While Senators Clinton and Sununu are focusing on
making rearview cameras standard in all cars, a growing number of parents are putting cameras inside their autos—to keep an unblinking eye on their teens’ driving habits.
The Wall Street Journal reports that American Family Mutual Insurance is helping the movement along. Beginning today, the nation’s tenth-largest auto insurer is embarking on a test program with some of its customers to outfit their vehicles with DriveCam, a system that records driver movements on video and records footage of the road ahead when it senses rapid braking or acceleration.
The company says it aims to better driving skills of teens, who are responsible for large numbers of accidents each year. The
Journal adds that the chief cause of death among some teen age groups is in car accidents.
American Family will let customers in Indiana, Minnesota and Wisconsin request the system. Those accepted to the program will get the hardware free of charge. Parents will get data on how their kids are driving on a regular basis. The system is already in use in commercial applications.
Initial studies suggest the worst drivers monitored by the system experienced a 72-percent drop in safety-related events, the paper notes.
"It's going to make the kids safer drivers," Jack Salzwedel, president of American Family, told the
Journal.
Is a Candid Camera The Key to Safer Teenage Drivers?—
The Wall Street Journal
Posted in : 2007, Car Publications, Shoppers, Technology
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The convoluted saga of Britain’s TVR sportscars has taken another U-turn, as Russian owner Nikolai Smolenski says he will sell off the company to a pair of Florida-based investors.
Last week, it was revealed that Smolenski, who had lost control of TVR at the end of last year, sending the company into receivership, had won bidding to take over the assets of the sportscar maker.
Today, business partners Adam Burdette and Jean Michel Santacreu have emerged as the saviors for the brand. The pair had bid 18 months ago to import the cars into the U.S. Autocar reports that the pair will be the new faces of management at the Blackpool, U.K.-based company.
The pair has bigger plans for the company than Smolenski was able to enact. The magazine reports the new owners would like to sell 5000 cars a year, 2000 of them in the U.S. Only a few hundred would be sold in the U.S., and none would be built in Britain – the new cars would be engineered in England but built by Bertone in Italy.
The revived TVR, minus Smolenski, hopes to be back in the car business in three months with a pair of models based on the Sagaris and Tuscan, its last offerings.
Smolenski's out. Again -
Autocar
Posted in : 2007, Enthusiasts, Europe, Exotics, Sportscars
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If it weren’t for Paris Hilton we’d have to be reporting on poor old Anna Nicole Smith (pneumonia, you’ve heard?). Hilton has brushed with the law again, this time cited for driving with a suspended license.
Hilton, the AP reports, was stopped on Tuesday for driving without headlights on, at which point the police realized her license had been suspended. Hilton was behind the wheel of her Bentley Continental GTC on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, on her way home from buying DVDs at the Virgin Megastore, her publicist told the AP.
No court date was set for the 26-year-old. In January, Hilton plead out to charges of alcohol-related reckless driving from a September incident in which she was reported to be weaving erratically on the road.
Paris Hilton caught driving on suspended license—CNN.com
Posted in : 2007, Bentley, Celebrities, Driving
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Winding Road says the Honda Civic Type R is coming to the U.S.
Driving other Hondas on a backgrounder event, the online magazine’s man in Japan got lots of “heavy hints” that the 220-horsepower hot Civic would cross the Pacific in 2010.
The U.S. version would likely be a four-door, the magazine says. And a limited-slip differential would be standard, to keep the Type R’s power moving to the wheels efficiently. An illustration on the site shows their interpretation of how it might look.
Winding Road speculates the four-door would be an easier body style to sell, given that the Civic hatchback sold in Europe (like the Type R above) wasn’t developed with the U.S. safety regs in mind.
Read more
Posted in : 2007, Asia, Cars We Love, Coupes, Enthusiasts, Hatchbacks, Honda, Japan, Racing/Motorsports, Sedans, Shoppers
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GM’s Swedish arm Saab is
celebrating 60 years of car-making this summer. The first vehicle, the “Ur-Saab” (pictured), was revealed to the automotive world on June 10, 1947 in a staff canteen at the aircraft company’s Linköping headquarters.
To mark
the start of the celebrations Saab has published a list of 60 things you didn’t know about the premium brand. Here’s our pick of them…
* Saab once considered going into boat-building instead of cars. In 1944, as war was drawing to a close, the aircraft maker was looking to diversify into other products during peacetime. A number of aluminum-hulled boats, including some with hydrofoils in the bows, were built. In the end automobiles were considered a better bet.
* It was back pain suffered by a senior Saab executive that prompted the development of the heated driver’s seat, an innovation from Saab in 1971. The pain was particularly bad on cold, frosty mornings and a colleague devised a means of heating the driver’s seat to minimize the discomfort.
* Rather like the first Model T Ford, you could have an early Saab 92 in any color you liked – as long as it was bottle green. The paint was readily available in surplus army supplies left over from the war. Saab did not offer a color choice until 1952.
* Jack Nicholson (
As Good As It Gets), Matt Damon (
The Bourne Supremacy), Richard Gere (
Final Analysis), Paul Giamatti (
Sideways), Jerry Seinfeld (
Seinfeld) and Reese Witherspoon (
Sweet Home Alabama) have all appeared in a Saab Convertible on screen
.--Richard Yarrow
Posted in : 2007, Classics, Coupes, Europe, Saab, Shoppers
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Marty Padgett February 28th, 2007
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