By Art Liggio, President and CEO, Driving Dynamics

Each year Driving Dynamics trains thousands of drivers across North America through its one day, behind-the-wheel advanced safety courses.

During the group discussions our instructors normally ask trainees to ‘raise their hand if they feel they’re above average drivers. Invariably, the vast majority do raise their hands backed up by comments such as: “Well yes, I’m an excellent driver. I haven’t had a ticket since I was a teenager.” “You bet I am, I haven’t had an accident or a fender bender in over 20 years.” Hey. I know everything there is about driving correctly. As a matter of fact, I just taught my kid how to drive.”

These interesting anecdotes go on and on, but do most people actually believe they are above average drivers?

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The Washington Post

Last week, a pair of studies came to seemingly opposite conclusions on whether rising marijuana use is causing an increase in car crashes in states that have legalized the drug.

The first, conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, analyzed insurance claims for vehicle collisions filed between January 2012 and October 2016. The IIHS researchers compared claims in states that had recently legalized marijuana (Colorado, Washington and Oregon) with claims in similar neighboring states that hadn’t.

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Fleet managers, take note: driving is increasingly bad for our health.

By Mark Boada, Senior Editor

It’s Wednesday, 5:30 p.m., rush hour, on a hot day last month in West Goshen, Pennsylvania, a bucolic suburb some 30 miles west of Philadelphia. Bianca Roberson, 18, is driving home from a trip to the mall in a green Chevy Malibu, going 60 mph south-bound on busy, divided state highway Route 100 where the lanes narrow from two to one.

As she approaches the merge point, alongside she sees a red Chevy Silverado pickup driven by 28-year-old Greg Page, competing with her to merge into the single lane. Police say the two are engaged in a high-speed “cat and mouse game” when Page lifts a handgun and fires through his window at Roberson. She’s hit in the head and is probably dead before her car crashes into a wooded area on the side of the road.

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CBS News

Would you pay more for new car options with a proven chance of avoiding accidents? Apparently, most consumers won’t. A recent survey shows that only 8 percent of respondents own cars with automatic emergency braking — the most crucial new safety feature.

That’s leading Nissan to make automatic emergency braking standard, with no extra charge, on the estimated 1 million vehicles it will sell in the U.S. as 2018 models. This will cover seven of the most popular Nissan models: Rogue and Rogue Sport, Altima, Murano, Leaf, Pathfinder, Maxima and Sentra.

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The Detroit News

The emerging “automotive ecosystem” of the future may not be particularly kind to Detroit.

Not because the likes of this town’s automakers aren’t changing. But because they’re not changing fast enough to blunt the competitive onslaught from high-tech Silicon Valley heavyweights loaded with cash and a knack for delivering high returns on invested capital, says a new report from Alix Partners, a global consultancy.

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The Detroit Bureau

Bluetooth? Meh. In-car WiFi? Ancient history. Automakers are just starting to roll out a new wireless technology that could offer motorists a number of advantages.

It’s known as Near Field Communications, or NFC for short, and if you have a relatively recent smartphone you might already know some of its uses. Among other things, NFC is the system used by Apple for its iPhone payment system.

Automakers have been talking about adding the technology for a number of years.

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By: Elise Hardy, Regional Vice President, Material Handling Equipment Sales, Element Fleet Management

Fleet safety – for all asset types – is something every organization strives to improve. Safe use of material handling equipment allows for a more productive warehouse working environment.

In case you missed it National Forklift Safety Day was last month and here are some tips to help you spread the word on material handling equipment safety:

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San Francisco Chronicle

The small white cars topped with what look like stubby metal antennas swarm in and out of an unmarked San Francisco building like bees around a hive.

They’re a daily sight in their South of Market neighborhood, to the point that smartphone-obsessed pedestrians rarely even notice them. Passersby also may not realize that much of the time, the cars are driving themselves.

These cars, equal parts Detroit and Silicon Valley, are the creation of a San Francisco startup, Cruise Automation, and General Motors, which bought Cruise last year for well over half a billion dollars.

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Bloomberg Technology

The world’s biggest oil producers are starting to take electric vehicles seriously as a long-term threat.

OPEC quintupled its forecast for sales of plug-in EVs, and oil producers from Exxon Mobil Corp. to BP Plc also revised up their outlooks in the past year, according to a study by Bloomberg New Energy Finance released on Friday. The London-based researcher expects those cars to reduce oil demand 8 million barrels by 2040, more than the current combined production of Iran and Iraq.

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Wired

In just two weeks, Tesla will start delivery of the Model 3, its long-awaited $35,000 sedan.

After handing over the first 30 sets of keys, Elon Musk will hustle back to the factory, where he hopes to build 20,000 more of the “affordable” electric cars by the end of 2017. Then production really accelerates: Musk has pledged to build 500,000 cars in 2018, more than double the total number of vehicles that Tesla has sold, to date.

Even if Tesla can deliver all those cars, cashing checks is but a tiny part of building an automotive business.

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