Articles by Kyle Stock

US Wildfire Fighters Are Hitting a Pay Cliff at the Worst Time

In Fairbanks, Alaska, the US Forest Service is looking to hire a smokejumper, a person who parachutes out of a rickety airplane to wrangle wildfires that break out far from roads or rivers. Little experience is necessary; the pay starts …

Insurance Scion Who’s Out to Save Human Driving

McKeel Hagerty’s parents were into wooden boats and saw an unmet need to underwrite them. Hagerty, however, has been a car nut from day one. When the family’s marine insurance business finally began to offer auto policies in 1991, he …

Getting Americans to Stop Using Phones While Driving

The distracted driving report by Zendrive, a traffic-data startup, makes it clearer and clearer each year that millions of Americans can’t stop themselves from talking, texting and livestreaming—yes, even using FaceTime—while driving. The results have been increasingly unsettling, showing that …

How States Are Battling Distracted Driving

Like many diligent public servants, Georgia state Representative Ed Setzler enjoys crowing about a nice, tidy highway project. In a Sept. 8 Facebook video, the Republican appeared to be doing just that from behind the wheel of a car. This …

Pricing Insurance to Reflect Distracted Driving Risk

Insurance companies are finally putting a price on the risk of distracted driving, and it’s relatively cheap. Last year, a ticket for using a mobile phone while driving added $226 to the average insurance policy, an increase of 16 percent, …

State-by-State Study Shows Drivers Are Texting More Despite Bans

If you’re driving right now, it’s far more likely you are reading this on your phone than you would have been a year ago. Despite a harrowing surge in traffic fatalities, American drivers appear to be getting worse at avoiding …

Why Driverless Delivery of Goods Is Likely to Arrive Before Passengers

In the wait for self-driving technology, cell-phone toting tech bros may have to cede their spot in line to pizzas, Craigslist couches and the mounting ephemera of e-commerce. The future—at least in the near-term—will not only be driverless, but sans …

Distracted Driving Is More Deadly Than Data Shows: Special Report

Jennifer Smith doesn’t like the term “accident.” It implies too much chance and too little culpability. A “crash” killed her mother in 2008, she insists, when her car was broadsided by another vehicle while on her way to pick up …

Hurricane Cars Declared ‘Total Losses’ by Adjusters Are Now Back on Roads

The ink on the “total loss” insurance paperwork, like the 2007 Range Rover itself, was still wet when Morgan Moran began trying to buy his vehicle back after Hurricane Matthew last year. The insurance adjuster had declared the vehicle ruined …

Entrepreneur Shuts Startup After U.S. Questions Safety of Self-Driving Kit

Self-driving cars are getting closer by the day, but they won’t be coming from hacking phenomenon George Hotz. Hotz, the first person to jailbreak an iPhone and a vagabond of the world’s top tech companies, has scrapped his self-driving project …