Archive for the ‘Latest news’ Category
Friday, January 18th, 2008 |
A school bus driver and three students were taken to a Punxsutawney, Jefferson County, hospital with minor injuries after the bus they were riding in was hit by a log truck.
The school bus driver is 30 weeks pregnant.
All those injured were treated and released at Punxsutawney Area Hospital.
Police said the truck was trying to make a sharp turn when it slid. The bus driver was able to avoid the truck’s cab, but then hit the trailer.
Fire officials described the section of road as narrow but dry at the time of the wreck.
Posted in Latest news, Trucks | No Comments »
Friday, November 23rd, 2007 |
Vehicle apparently swerved to avoid school bus, overturned on Northern Parkway
Two Baltimore Department of Public Works employees were injured yesterday when a Trash Truck overturned at Northern Parkway and Falls Road, knocked down a tree and hit four cars, city officials said. The intersection was closed to traffic for hours.
The workers, including the driver, were taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center. Police said their injuries were not considered life threatening.
Details of how the accident occurred were not immediately available. It happened shortly after noon and may have been triggered when the Truck driver swerved to avoid hitting a school bus,” said Kurt L. Kocher, a spokesman for the Department of Public Works.
Two lanes of westbound Northern Parkway were closed through 6 p.m., causing significant backups during the evening rush hour.
Posted in Latest news | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 21st, 2007 |
A sport utility vehicle crashed into a Chick-fil-A in Edgewater yesterday afternoon, injuring five restaurant patrons, two seriously, an Anne Arundel County fire official said.
The SUV crashed through the brick-and-glass exterior of the restaurant at 3220 Solomons Island Road about 12:30 p.m. and into the dining area, said Battalion Chief Michael Cox, a Fire Department spokesman.
A 67-year-old customer who was sitting directly where the car struck, in front of a handicapped parking spot, suffered serious injuries and was flown to Maryland Shock Trauma Center. A 6-year-old boy also was hurt and was taken by ambulance to Anne Arundel Medical Center, Cox said.
Three state troopers who were having lunch at the restaurant suffered “very minor” injuries, said 1st Sgt. David Jones, a Maryland State Police spokesman. They refused medical treatment and returned to work, he said.
“They just picked the wrong place to eat lunch,” Jones said.
The driver of the SUV was uninjured, Cox said. No additional information was available.
Posted in Latest news | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 21st, 2007 |
Demand for diesel-powered cars is soaring.
Diesel produces fewer greenhouse gases than unleaded petrol but it is more dangerous to our health. RICHARD BLACKBURN reports on an automotive dilemma.
Demand for diesel-powered cars is soaring. Australians bought more diesel cars in the first four months of this year than they did in the whole of 2005.
Sales this year are up 135 per cent on the same period last year and the latest figures show that almost 20 per cent of new vehicles sold this year are powered by diesel. In 2000, the figure was just 10 per cent.
However, the explosive growth is a double-edged sword.
The good news is that diesel-powered engines are more efficient than their petrol cousins and therefore emit less CO2 - the major contributor to global warming.
The bad news is that emissions from Diesel engines are harmful to your health. That includes the latest generation of so-called “clean” diesels.
The Federal Government’s Green Vehicle Guide, which ranks vehicles on their greenhouse gas and air pollution performance, doesn’t have a single diesel vehicle in its top 50 list of low polluters.
Just one makes the top 150 and there are only five in the top 200 vehicles.
Jon Real, a spokesman for the Federal Department of Transport, which maintains the guide, says diesel cars are marked down because they have a “much more significant health effect”.
He says diesels produce about the same amount of hydrocarbons as petrol but significantly more nitrogen oxides (NOx) - a precursor to smog - and particulate matter.
Air quality experts estimate that diesel engines produce particles at about 20 times the rate of petrol engines and it is those emissions that are bad for your health.
