Tab Combs @DrTCombs@transportation.social

Overheard one of my students complaining to another that "#chatgpt is useless for this course" and have never felt more pleased with myself.

A centralized academic peer review website that keeps track of all the articles you agreed to review and reminds you before they are overdue and alerts you when you are about to agree to more than you can handle again

please and thank you

You have to laugh, or you'd cry your eyes out.

#BikeTooter #CarBrain #Irony #ChapelHillNC

The best is when my kid and I are already in the intersection and the dude in the giant pickup decides to blast through the stop sign anyway

Y'all. Hands down the best #book series for #tweens right now is the *Vanderbeekers *series, by Karina Glaser.

https://www.karinaglaser.com/vanderbeekers

#BookTooter #Bookstodon #YAFiction #BookRecommendations #Reading

In #CompleteStreets this week, we're talking about the pandemic's impacts on #pedestrian and #bicycle #planning and gearing up for a perennial favorite among students: Stakeholder Speed Dating!

I invite a dozen or so local experts to come provide feedback on students' recommendations for safety and accessibility improvements in a small area. Students get 10 minutes with each set of experts before rotating on to the next set. It's chaos! It's awesome! It's #CarolinaPlanning!

The sun will be almost 50% covered when our local elementary schools are letting out. We're going to have crazy cool light out.
If you're driving, please remember that your primary job is to not hit anyone, ok? Wait until you get home to stare at the sun. #eclipse

Simulation link: https://time.com/6963248/total-solar-eclipse-map-places-view-2024/

If there is a better sight than your kid, in the garden, using her pocketknife to cut fresh stalks of broccoli to snack on with her friends, I don't need to know about it.

#gardening

And honestly I hope it's the latter, even though that would mean it's my fault for having boring lectures.

But if it's the former -- that high performing students think they are glancing when they are truly disengaged from their surroundings for several minutes at a time, well, that's terrifying.
(4/4, probably)

If there is research that supports my hypothesis that there is a gap between the time these normally highly-engaged students think they spend glancing at their phone vs how long they actually spend interacting with their phone during class, I would like to show it to them.

And if the research says, "oh, they know exactly how long they are distracted and they're doing it any," well, that's a different issue I need to tackle! (3/n)

more context on my interest...

When normally high performing, highly-engaged students look at their phones during class, I assume they are only planning to glance at it, and do not expect to get sucked in. And I suspect they are not truly aware of how long they actually spend engaged with their phone instead of with the class. (2/n)

Looking for peer-reviewed studies on cell phone distraction! Specifically, how long users *think* they are distracted when they look at their phone vs. how long they are *actually* distracted.
I know I've come across some in the past, but not finding them right now.

Context can be driving or classroom situations!

THANK YOU, CROWD!!!

This week in #CompleteStreets we've got TWO amazing guest experts!

First up, Dr. Missy Cummings joins us to talk about the potential implications of driver assistance & driving automation for road safety, what the sitch is with AV regulations, and why simulations are misleading.

Then it's our own Dr. Wesley Kumfer talking about how engineering & planning work together to help or hinder safety efforts, and how to bring safe systems into traffic engineering practices. Rad.

#CarolinaPlanning

If you think we regulate human drivers poorly, you should check out how we regulate AVs.

[we don't. at all. nada. zilch. nothing]

ahh, April 1. The day clickbait is "cool," and all the corporate accounts and non-corporate news outfits compete to see who can sell the most outlandish stories to their readers.

in other words, the best day of the year to avoid the internet.

and yes, I *am* loads of fun at parties.

All of my computer keys suddenly, en masse, of their own accord, have turned into shortcut keys. There is no typing. Only shortcutting.

I think this means I am done working today.

#DigitalEntropy

We're sure this guy checked his blind spot before veering into the bike lane to pass another car on the right in an intersection, right?

#DeathMachines #OversizedTrucks

I take a lot of photos of these trucks, trying to illustrate just how menacing and out of place they are. I get a lot of grief for it too, but the thing is, when I encounter one of these monsters while walking or biking with my kid, it's almost always in a place that kids should expect to feel safe: on a neighborhood street. Next to a playground. At the bus stop. In the school drop-off line. In a crosswalk. At the soccer park. In a bike lane. On a sidewalk.

It's not ok.

The soccer field is half a mile from our house, but my kid can't go there on her own, or even ride her own bike with me, because of vehicles like this. There is zero chance the driver of that truck, or the hundreds of others like it that congregate at the soccer fields every evening, would see her.

There is no place for vehicles like this anywhere on city streets. And especially not where little kids hang out.