…or you will get burned!

I do not know how many times I heard this phrase from my parents. I never played with fire, yet I got burned many times! Eventually, I never  learned how to start a fire and unfortunately neither how to put it off.

The only rule that I was taught early on was never to use water when putting out oil fires. This is of course a very useful rule. Here is a small demonstration just as a reminder:

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Social and economical costs of road accidents are huge, even more so in industrialised realities such the USA or the EU.

According to the report linked above, “The socio-economic cost [of road accidents] is estimated to be about 2% of a country’s gross domestic product. For European Union countries alone, this means about €180 billion – twice the Union’s annual budget.”

But the real surprise comes a few lines further down the report: “Reducing the average driving speed by 3 km/h would save [...] €20 billion in crash costs.”. Have difficulties figuring how much money is that? Just think that according to the FAO (The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations) that is about what it takes to eradicate world hunger. Think about it: if Europeans drive 3 km/h slower, we will eradicate world hunger. It seems a good deal to me. Read the rest of this entry »