The next wave of challanges facing the professional
transportation drivers.
Tucson Sentinel
By Myron Levin
Spetember 22, 2011
Saying it is "passionate" about the safety of young drivers, Ford Motor Co. is sponsoring clinics at U.S. high schools to urge teens to heed traffic laws and avoid distractions behind the wheel. The auto giant, as part of its "Driving Skills for Life" program, also recently awarded $25,000 to students who created the best music video about the hazards of distracted driving.
Likewise, BMW has launched 'Don't Text and Drive,' a series of ads to dramatize the risks of distracted driving. And the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, an industry trade group, is teaming with the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons in a similar campaign.
Through efforts like these, automakers are positioning themselves as leaders in the fight against distracted driving, which federal authorities estimate caused 5,474 deaths in 2009, including 995 from using cellphones.
But even as they tell drivers to act responsibly and pay attention to the road, the companies are seeking to pump up sales by packing their new models with cutting-edge infotainmentsystems that encourage multi-tasking behind the wheel.
Ford's SYNC system, for example, enables drivers to use voice commands and touch screens to make and receive calls, listen to their text messages, and choose from a menu of replies.
BMW's ConnectedDrive provides calling, e-mail and text read-backs, and displays headlines of the messages on a screen.
General Motors strutted its stuffwith a Super Bowl ad of a young Chevy Cruze owner whose face lights up as he drives away and plays back the Facebook message: "Best first date ever…''
Auto executives are counting heavily on arresting, high-tech features to boost sales, especially to younger buyers.David Mondragon, president of Ford Canada, put it bluntly: "The biggest turnoff to a twentysomething consumer is to put their life on hold when they sit in a car," he said in a speech to the Canadian Marketing Assn., according to an account in The Globe and Mail.
Dear Twentysomething Consumer...
This is Your Life On Hold or Sadly,
Some 6 Year Old's Life on Hold
"And what does it mean to put their life on hold? To get disconnected when they get in the car, to have a system that will not allow you to sit there and e-mail, read your BlackBerry, talk on the phone. So you have to have a seamless transition from your home to your transportation device, to your workspace. Or to your play space." (Mondragon, through a spokeswoman, declined to be interviewed.)
Safety officials are worried about the trend. "I'm not in the business of helping people Tweet better," groused David Strickland, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, or NHTSA, in a speech at a national conference in June.
Critics say that in highlighting distracted driving, automakers are hoping to inoculate themselves against tough scrutiny of their built-in systems. "The best defense is a good offense," said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety in Washington, D.C. "One has to watch what auto companies do, versus what they say. While they say distracted driving is unsafe, they are making hundreds of millions of dollars by selling distracted driving technology." Continue Reading
Vigilant Transport's Recommended
Distraction Free Dashboard
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