Particulate matter has been linked with thousands of deaths worldwide. Side effects range from cancer to respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. NOx have also been linked to serious health problems, including asthma, respiratory disease, infections and reduced lung function in children.
A recent NSW parliamentary inquiry into air quality found that motor vehicles produce 71 per cent of NOx emissions in Sydney and just under 20 per cent of particle pollution.
Real says particulate matter emissions carry a hefty weighting in the department’s assessment of pollution effects from different vehicles. It’s easy to see why.
The most recent figures from the Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics - for 2000 - put the annual death toll from vehicle exhaust pollution at between 900 and 2000 people - higher than the national road toll. It is also estimated to contribute to between 700 and 2050 asthma attacks in Australia each year.
Posted in Latest news | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 |
Three top investors in the automotive industry painted a grim picture on Sunday for the sector in 2008, with one executive predicting a possible slump in U.S. sales to levels not seen in 15 years.
The weakest forecast is for a possible 9.4 percent decline. But all three — Jerry York, an adviser to billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian; financier Wilbur Ross; and Thomas Stallkamp, a former Chrysler president — were more pessimistic than many in the battered industry.
“While I am very negative on the autos sector over the next 12 to 18 months, I’m just not sure how bad it could be,” York, a former board member of General Motors Corp (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and chief financial officer of Chrysler, said at the Reuters Autos Summit in Detroit. “We all know housing is a debacle.”
U.S. light auto sales could slip to 15.5 million or less next year, York said. That would be down from near 16 million this year, a drop of 3 percent to mark the second consecutive annual decline and the lowest tally since 1998.
Stallkamp, a partner at private equity firm Ripplewood Holdings, which owns several auto parts makers, said the market could slump to 14.5 million, the lowest level since 1993.
“I’d say it’s somewhere between 14.5 (million) and 15 (million), somewhere in there and it’s hard to tell,” he said. “Today, I’m a little more towards 14.5 (million).”
Such a decline would be felt throughout the sector, CSM Worldwide auto analyst Michael Robinet said.
“That would certainly be one of the worst years on record given the gravity of the industry,” he said.
U.S. auto sales fell almost 11 percent in 1991, when the economy was in recession.
Ross, an investor who specializes in restructuring troubled businesses and has assembled an auto parts empire through acquisitions, said the U.S. consumer was “pretty well tapped out” as he predicted auto sales would slip a few hundred thousand units from this year.
Most automakers have predicted U.S. auto sales next year in the range of just under 16 million to 15.5 million, with Japan’s Nissan Motor Co Ltd at the low end.
However, the crumbling U.S. housing market is spooking consumers, the investors said.
“I hope I’m wrong on 14.5 (million) to 15 (million),” Stallkamp said. “But I think the mortgage issue is going to freak people out and that will hit pretty hard in ‘08.”
Ross called it “a sort of poverty effect from house prices going down.”
The U.S. automakers‘ market shares will suffer more than foreign rivals in such a weak market, Stallkamp said.
“You’re going to see some continued retrenchment in construction and the building trades that will hit the Big Three particularly,” he said.
The investors see the Big Three U.S. automakers cutting factory production instead of returning to overly generous discount deals such as GM’s zero-percent financing offers, first rolled out after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
“I think you’re going to see less discounting in general,” Ross said. “Now that they have a little better control of the factories and now that the factories are a little more right sized.”
None of the three predicted a recession for the U.S. economy in 2008, but York said “it feels like it’s on the way.”
Stallkamp, on the other hand, sees global credit markets stabilizing in the first half of 2008, with the holiday shopping season a key indicator. He sees U.S. auto sales coming back in 2009.
The U.S. automakers, already slashing jobs and factory production, will “have to get smaller faster” and push for more sales overseas in a weaker market, Stallkamp said.
“Maybe I’m too pessimistic on how low it’s going to go,” he said of the U.S. market. “Maybe I live in Michigan. This is a pretty crummy place to be right now.”
Posted in Latest news | No Comments »
