Speed Limits Aren't Saving Lives, So Make Cars Slower

Jackie Hance recounts grief over Taconic Parkway accident

(NEWSER) - "Our baby is due in the fall" is how Jackie Hance ends her Ladies' Home Journal essay. The otherwise unremarkable line is anything but, considering that the Long Island woman is the mother of three young girls killed in a horrific accident on New Jersey's Taconic Parkway in 2009. Five others also died in the crash, when Hance's sister-in-law crashed head-first into an SUV. Toxicology reports showed high amounts of alcohol and marijuana in her system, notes ABC News . More»

Apple, Google urged to stop selling apps that help drivers dodge police

(NEWSER) - Want to know if there's a checkpoint ahead targeting speeders or drunk drivers? There's an app for that—many, in fact—but Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, Frank Lautenberg, and Tom Udall say there shouldn't be. The four senators have written to Apple, Google, and BlackBerry, urging the companies to stop selling applications that they say help dangerous drivers evade police, ABC reports. More»

Aussie town sick of unsafe drivers

(NEWSER) - The tiny Australian town of Speed has a new name—temporarily. Following a successful Facebook campaign, and plenty of encouragement from road safety officials concerned about the rising death rate on country roads, the Outback town will change its name to Speedkills for the month of March, Reuters reports. More»

Smart car? Maybe not so smart

(NEWSER) - Some of us lovingly referred to our first car variously as "the jalopy," "the tin can on wheels," or "the death trap." And some of us were right. Here, as per Autoshippers, are the most dangerous cars of all time:

• 1967-1971 Ford Pinto: Had a nasty habit of exploding even on low-speed impacts.
• 1915-1925 Briggs & Stratton Flyer: No doors, windshield, impact protection. Super cheap, and often fatal, transportation.
• 1960-1963 Chevrolet Corvair: Engine in the back let toxic fumes in the car and the steering wheel was known to fatally impale drivers. Other than that, great car.

Family hopes testing will prove Diane Schuler wasn't drunk

(AP) - The body of Diane Schuler will exhumed in a bid by her family to disprove findings that the 36-year-old was drunk when she drove her minivan the wrong way on a New York freeway last month, causing a crash that killed eight people, said the family's lawyer on Larry King last night. Testing will focus on the theory that an abscess in Schuler’s mouth could have caused a stroke. More»