Car Safety Wars


Book Description

Car Safety Wars is a gripping history of the hundred-year struggle to improve the safety of American automobiles and save lives on the highways. Described as the “equivalent of war” by the Supreme Court, the battle involved the automobile industry, unsung and long-forgotten safety heroes, at least six US Presidents, a reluctant Congress, new auto technologies, and, most of all, the mindset of the American public: would they demand and be willing to pay for safer cars? The “Car Safety Wars” were at first won by consumers and safety advocates. The major victory was the enactment in 1966 of a ground breaking federal safety law. The safety act was pushed through Congress over the bitter objections of car manufacturers by a major scandal involving General Motors, its private detectives, Ralph Nader, and a gutty cigar-chomping old politician. The act is a success story for government safety regulation. It has cut highway death and injury rates by over seventy percent in the years since its enactment, saving more than two million lives and billions of taxpayer dollars. But the car safety wars have never ended. GM has recently been charged with covering up deadly defects resulting in multiple ignition switch shut offs. Toyota has been fined for not reporting fatal unintended acceleration in many models. Honda and other companies have—for years—sold cars incorporating defective air bags. These current events, suggesting a failure of safety regulation, may serve to warn us that safety laws and agencies created with good intentions can be corrupted and strangled over time. This book suggests ways to avoid this result, but shows that safer cars and highways are a hard road to travel. We are only part of the way home.




No Accident


Book Description

It is possible to eliminate death and serious injury from Canada’s roads. In other jurisdictions, the European Union, centres in the United States, and at least one automotive company aim to achieve comparable results as early as 2020. In Canada, though, citizens must turn their thinking on its head and make road safety a national priority. Since the motor vehicle first went into mass production, the driver has taken most of the blame for its failures. In a world where each person’s safety is dependent on a system in which millions of drivers must drive perfectly over billions of hours behind the wheel, failure on a massive scale has been the result. When we neglect the central role of the motor vehicle as a dangerous consumer product, the result is one of the largest human-made means for physically assaulting human beings. It is time for Canadians to embrace internationally recognized ways of thinking and enter an era in which the motor vehicle by-product of human carnage is relegated to history. No Accident examines problems related to road safety and makes recommendations for the way forward. Topics include types of drivers; human-related driving errors related to fatigue, speed, alcohol, and distraction and roads; pedestrians, cyclists, and public transit; road engineering; motor vehicle regulation; auto safety design; and collision-avoidance technologies such as radar and camera-based sensors on vehicles that prevent crashes. This multi-disciplinary study demystifies the world of road safety and provides a road map for the next twenty years.




NOAA Strategic Plan for Deep-Sea Coral and Sponge Ecosystems


Book Description

NOAA Technical Memorandum CRCP 11. Identifies goals, objectives, and approaches to guide NOAA's research, management, and international cooperation activities on deep-sea coral and sponge ecosystems for fiscal years 2010 through 2019. Integrates research and conservation needs and is intended to be a flexible, evolving document that allows NOAA and its partners to address new management challenges and priorities as appropriate. The primary goal of this Strategic Plan is to improve the understanding, conservation, and management of deep-sea coral and sponge ecosystems.




National Standards & Best Practices for U.S. Museums


Book Description

"[This publication] synthesises the experience and best thinking of leading professionals, looking both inward at how museums function and outward toward their role in society at large. Our goal: to offer specific ways to think more deeply about making your institution the best it can be and provide tools to bring your ideas to fruition." -- Preface.




The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill


Book Description

Describes the 1989 oil spill caused by damage to the Exxon Valdez ship off the coast of Alaska, detailing the events leading up to the spill, how it affected the wildlife and environment of Alaska, and the spill's longterm effect.




The Calcium Key


Book Description

Speed up your metabolism and lose weight with the revolutionary weight-loss program found in The Calcium Key "Wow–a diet book that is actually based on science! At long last, a book that combines the valid research to support its claims, simple explanations on determining how to put the proven methods into action, and meal plans and recipes to encourage the reader. I literally went and got myself a piece of cheese as I read chapter three and have added low-fat yogurt to my shopping list." –Alice Domar, Ph.D., author of the bestselling Self-Nurture, Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School, and Director of the Mind/Body Center for Women’s Health at Boston IVF "The Calcium Key is a new direction for weight loss that is healthy, tasty and easy. Getting three servings a day of low-fat milk, cheese, or yogurt instead of some of your current choices will burn fat, reduce calories and change how your body looks." –George L. Blackburn, M.D., Ph.D., S. Daniel Abraham Associate Professor of Nutrition, Harvard Medical School; and Chief, Nutrition Metabolism Laboratory, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center "Zemel paints on an amazingly broad canvas. . . . He shows how calcium operates at every step of the way–and why a high calcium intake is important for everyone throughout life." –Robert P. Heaney, M.D., John A. Creighton University Professor and Professor of Medicine at Creighton University Now the truth can be revealed: cheese, yogurt, and milk are all powerful ingredients in the war against fat. Now you can enjoy the low-fat dairy foods you like as part of a sensible weight-loss plan that really works with the help of The Calcium Key. Increase the amount of weight you lose by 70% Increase the amount of body fat you lose by 64% Lose 47% more fat from your belly Most important, keep the weight off for good!







America's National Game


Book Description

This book is in great demand by baseball enthusiasts. Having been connected with every department of the game from player to magnate, Mr. Spalding has contributed a very important work to the game's history. As the invincible pitcher of the Boston Club, previous to the formation of the National League, his book of so many pages is an interesting record of events dating from the beginning of the great American pastime. It is not exactly a history of the game, but deals largely with incidents during the author's career, who was a player in the late 1860s and early 1870s, and helped organize the National League in 1876. One chapter, devoted to sundry topics, gives an account of the sale of the immortal "King Kelly," the original "$10,000 beauty," by Chicago to the Boston Club in the late 1880s. Other Chapters are devoted to the literature of the game, quoting several instances of the baseball paragrapher's art and also specimens of the distinct poetry of the pastime, of which "Casey at the Bat" is probably the most widely known. The Cincinnati Red Stockings Mr. Spalding gives credit as being the pioneer professional organization. It was not, however, until 1871 that professional baseball playing, as recognized today, was instituted. Mr. Spalding shows how cricket could not do for Americans. He says it is suitable for the British temperament, but not for the Yankee hustling spirit. He also tells how he worked into the game through a one-handed catch when a small boy. To lovers of baseball, whose name is legion, and whose number increases yearly, this book comprises in itself a whole library of useful information.