Throwback Thursday

With wheat harvest coming to an end around the state, today's Throwback Thursday takes a look at what harvest was like in 1961.  The equipment has changed a bit...

Wednesday's Words

"Neither a wise man or a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him."                

 -- President Dwight D. Eisenhower

 In honor of America's 238th birthday, Business Insider put together inspiring quotes from all 44 presidents.  Given his great contributions to our interstate system, we chose to feature native Kansan, President Eisenhower, but you can read all of the quotes here.

 

Kansas to serve as a model to help increase teen seat belt use nationwide

More than half of teen drivers killed in 2012 weren't wearing seat belts.  And that number has increased by six percent over the last three years.  To combat this issue, the Governors Highway Safety Association and The Allstate Foundation released a report that reveals 12 states, including Kansas, have effective programs for increasing seat belt usage that can serve as models for other states.

“Crashes are already the leading cause of death for teens, and it is particularly disturbing to see the percentage of unbelted teen drivers and passengers in fatalities continue to rise,” said GHSA Executive Director Jonathan Adkins, who oversaw the development of this latest report. “It is imperative that we find out what works to make teens understand that using a seat belt may save their life and find ways to convince them to buckle up every time they get in the car.”

The report, Getting It to Click: Connecting Teens and Seat Belts, covers programs and initiatives that were identified through a survey of State Highway Safety Offices (SHSOs) conducted by GHSA in January 2014. After reviewing survey responses, an expert panel identified a number of states with strong teen seat belt-related programs that had the potential for replication by other states. These states are: Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin.

Expert panel members identified seven elements that effective teen seat belt programs had in common. These include:
• Laws and their enforcement;
• Peer-to-peer efforts;
• Parental participation;
• Community involvement;
• Incorporation of social media;
• Provision of incentives; and
• Resources that would be useful to diverse audiences.

To learn more about seat belt use in Kansas, click here.

Motoring Monday: Keystone Gallery

Xiphactinus

Tucked away between Lake Scott State Park and Monument Rocks in Gove County, the Keystone Gallery is a combination museum, art gallery and gift shop.

The museum section features an extensive collection of local Kansas fossils including a 20-foot Mosasaur and a 14-foot Xiphactinus along with many other fish, turtle and bird fossils. Scenic photographs and murals are also on display.

The gallery is surrounded by a herd of 300 buffalo that are sometimes nearby or can be spotted along the Smoky Hill River valley.

Keystone was a church from 1917 to 1953, but had been abandoned until the gallery opened in 1991. Find out more about the gallery here.

Throwback Thursday

We're going back to 1968 to see the DMV office decorated for the Fourth of July.  Check out all those flags.  We also want to wish everyone a fun and safe holiday weekend!

Truck collides with a KDOT mowing tractor

The driver of a box truck struck a KDOT tractor that was mowing off the shoulder of I-70 in Riley County on Tuesday.  Both the truck driver and the KDOT employee were taken to a hospital and treated for non-life threatening injuries.  It is not yet known why the box truck driver left the roadway.

We want to remind everyone to please be use caution while traveling.  Construction and mowing along our highways is in full swing so please slow down when traveling through work zones.

Because the Fourth of July falls on a Friday this year, auto club AAA is predicting there will be even more traffic on highways than last Independence Day.  More than 35 million people are expected to be traveling 50 miles or more on our nation's highways.  The number of car accidents tends to increase on holiday weekends due to the added traffic.

Please be safe if you're traveling this holiday weekend.

World Cup of Transportation Part II

Now that the bracket has been set for the 2014 World Cup, we thought it was time to check in and see how our bracket, which used the nations with the best highway systems to determine which countries would advance, matches up with the real thing.

Turns out, we successfully predicted 10 out of the 16 teams that would advance.  However, we had incorrectly predicted Mexico as a one-seed and Brazil as a two-seed, which means we only had seven out of 16 seeded properly.  The good news is that we have three teams that make up our final four still in play.  Check out our bracket below.