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For all of the benefits of owning a Smart Car -- good gas mileage, the ability to park in tight spaces -- there is at least one drawback.
Smart Car tipping has emerged as a trend among Dutch pranksters, who apparently have little trouble lifting the lightweight cars and dumping them into the water.
Scammers are out there trying to take advantage of people by offering to register car owners in the Cash For Clunkers program, the Texas attorney general's office warns. The federal program, which offers credits of up to $4,500 for car owners to trade in their smog-belchers for a new ride, does not require registration, AG Greg Abbott says.
Fatal wrecks involving Texas teen-age drivers declined five straight years after the state imposed graduated license requirements, a study released Monday by the Texas Transportation Institute shows. The institute at Texas A&M also credits a campaign called Teens in the Driver Seat program that provides funding for teen-agers to do peer-related public awareness campaigns that promote safe driving at more than 300 schools. I'm writing more about this for tomorrow's paper, but in the meantime here's a copy of the full report from TTI ...
-- Gordon.
Video from on-board T bus cameras shows the driver maintaining a good speed and distance from other cars before the fiery crash that killed one man. But two minutes, 32 seconds of raw footage are missing because of what T officials say is a technical problem ...
U.S. Sen Kay Bailey Hutchison reluctantly voted to extend the federal highway program but says Texas may lose $408 million.
Going to Dallas today? Don't take Interstate 635 -- aka LBJ Freeway -- through north Irving today. The entire eastbound side of the road has been shut down while workers inspect the MacArthur Boulevard overpass. A tractor-trailer carrying an oversize load struck the bridge at 10:45 a.m., according to the Texas Department of Transportation, and inspectors are trying to determine if the damaged structure can still bear weight. We'll know more by the end of the day, but meanwhile, find another way to Big D ...
The proposal would relieve train congestion at Tower 55, but perhaps at a cost for a south Fort Worth neighborhood.
For the first time, Arlington's two big stadium's hold simultaneous events and traffic inches along
Fort Worth and Dallas officials shift their mass transit emphasis to streetcars, and hope that federal stimulus money could get their projects underway by 2012.
Lots of people who live in the western part of Dallas-Fort Worth regularly drive on Dallas-area toll roads such as the President George Bush Turnpike and Sam Rayburn Tollway (formerly 121 Tollway). It's gonna cost more to use those roads beginning Sept. 1.
The North Texas Tollway Authority this morning approved a rate increase to 14.5 cents a mile, about three cents a mile more than drivers are currently paying. The increase will help make up for declining revenues on the toll roads, which people are less likely to use during tough times, officials said.
The typical driver will pay about $10 a month extra, tollway officials estimate.
Also, toll rates will increase more gradually every two years without further action, according to the plan approved by an 8-1 vote of the tollway board at its Plano HQ.
The tollway authority is the lead agency of the planned Southwest Parkway toll road, which is about to get under construction in Fort Worth. Once Southwest Parkway is open, the tolls on that road likely will be even higher, perhaps 19.5 cents a mile. Several years ago, Fort Worth officials reached an agreement with tollway officials to build the road with extra amenities to make it look and feel like a parkway.
