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A British parent had a huge shock when he returned from a fast food takeaway to find his car had been stolen, with his five year old child still sitting in her car seat. Luckily police found the stolen Skoda just 10 minutes later, having been quickly alerted to the theft.

A would-be car thief in China found that 13 is an unlucky number. During his attempted escape from pursuing police at Meizhou in China's Guangdong Province, the man managed to crash into 13 other vehicles. A traffic officer tried to flag down the driver of the stolen vehicle but the man instead began bulldozing his vehicle through the streets in an attempt to escape.

Software specialist Bentley Systems has announced the project finalists in the 2011 Be Inspired Awards competition and the four winners of the 2011 Be Inspired Special Recognition Awards. The awards honour the extraordinary work of Bentley users improving and sustaining the world's infrastructure. Five independent panels of jurors, comprising accomplished Bentley users and distinguished industry experts, selected the 59 finalists and the Special Recognition Awards candidates from nominations submitted by 27

An American woman suffered an embarrassing situation after she tried to escape a traffic jam by making a u-turn. The impatient woman drove her shiny Lexus onto a patch of wet concrete laid moments before by construction workers. The vehicle then sank up to its axles in the concrete, leaving her unable to drive further.

Support for Stockholm's congestion charge has risen to a record high, a poll by the Centre for Transport Studies (CTS) has shown. Some 67 per cent of the residents in greater Stockholm that have an opinion on the issue would vote in favour of the charge should the referendum be held today while 82 per cent would vote in favour of the charge if all incomes were used to develop public transport.

The City of Austin, Texas, has awarded a contract to Parsons Brinckerhoff for the development of a transportation corridor plan along an 18.5km section of IH 35 in central Austin. A variety of potential highway, transit, bike and pedestrian improvements are anticipated to be generated from a process which will apply a context sensitive process involving a wide range of agency and public stakeholders.

An Italian woman ended up parking her car on the roof of a house when she accidentally forgot to use its handbrake. The woman had stopped to photograph a scenic view but as she stood to one side and adjusted the settings on her camera, the car rolled from the road, through a barrier, down a hillside and onto a house below.

A construction worker in New York City took matters into his own hands when his friend started arguing with a policewoman who was busy placing a parking ticket on their van. The man took out a disc cutter and sliced off the parking meter at which their vehicle was parked, perhaps taking inspiration from a character played by movie star Paul Newman in the classic film Cool Hand Luke.

In Alberta, Canada a pet lover has specially reinforced an old car so that he can take his favourite animal for drives in the country. The pet, an 825kg young male bison, is reputed to have developed a special bond with his owner and is said to express this by licking his hand.

In Canada Transport Quebec is using stringent requirements to ensure that the planned Turcot Interchange reconstruction project stays within budget and is completed on scheduled by 2018. This US$2.95 billion (C$3 billion) project includes replacing the Montreal West, Turcot, Angrignon and De La Verendrye interchanges as well as portions of the 720, 15 and 20 Highways.

A couple are now relaxing at home following an epic world tour in their classic car, which managed the journey well despite its age and comparatively low-powered engine. The couple drove their 1948 MG on a 50,000km world tour that took in much of Europe, Russia, China and South East Asia before arriving home in New Zealand.

A major contractor In Turkey is using new Dynapac pavers to resurface the busy Istanbul-Ankara highway. Onur Insaat Taahhut bought 12 new Dynapac compactors and pavers at the end of last year and is using two of its new SD135C pavers on the D-100 highway. In all 12 Dynapac asphalt paving machines and vibratory compactors were added to its fleet of equipment, and has put two of the tracked pavers to work on the Ankara to Istanbul link. The machines, four SD135C medium-sized tracked pavers, four CC524HF artic

A new bridge costing over US$136 million will improve transport links in Tanzania. The 680m cable-stayed bridge will be built by China Major Bridge Engineering Company (CMBE) and Chinese Railway Construction Engineering Group (CRCEG).

Moba’s MDS-2000 Drilling System is being used for the first time in a South American quarry. Used over two shifts by operators since September 2011 to monitor and control drill blast holes at a granite quarry in Vacamonte, Panama, Moba has equipped an HCR-1200 EDII type drilling device from FRD Furukawa Rock Drill with the drilling system in collaboration with B-B-S Bohrsysteme. The MDS-2000 enables drill holes to be made parallel to each other and to the desired depth and pre-set angle. As well as cost an

A key need for infrastructure upgrades is required in Vietnam during 2012. Official estimates suggest that some US$499.4 million is required to repair roads and upgrade or replace bridge links in the country. The Directorate for Roads of Vietnam says that there are 277 ageing bridges which need repairs and the country’s Transport Ministry has been urged to prioritise the issue.

Barin has exported its ABC 60/L skid unit machine to Brazil for use in bridge inspections in the South American country. The machine, which has an under bridge working length of 6m, has been mounted on a two-axle Iveco Daily 70C16 truck chassis by a Barin technician based in Brazil. Supplied to Rentavale Equipamentos LTDA, based in Sao Paulo, the ABC 60/L is made of aluminium alloy and has fixed and sliding elements, the latter extending up to 6,000mm horizontally whilst under bridge. Its platform width is

A new delineator design is said to be helping to reduce accidents on a 200mile stretch of one of the world’s most treacherous highways. Pexco LLC has produced the ‘Dalton Delineator’ for the Dalton Highway, a remote 414mile road in Alaska, reported to be the sixth most dangerous roadway in the world. The road safety system has a cantilever structure consisting of a short length of a Davidson Flexi-Guide FG 400 Roadside Delineator post mounted to a special flexible coupler.

Rockster Recycler is helping an Indian construction company reach its target of crushing two million tonnes of discarded building waste in a year. M/S Popular Construction, part of the Popular Infra Resources Group, is using two Rockster R900 Impact crushers with Duplex systems at four locations in India and plan to expand their deployment to eight sites. A spokesman for M/S Popular Construction said the company had chosen to work with Austrian-made Rockster machines due to their Duplex system, which allows

Liebherr claims its wide range of Litronic control system featuring CANUS software ensures construction projects are delivered on time and to budget. The system’s PDE data recording unit logs information such as depth, suspension levels, drilling speed and geometry. It then displays it in real-time via a colour touchscreen in the operator's construction machine cab. Due to constant awareness of the working process, the operator is able to adapt the PDE unit to suit changing environmental conditions. PDE rec

International ground stabilisation specialist, Tensar has successfully defended its TriAx product range against several Chinese patent infringements.The TriAx geogrid, patented in many countries around the world by Tensar for use in ground stabilisation, road, rail and other applications, has received many awards for innovation and has achieved considerable commercial success since its introduction a few years ago."Several Chinese manufacturers and their distributors attempted to take advantage of this succ