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety — they save lives. The analysis, released Tuesday, found that camera enforcement at city intersections cut the death toll from drivers running red lights by almost a quarter, on average.

The study is the first to examine red-light fatalities in multiple and diverse cities across the country, according to the institute, which is financed by the insurance industry. Previous research has consistently shown that red-light programs reduce violations, crashes and injuries, but until now, there had been no widespread data to show the cameras’ impact on serious crashes that claim lives, says Adrian Lund, the president of the institute.

Studying data from 14 cities, all with populations of 200,000 or more, researchers compared the rates of fatal crashes at intersections before and after these cities installed red-light cameras, and also compared the results to dozens of similarly sized cities without cameras. “We saw large reductions in fatality crashes at intersections,” Lund says.

In fact, the researchers estimate that if all of the U.S.’s 99 large cities had been using red-light cameras during the five-year study period from 2004 to 2008, more than 800 deaths would have been prevented.

Red-Light Cameras Remain Controversial

Approximately 500 communities across the country currently use red-light cameras, up from only about 25 in 2000, according to the report.

While national surveys indicate wide public support for the technology, the programs still remain somewhat controversial. Critics claim that some communities are using camera enforcement to raise revenue by issuing more tickets and argue that the programs violate drivers’ privacy, Lund says.

But claims of high revenues at the expense of drivers are inaccurate, he says, citing a 2002 California State Auditor report that found that red-light cameras improve traffic safety, but generate little or no additional revenue for most local governments. That report, based on data from 1995 through 2001, found that red-light-camera programs lowered the number of crashes by 10% statewide, but operated on a break-even basis, or at a slight deficit, for most local governments.

To read the full story: DailyFinance