Though recent weather disasters like tornadoes and HurricaneSandy have inflicted serious damages and killed dozens of people over the pastyear, demonstrating the deadly potential of Mother Nature, car accidents remainthe most prominent killer in harsh weather conditions by a wide margin, saysPly mouth University meteorology professor James Koemer, who is set to moderatethe American Meteorology Societys Washington Forum this week, where accident prevention will be the main focus.Each year, more than 7,000 people are killed inweather-related accidents, according to data gathered by the Federal Highway Administration, which defines weather-related crashes as those that occur inadverse weather such as rain, sleet, snow or fog, or on slick pavement.
And yet despite this large number of fatalities, none are included in the National Weather Services annual death toll caused by weather, which usually reports death totals in the hundreds each year.The reason for the omission, according to weather services pokesman Chris Vaccaro, is that The weather event must be an active agent in the fatality or injury.
If heavy snow falls from a tree and crushes someone,that would be the snow killing the person. If the roads are slippery and someonecrashes and dies, that would be the persons driving too fast in the elementsthat killed the person. As a result, many argue that serious dangers are beingoverlooked, such as Sheldon Droban, science program manager at the National Centerfor Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Colorado, who notes that there [is] no awarenessof how big an issue it is.Confusing awareness is news media coverage of major highway pileupsinvolving several vehicles, which are responsible for only a fraction ofaccident fatalities. A large majority of deaths occur in one or two vehicleaccidents that go largely unreported. “There is such a focus on the big events,that to have one or two people dying at a time just isn’t a catastrophic event,”says Kevin Petty, chief science officer at Vaisala, a Finnish meteorology firm.To help drivers understand the potential dangers,researchers at Vaisala are working to improve technology designed to shareinformation between cars on the road about the weather. Cars themselves havethe ability to sense whats going on in the environment, says Petty. The key isto share the information with the other nearby vehicles on the road, such asthose following ten miles behind. At NCAR, a system known as Vehicle DataTranslator is also being designed to give drivers real time information aboutroad and atmosphere conditions.This data translator system will allow vehicles to gather importantweather information and broadcast it to others on the road through preexistingwireless networks. With this information, drivers can be notified of fog, heavyrain, black ice, and other common accident causing phenomena in time to preparefor it. Cars have all these computes in them nowadays, and theyre incredibly complicated,says Droban.
They know all kinds of stuff that going on, but they dontreally share the informationThrough an increase in awareness and the assistance ofadvance information sharing technologies, Professor Koemer and the AmericanMeteorology Society are optimistic that improvements can be made, savinghundreds of lives each year. Though weather related car accident fatalities maynever be included in national weather caused death statistics, the dangers arereal, and should be treated as a primary issue in need of immediate attention.more:https://www.cn-igreen.com/product/electric-ultrasonic-pest-repeller/agc-04.html

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