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For fleet managers in Europe, as elsewhere, the easy gains in safety performance are over
By Mark Boada, Senior Editor
While Europe’s roads remain among the world’s safest, the latest figures show that the European Union’s goal of cutting traffic fatalities in half by 2020 is at risk of slipping away. Worse, the underlying causes indicate that, as in the United States, traffic fatalities and accidents may be poised for a dramatic increase.
In 2011, the 28-nation European Union, in concert with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, formally adopted the goal of halving the E.U.’s motor vehicle deaths from 31,500 in 2010 to just 15,750 by the end of the decade. Considering that fatalities had been reduced at nearly that rate over the prior 10 years, the goal seemed reachable.
From 54,900 in 2001, over the first decade of the 21st century, E.U. road fatalities declined by 43%, an average of 5.4% year. A number of factors contributed to the trend, including advances in road design and repair, traffic enforcement and automotive safety technology. But it’s apparent now that another factor made a healthy contribution: fewer people on the road due a slower economy.
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Futurism
Electric vehicles have been growing in popularity among fleet operators, and soon, Beijing may find itself earning a reputation as the hub of the electric taxi.
The Chinese city is home to one of the most important taxi fleets in the world, numbering around 70,000, and under a new program for air pollution control that will begin implementation this year, those taxis will be going electric.
According to a report by National Business Daily, the transition to electric cars will cover all new taxis registered in the region.
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The Detroit Bureau
Americans suck down a lot of oil, a large share of it to fuel the 260 million vehicles on U.S. roadways. But demand for gasoline is expected to start declining by 2019, according to a new study.
And the U.S. isn’t unique.
The study by Scottish research firm WoodMackenzie predicts that even with global car sales on track to set new records well into the next decade, global oil demand should also peak as early as 2021.
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The New York Times
How do you create a map showing every road in the United States, with the precise location of every stop sign, all the lane markings, every exit ramp and every traffic light — and update it in real time as traffic is rerouted around construction and accidents?
That’s a challenge that automakers and technology companies are confronting in their race to develop self-driving cars, the kind that someday will let you sit back and read or watch TV on the way to work each morning.
The need for highly detailed, three-dimensional, computerized maps — which pinpoint a car’s location and understand its surroundings — is often overlooked amid all the hype about autonomous vehicles.
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Wired
For all the mishegas about self-driving cars in the sunny, techie Silicon Valley, the future of the automobile may still live in a colder clime. At least, the Wolverine State hasn’t loosened its grip on the future of traffic.
Ann Arbor plays home to the University of Michigan, and with the football games, Kid Rock concerts, and daily commuters comes traffic, and lots of it. On the average weekday, the 125,000-person town swells to hold 200,000 people, most of whom travel in by personal car. The city is exploring buses, commuter rail, and carpool options to clear up its roads, but knows it can’t drive the car out of its home state anytime soon.
So it turned to tech to manage its streets.
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A needs analysis is a crucial step to understanding where users have problems performing a task, and which problems are most aggravating
By Wendy Eichenbaum
You’re at the grocery store walking to your car. It’s drizzling. Your hands are full of groceries. You can’t reach your key or press the button on the trunk that syncs with your key. We’ve all experienced this pain point.
But what is the primary pain point for you? Is it that you have to put the groceries down, often where there is little room and cars are circling for a space? Or is it that the ground is wet and dirty, so now you’ll get the car’s interior dirty? The answer to that question will affect your design need.
You need to understand the root of your customers’ pain before you design a solution. You can find this root by conducting a needs analysis with your target audience.
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Car Connection
Utah may be the first state to lower its drunk-driving threshold below .08 BAC—and for the tl;dr crowd, yes, your state probably is next.
A Utah State Senate committee forwarded a proposal that would lower the state’s threshold for adults from .08 blood alcohol content (BAC) to .05, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
For an average-size male, the difference would be three or fewer drinks in an hour, and for a female it would be two or fewer drinks. For some women, the lower limit could be only one drink.
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