Archive for the ‘Driving’ Category

A couple of months ago, John Voelcker reported on a futuristic, self-driving vehicle dreamed up by Google's industrial designers. That sort of personalized, automated transport may seem fairly sci-fi, but it's not as far off as you might think. For proof, look no further than the Pronto4 System, which allows nearly any car to drive itself, based on data input by the owner or acquired by GPS. No, it's not quite as much fun as having a remote-controlled car, but it'd be great for people who consider driving a distraction from more important things -- like texting. [BoingBoing]

At a meeting on auto safety organized by the U.S. Transportation Department, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood this morning reported on the dangers of distracted driving. His figures were grim: last year, almost 6,000 traffic fatalities and 515,000 injuries were linked to driver distraction.

The goal of the two-day "distracted driving summit" is for the assembled experts to draw up a list of recommendations that can be presented to Congress. Ultimately, LaHood hopes to see those recommendations implemented in legislation to restrict drivers' ability to talk on cell phones or text-message behind the wheel. LaHood has compared the meeting...

The anti-car movement insists that automobiles have made us fat and lazy -- and there's some truth to that. However, a new study in the Journal of Urban Health shows that being carless doesn't always mean being healthier. Of the 2,156 individuals studied, car owners weighed about 8.5 pounds more than their carless colleagues -- the exception being when carless people lived in neighborhoods full of fast food restaurants. In those cases, not having a car meant about 2.7 pounds more body weight. So, lesson of the day: not having a car is fine until you start walking to Mickey D's instead of the gym. [JUH via Autoblog]