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We’ve become hands free, clearly we have all become cableist, we don’t like cables but unfortunately we have to get power into all these devices that we like to wander around with. So at sometime we have to connect up our mobile phones to a charging device, either a length of cable or more usual a docking station of some sorts. However in our cars Read more »

In 2008 there were 14 million sat navs in use in the UK, by now it is assumed that over half of all cars on the UK roads (30 million) now has a driver with a sat nav. According to psychologist Dr Victoria Bourne, writing in Fleet News, research shows that up to 78% of accidents are caused by distractions. The question is – are sat navs more distracting than a mobile phone? A secondary question is – are sat navs less distracting than a paper map? The reason why the safety experts and police are Read more »

On the subject of health and safety the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL) carried out a study into ‘in car’ distractions and found that reaction times were affected by what we listen to on the radio. It found that reaction times were 20% slower when listening to sport. The reaction times were found to be similar to those found when drivers had been drinking and driving. Whilst plenty of studies had been carried out on mobile phone use whilst driving, few studies had been carried out into the effects Read more »

My gadget of the week is the equivalent to an in car black box. It’s an app that runs on the Android system on mobile phones. It allows you to relive a journey complete with details such as speed, time and location. The Daily Roads Voyager app uses your smartphone’s and built in GPS sensor to record a mixture of photo and video information. You will be able to record and share details of anything you see in your travels but in the event of an accident you will have video evidence and data such Read more »

After all the warnings of sending texts whilst driving it was just a matter of time before ‘tweeting’ came under the spotlight. That warning has been issued following the death of a driver who was found to be tweeting whilst driving. The driver, a US plastic surgeon, was tweeting about his dog whilst driving when he had a fatal accident. Frank Ryan, the driver, was driving his Jeep Wrangler along Pacific Coast Highway in Read more »

This week’s gadget of the week is for those that rely on their mobile phones but have a habit of dashing out without it and realising half way to their destination that they are without their precious phone. The device called a Bringrr links in with the phone through a Bluetooth connection whilst connected to the car’s lighter socket. When you turn on the ignition the Bringrr searches for the phone, if it finds it the Read more »

Mobile phone users who still use their phones whilst driving without a hands free kit are back in the news as conviction figures show another fall. Recently published figures show that convictions in England and Wales were down to 116,000 in 2008/9, down by 5% on the previous year, which in turn was down on the 167,000 convictions in 2006/7 even though the use of a mobile phone whilst driving was introduced as Read more »

Road safety charity Brake carried out a poll to see how much support existed for the dropping of the drink drive alcohol limit from 80mg per 100 ml to 50, in line with most of Europe. Their findings showed a 70% support which has prompted the Government to take action and consider dropping the level which would criminalise the Sunday pint in a country pub according to an article in Auto Express. But they Read more »

There is pressure mounting to introduce a total ban on mobile phones whilst driving. Latest research shows that even drivers using a hands free phone took 20% longer to hit the brakes in an emergency when on the phone. Following distances increased by 30% as drivers failed to keep up with traffic in front and memory performance fell by 11%. The study was carried out by the University of Utah. Road charity, BRAKE Read more »

Mobile phone use, whilst driving, has increased to levels reached before legislation was introduced in 2003, according to observers working for the Department for Transport. I don’t mean hands free I mean using a handheld phone. The observations were made between 2008 and 2009 and show an increase of 27%. The worst offenders are van and lorry drivers. Observations were made at various sites in the south of Read more »