Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Is All Mobile Technology in the Car Dangerous?

Luxury carmaker BMW is launching a nationwide campaign to build awareness about the hazards associated with driver distraction, and especially the dangers of texting while behind the wheel.

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You're likely to see BMW's public-awareness commercial or online and print ads sometime this year. The TV spot is particularly frightening, as it effectively shows how children are all too often innocent victims of careless and negligent drivers who text while driving.

BMW's campaign follows a meeting held in December between BMW of North America CEO Jim O'Donnell and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who has been consulting with automotive representatives to discuss initiatives carmakers can take to help prevent distracted driving.

O'Donnell has also applauded BMW's safety campaign. "With this initiative, launched just in time for the summer driving season, BMW has really stepped up to the plate," O'Donnell wrote on this blog earlier this month.

But what is left unsaid in the media campaign is that along with most of the world's carmakers, BMW wants to make mobile tech available to drivers.

Automakers also generally contend that hands-free applications are relatively safe. The consensus is that using your hands to write and send a text message is dangerous, but a hands-free solution is okay.

"We proactively offer technology in a safe way and one example of how we do that is by offering technology that allows people to keep their hands on the wheel while staying focused on the road," a BMW spokeswoman told PCWorld. "People want to be connected, so we are allowing drivers to be connected in a safe manner."

BMW's voice-to-text e-mail technology complements options that BMW already offers. With BMW's ConnectedDrive, for example, you can connect your Blackberry to the dashboard console with a Bluetooth connection and the audio system reads e-mail or text messages out loud as you drive. When the car is not in motion, it is possible to read the full texts of the emails from a Blackberry inbox on the car's dashboard screen.

However, there has been an outcry among consumer groups and government organizations that claim hands-free car tech is not safe, despite carmakers' claims

Despite his accolades for BMW's safety campaign, O'Donnell has long maintained in his blog that even hands-free calling is just as dangerous as holding your cell phone to your ear while talking and driving. He recently told the Wall Street Journal that "there's absolutely no reason for any person to download their Facebook into the car."

However, safety experts generally agree that more studies are required to prove conclusively whether hand-free "infotainment" and communications technology for drivers is safe or not. The potential benefits are considerable--being able to use office apps in your car while driving can be a tremendous productivity booster, especially for drivers who have long commutes to make every day in their cars.

Bluetooth headsets can reduce the dangers of distracted driving.But what remains abundantly clear is that texting and talking while holding a phone to your ear is extremely dangerous while driving. Indeed, U.S. Department of Transportation statistics show nearly 5500 people died in crashes involving distracted drivers in 2009, although the study did not indicate to what extent cell phone use and texting were the cause. Still, for whatever reason, many states have yet to ban either activity in the United States. By contrast, Western Europe has long since outlawed non-hands-free cell phone use and texting while driving.

In the best-case scenario, the United States would legislate a nationwide ban on texting and handheld cell phone use while driving. And , I hope, it will stiffen penalties by imposing mandatory jail sentences on those who needlessly endanger the lives of others by engaging in these activities. Meanwhile, I still hold much faith in technology and believe that automakers just might be able to develop very useful in-car tech that is also safe to use.

Bruce covers tech trends in the United States and Europe and can be reached through his Website at www.brucegain.com.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Here is a link to a TruTV story about a wife who hired an impersonator to replace her dead husband, whose body she had hidden in a rather gruesome way

Here is a link to a TruTV story about a wife who hired an impersonator to replace her dead husband, whose body she had hidden in a rather gruesome way: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/criminal_mind/scams/waltraud-gruseck/small-village-sensationalistic-crime.html

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Who Can Afford the Vendée Globe Around-The-World Solo Race?

Photo: Valérie Reynaud

Who Can Afford the Vendée Globe?

by Bruce Gain

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to attend a small community event in Les Sables-d'Olonne, a resort town on France’s West Coast that hosts the start and finish of the Vendee Globe. There, Luc Van Den Heede, who placed third in the first Vendée Globe in 1989 and then second in 1993, and up-and-comer Arnaud Boissières, who placed seventh in the last race, were on hand to speak to a crowd of just a hundred or so at the local community center about their adventures.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Despite spy-claim fiasco, Ghosn maintains his hero poise

Link to the article in Automotive News Europe: http://www.autonews.com/article/20110504/BLOG15/304309979/1503

Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn emerged largely unscathed from the company's annual shareholders meeting after portraying himself as the victim of the the spy-claim fiasco that has rocked the French carmaker.

Shareholders expressed much less anger than expected at the meeting and Ghosn made a strong case that the company has done everything needed to put the affair behind it.

A poised Ghosn conveyed that he is not only still fully in control, but he has also saved Renault from a major crisis. He told shareholders at the meeting on Friday that he and Renault had responded "courageously and responsibly" by accepting the consequences of the affair, including compensating wrongfully dismissed executives and accepting the recommendations of an audit committee that proposed sweeping changes in Renault's checks-and-balances structure.

Shareholders applauded when one of their number asked why Ghosn did not quit because of the affair, like his No. 2 Patrick Pelata, who resigned as chief operating officer and will move to a lesser role within the Renault-Nissan alliance.

Ghosn deftly referred the query to Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière, chairman of the carmaker's appointments and governance committee, who said that the committee unanimously agreed that it would not be in the company's interest to ask for Ghosn's resignation.

The consensus among several shareholders with whom I spoke at the meeting was that executives who ranked below Ghosn were responsible for the spy debacle and that Ghosn was too far removed to share blame.

Stephen Norman, Renault's head of marketing , told the meeting that surveys carried out since the spy scandal broke in mid January showed that the affair has not affected Renault's image as a carmaker in France or abroad. However, Norman said those surveyed were split 50-50 on whether it had had a negative effect on Renault's corporate image. Still, the results suggest that Renault's brand image new car sales will not be hit by the scandal.

But Ghosn has more than just his image as a competent CEO to worry about — his legacy-status as an industry hero is also at stake. Ghosn is seen as having orchestrated the rescue of Japan's Nissan from bankruptcy in the late 1990s.

Ghosn has other challenges to worry about now. He must contend with the public outcry in France that Renault continues to boost its investments in production and new jobs outside of France at the expense of French jobs. The company also is faced with the monumental task of establishing the presence of Renault-brand cars in China and whether its huge bet on becoming a leader in electric cars will pay off.

Renault has an image problem, especially outside of France and particularly with reliability issues. It is also often seen as the French-equivalent of a large welfare project that could not run on its own without government aid (the French government has a 15 percent stake in Renault).

If Ghosn could somehow engineer a way for Renault to overcome the obstacles it faces, he would be a hero indeed.

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