Who’s the better driver - Housewife or doctors?

After reviewing of more than 1 million accident, speeding and moving-violation records across the country, the San Francisco-based Quality Planning Corp. (an insurance research firm), has come up with the list which ranked 40 occupations by the number of accidents per 1,000 insured drivers in the 12-month period studied:

Top 5 occupations-

1. Student

2. Medical doctor

3. Attorney

4. Architect

5.Real estate agent

Bottom 5 occupations-

36. Homemaker

37. Politician

38. Pilot

39. Firefighter

40. Farmer

This is very interesting list, to say the least.

That students are by far the most accident-prone shouldn't come as a shock to anyone. Young driver lack driving experience and underestimation of their own mortality typically make them poorer-than-average drivers.

We also can understand real estate agents being on the list, given the 30,000 to 40,000 miles a year they drive on average. More miles mean more opportunities to crunch or be crunched.

But what about doctors, lawyers and architects ? Aren't those highly educated professionals are less likely to be risky drivers? Researcher from Quality Planning Corp. speculate that this may be becasue they are too confident (or arrogant) to take risks, or lack of attention while driving, due to workloads, or simply weak physical coordination because of fatigue.

Car-navigation systems distract drivers

Here is an old news, but worth repeating - a survey shows car-navigation systems distract drivers from the road. Of nearly 2,000 people surveyed, 17 percent of drivers who used a map lost concentration, compared to 19 percent of those who used a nav system. Most nav-system drivers who neglected to program their routes "admitted they had then had to take their eyes off the road to input the details whilst driving," and "Nearly one in eight [drivers] did not even bother to check out a route they were unfamiliar with and simply relied on the technology to get them to their destination."

May bicycle helmets actually hurt cyclist ?

May bicycle helmets actually hurt cyclist ?

Here is an interesting study - a traffic psychologist rode a sensor-equipped bike around Britain, and when he wore a helmet, cars passed more than three inches closer, on average, than when he didn't. He was also hit by two vehicles while wearing the helmet. Psychologist's theory: wearing a helmet makes you look like you know what you're doing, so drivers assume you can operate in tighter space.

When the traffic psychologist dressed as a woman, drivers gave him more than five inches of extra space.
Overall, here is the Psychologist's interpretation - helmets protect you in a low-speed tumble but may backfire in serious car traffic.

Motorists be aware.

Poor Sleep Quality Common Among Commercial Truck Drivers

Starting today, try to steer clear of that tailgating truck driver speeding down the interstate. He may be falling asleep.
ased on a recent study, nearly 1 out of 5 truck drivers may be at risk for driving impairment because of poor sleep quality, more than 13% of commercial truck drivers averaged less than five hours of sleep per night, and nearly 5% suffered from severe sleep apnea.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board and other organizations that monitor traffic safety, fatigue is an "important factor" in serious crashes involving commercial vehicles, which kill about 5,600 Americans annually.

DSRC cars - cars that can't crash

Can we develop cars that can predict a coming collision and take action to stop it ?
The key to the crash-free future is vehicle-to-vehicle communication, or as some experts called it - V2V. It is not hard to imagine that in the near future, sophisticated GPS will soon allow you to pinpoint your vehicle's precise location at any given moment, and stability-control systems that track your car's speed and direction are even now feeding such information to onboard computers.
Here come the DSRC cars - cars equipped with Dedicated Short-Range Communications (DSRC) devices which can receive those traffic location data and take action on it. The Federal Communications Commission has recently cleared the 5.9-gigahertz band dedicated DSRC usage among cars, other cars, and roadside transceivers. This DSRC approach is better than some other initiatives, such as the car distance control systems.
The primary remaining challenge is finding the means to communicate right data to the right car at the right time, not only to 2 or 4 cars, but to hundreds of cars in some areas.
Here are two good stories on this front -
(1) Volkswagen's Electronics Research Laboratory recently fitted two Jettas and two Audi A3s with DSRC units and used V2V to successfully run them, platoon-style, through San Francisco.
(2) General Motors has gone one better than VW with a demonstration DSRC-equipped Cadillac CTS that stops itself to avoid accidents. Its enhanced stability-control system predicts where it's headed—like, into the rear end of another DSRC car stopped in the middle of the road—and prompts the onboard computer to apply the brakes without any input from the driver. The effect is very cool. It's also a little spooky, and many doubt that live-free-or-die Americans will ever sign off on fully autonomous vehicles.

Finally, we can drive cars that can't kill !