Keeping both your hands on the steering wheel will reduce road crashes

Driver safety is a topic that has been discussed and improved on over many years, but the statistics show that one of the biggest causes of road accidents is driver distraction, either by a passenger or by an electronic device.

The future can foresee safety devices which cut off your phone calls, silence the radio and monitor the weather, via intelligent windscreen wipers, as insurers step up their hi-tech efforts to turn us into better drivers and reduce the number of accidents. However, connectivity will never go away, and a total ban on phone usage is not likely, well, not in the near future anyway. Our Phones have become a part of us, and we will not turn it off just because we are driving., in fact with the Navigational apps now available, we actually need them to help us find our way to our destination.

The Mobile Phone is also contributing to Security and Peace of Mind. Knowing that it is permissible to use a cellular phone while driving reduces worry and stress while contributing to peace of mind. The ability to achieve virtually instant communication, whether from or to a driver, provides the driver a psychological reassurance that unexpected events of the day can be managed effectively and that worries related to uncertainties can be resolved by instant news conveyed through a phone call. The added sense of security may arise when traveling alone, at night, in poor weather, in a crime- ridden parts of town, in an unfamiliar location, or at any moment when the driver is feeling vulnerable.

The new technology is not something you can roll out to all cars in a flash, and as the cars generally in South Africa are more than 5 years old, new initiatives like black boxes and so on will not hit the South African market anytime soon, and when it does it will only be in the absolute premier cars.

Looking at statistics and key findings from research carried out specifically on the effects of mobile telephoning on driving performance demonstrates the following. Broekhuis, Vries and Waard research results show clearly that subjects who operated the hands free telephone showed better control over the test vehicle than the subjects who operated the handheld telephone, as measured by the steering wheel movements.
http://altmetis.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/root/1991/effects/

Gray & Schunn research on predicting the effects of cellular-phone dialing on driver performance finds that manual dialing results in deviations much greater than any of the other method with an overall pattern of lower deviations for voice dialing. https://www.cs.drexel.edu/~salvucci/publications/Salvucci-CSR02.pdf

The real-world implications of driver performance studies are certain. Drivers may become aware of the risks entailed in using a cellular phone whilst driving, either through their own intuition, through what they learn from family members, friends and the media. There are a range of tools and technology to assist in mounting phones correctly, as well as using handsfree enabled features which are available on a large majority of mobile phones on the market today. 84% of the Mobile Phones offer handsfree dialing, maps, as well voice activation. Only 17% of the cars in South Africa are bluetooth enabled

These results clearly document some detrement in driver performance that is associated with use of a cellular phone while driving. But clearly demonstrates that when correctly mounted and not hand held, driver ability improves. The answer to this question is very clear, that correct mounting and ease of hands free usage results in improvement in overall drivers performance.

Also view:

Avoiding Distractions while Driving

Hands-free Distracted Driving and Road Safety

Find more info on the devices below at www.carmatepro.co.za

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Keeping both your hands on the steering wheel will reduce road crashes

Chasing Anti-Sales: Tesla Steering Potential 2015 Model X Customers Toward Current Model S

“So we will not have any apples for a even though, but how would you like 1 of these lovely oranges?”

That appears to be the line of questioning Tesla is running on clients marching into its stores prepared to drop a $ 5000 deposit on the upcoming (and significantly delayed) Model X electric crossover. With the order cue for the X developing longer by the day—some reports say that a lot more than 20,000 deposits have been placed—Tesla is attempting to get some of its eager potential Model X customers into the Model S sedan.

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk had this to say about the Model X throughout the company’s 2014 Q2 earnings announcement last month: “There are no vehicles available for a test drive. There is no information about the automobiles in our retailers simply because we’re only promoting the S. In fact, if somebody comes in who desires to buy the X, we try to convince them to acquire the S.

“So we anti-sell it. And we do not really give all that a lot info or details about the automobile or give [indiscernible] on when you can get it. Despite all that, there’s huge demand from about the globe for the X.

“We can drive demand up at will,” Musk continued, implying that if he was to release much more details that about the X, demand would grow even higher. “But if we drive it up too significantly, then folks would get upset with us since they waited as well long for their vehicle . . . [W]hen I was visiting in China, the only unhappiness I saw was . . . because customers had been upset about waiting as well extended for their auto. So it is like, boy, we greater not stoke demand in that scenario.”

When reached for comment on the “anti-sales” concept, Tesla didn’t offer much further info about how many deposits are at the moment in the bank for either the X or the S. The firm also didn’t elaborate on exactly how numerous buyers set on a Model X have thrown up their hands and shelled out the $ 70,890 and up for a Model S. Tesla has not announced pricing for the X, but the SUV is extensively expected to be less costly than the S sedan. So for each Model S Tesla pushes on a prospective X client, it ekes more dough that it would with a Model X—and the money’s hitting Tesla’s coffers sooner than early 2015, when the X is to begin hitting customers’ driveways. Speak about driving a challenging (anti-)sell.

