The Driving Dynamics Safety Team

One-third of all crashes involving two or more vehicles, almost two million annually, are rear-end collisions.

More than 85 percent are caused by a combination of insufficient following distance and driver inattention.

When you’re driving, the one space you can completely control is the distance from your vehicle to the vehicle in front of you. This distance is known as your safety zone. It can give you a One Second Advantage™, not only in reacting to situations that arise in front of you, but around and behind you. Awareness of the vehicles in front of you and those behind you is critical in managing your safety zone to prevent rear-end collisions.

A safety zone of at least two seconds is recommended during normal conditions. Inclement weather, traffic conditions, and personal preferences could all require the safety zone to be larger.

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Runzheimer recently released its 11th Annual Workforce Mobility Benchmark Report.

The report assesses the growing need for organizations across multiple industries to support accurate and automated reporting for business vehicle policies and mobile mileage logs through mobile technology.

Here are some of the key findings from Runzheimer on the increasing importance of mobile technology within reimbursement programs:

•Nearly half of companies identify the elimination of manual and paper-based processes as a top business pressure for managing expenses
•Mobile technology creates an 84 percent reduction in employee administrative burden for mileage reporting
•A company with $3 million in reimbursements can save $525,000 per year by using mileage capture technology

Click here to read the report

By Wendy Eichenbaum

Remember the last time you participated in a product brainstorming session.

You sat with your colleagues in a meeting room, and came up with as many ideas as possible. At the end, everyone organized the ideas into logical groups. The moderator recorded all of the ideas. You went off to your next meeting.

A few months later you heard about the new features for the product. But these were the same ideas that management had discussed all year. What happened to all of those innovative ideas you came up with during the brainstorm?

Brainstorming is a spontaneous method to compile ideas. It allows team members to consider new and better ways to delight the customers. But too often, the effort ends there. Exciting ideas are forgotten in meeting notes. Team members never see their own ideas considered. They feel no sense of ownership, and lose interest in participating. Brainstorming it a great generation tool, but alone it’s not sufficient to generate new designs.

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Consumer Affairs

Researchers say young drivers turn aggressive when angered on the road.

If you’ve ever found yourself stuck in heavy city traffic or on a congested highway, then you may be all too familiar with how aggressive some drivers can be.

But a new study shows that being aggressive behind the wheel comes at a cost.

Lead author David Herrero, a lecturer at the University of the Basque Country, says that risky and aggressive driving behaviors result in more accidents. In fact, even aggressive thoughts while driving can have their drawbacks.

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NHTSA

You’ve likely heard about automated or “self-driving” vehicles. There’s a lot of talk about how they’ll be safer, more convenient, and change how we get around.

But what’s the reality?

The Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are working to support the development of automated vehicle safety technologies because of their potential to save lives.

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The Detroit Bureau

Ubiquitousness of cell phones drives possibility.

Everyone has scrambled around the house, searching for keys sat down in some place not remembered. BMW is considering making that harried episode a part of our past by eliminating keys for its vehicles in the future.

The Bavarian automaker may convert the key function to an app that can be loaded onto one’s cell phone since everyone has a cell phone, noted Ian Robertson, the company’s board member responsible for sales.

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The New York Times

Cars should run on gasoline for a little while longer.

So argued Mary Barra, the chief executive of General Motors, who on Friday cautioned against the growing trend of officials in China and a number of other countries making plans to phase out sales of gasoline- and diesel-powered cars.

Speaking in Shanghai on Friday, Ms. Barra said her company was making a big push to develop electric cars but that consumers, not government dictates, should decide how cars are powered.

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The Drive

Let’s get it out of the way—texting and driving is bad.

So bad, in fact, that a new startup is encouraging those on the road around you to pick up their phones, assuming they’re a passenger, and submit a short video clip of your wrongdoings to it for cash.

Text to Ticket is a newer startup based out of San Francisco, California. It was formed when a group of friends were crossing the street and were nearly hit by a car who was distracted by their phone and nearly ended their life.

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Forbes

New-car safety remains a prime shopping consideration among new vehicle buyers.

Nobody wants to drive a death trap, and to be sure, today’s cars are safer than ever, with many offering the latest high-tech accident avoidance features to add yet another layer of protection.

The most significant of these latter-day active safety features is forward-collision mitigation.

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The Guardian

In early August, residents of Arlington, Virginia, spotted an unmarked silver Ford Transit van cruising around town without a human behind the wheel.

Local news publication ARLnow caught the ghostly vehicle on camera and speculated that it was part of Virginia Tech’s autonomous driving research.

A couple of days later, NBC reporter Adam Tuss approached the vehicle on foot and peered inside, only to see hands poking out from the driver’s seat holding the steering wheel.

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