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Chasing Anti-Sales: Tesla Steering Potential 2015 Model X Customers Toward Current Model S

Oh Thank Hydraulic! Infiniti Q50S to Get G37-Derived Steering System for 2016

If you, like us, have been disappointed in Infiniti’s aloof Q50 sedan as the ostensible replacement for the sporty G37—which, incidentally, Infiniti still sells as the “Q40″ for 2015—we have good news. The Q50S model is set to get considerably more sporty for 2016, thanks to a retro revision headed where the car needs it most: the steering rack.

You see, the Q50′s base steering setup is an electrically assisted unit. Although some manufacturers have coaxed decent feedback from these systems, making them nearly as talkative as the hydraulically assisted racks we’re always reminiscing about, Infiniti is still chasing that bogey. At least the Q50S’s EPS marks an improvement over Infiniti’s wonky Direct Active Steer (DAS) option, which offers zero road feel and lacks precision. Happily, Infiniti got enthusiasts’ message and is looking to the past to cure its current sins. Speaking with Infiniti’s head of product planning, Keith St. Clair, we’ve learned that the brand is working on ditching the Q50S’s base electric power steering in favor of a rack derived from the G sedan’s heavenly hydraulic-boosted setup.

“Some members of the enthusiast community, including the media, suggested the car could benefit with enhanced steering feel, as in more engagement similar to the former G Sedan Sport,” St. Clair said. He told us development engineers built a prototype from one of its pool cars, with the steering system of an old G, along with some tweaks to the exhaust system to bring the Q50′s sound closer to that of earlier Infinitis.

“The results were very clear and pronounced. The car is a blast to drive,” said St. Clair, who noted that his team subsequently presented the car to the powers that be in Japan. He added that Infiniti is “now looking into the fastest path for adopting these into regular production.”

The revised Q50S is likely to appear sometime in the 2016 model year, St. Clair said, and would be accompanied by amped-up styling and chassis upgrades. It isn’t clear what the proposed changes mean for the Q50S Hybrid or for regular, non-S Q50 models, but needless to say, we can’t wait.

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Oh Thank Hydraulic! Infiniti Q50S to Get G37-Derived Steering System for 2016

2016 Jaguar XE Information: F-type–Derived Suspension, Electric Power Steering, and Much more

Jaguar has set a date for the debut of its all-new BMW 3-series competitor, the 2016 XE, and the company also has released a handful of technical highlights. The XE, which was initial officially confirmed at this year’s Geneva auto show, will greet the planet on September 8, 2014, at a “star-studded event” in London. To give us tech geeks something to chew on in the time just before the reveal, Jaguar detailed the XE’s front and rear suspension styles, steering setup, and new traction-control program. 

When it comes to making the XE a accurate “sports sedan,” it would appear Jaguar is not messing about. The automaker describes the XE’s unequal-length control-arm front suspension as becoming “F-type–derived.” The rear suspension is getting called an “Integral Link” design and style that Jaguar claims is a lot more powerful than a common multilink setup when it comes to longitudinal and lateral stiffness, though it does not specify just how the Integral Link’s benefit is gained. In each the front and rear suspension assemblies, lots of forged- and cast-aluminum pieces are utilized to keep unsprung weight in check.

For the very first time in a Jaguar, steering assist will be handled electrically, no doubt to help maximize fuel economy. The automaker promises that the XE’s electric energy steering will have all of the really feel and character as its generally outstanding hydraulically assisted setups, but we’ll wait to render final judgment till we drive the XE for ourselves. Switching to an electric rack allows Jaguar to link the steering really feel to diverse drive modes—e.g., stiffer for a sport setting, lazier for a comfort mode, and so on.—as properly as enabling integration with a host of unspecified driver-help technologies (probably which includes a lane-maintaining feature).

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Finally, Jaguar has previewed the XE’s new traction-control system, dubbed “All Surface Progress Control,” once again without having going into a lot detail. As Jaguar describes it, All Surface Progress Handle “works like a low-speed cruise control to provide optimum traction in the most slippery situations without having skidding and without the driver making use of the pedals.” It sounds intriguing, but so far all we know is that it will be offered on the rear-drive XE its availability on the anticipated all-wheel-drive XE has not but been specified.

Primarily based on an image of the XE’s chassis technologies released by Jaguar, it would seem as though 3 far more XE-particular info drops are headed our way ahead of the vehicle debuts in September. We wouldn’t be surprised if one particular of the next XE tidbits offers info on its engines. Jaguar not too long ago detailed its new Ingenium family of turbocharged 4-cylinders (1 of which is anticipated to power the XE), and we know the F-type’s supercharged V-6 is headed to the XE’s engine bay, too. We’ll keep you posted as a lot more details becomes offered.

2016 Jaguar XE Information: F-type–Derived Suspension, Electric Power Steering, and Much more