Cameras DO Reduce Crashes

Posted & filed under Auto Safety, Car Insurance.

Despite the fact that many people find them invasive and intrusive, if not illegal, the red light cameras that 14 of the country’s largest cities have installed actually did save 159 lives between 2004 and 2008, says a recently-released study study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. In fact, they say, had such cameras been in operation in all large cities in that time period, up to 815 deaths could have been avoided.

IIHS president Adrian Lund said, “The cities that have the courage to use red light cameras despite the political backlash are saving lives.”

Researchers compared 99 American cities with populations greater than 200,000, looking at the differences between those with red light cameras and those without. They looked specifically at the number of fatal crashes after the introduction of the red light cameras, which required identifying two specific time periods, 1992-1996 and 2004-2008. Cities that had cameras in the earlier period were excluded from the analysis, as were cities that only had cameras for part of the latter one.

The researchers found that in the fourteen cities that had the cameras during the period from 2004 to 2008, the combined per capita rate of fatal crashes caused by people running red lights fell 35 percent as compared with the 1992-1996 period. In the 48 cities that did NOT have camera programs at all, the fatal crash rate also fell, but only by 14 percent. Based on this data, the IIHS researchers determined that the final rate of fatal red-light-running car crashes was 24 percent lower in the camera-using cities than it would have been without the technology in use.

However, the IIHS is quick to point out that because of the cameras, there was also a fourteen percent drop in all fatal crashes at intersections with signals (not just those from running red lights) and a seventeen percent fewer fatal crashes at intersections with signals in the 2004-2008 period than had been expected in the camera cities, while there was a two percent increase in crashes in cities without cameras.

That translates into 159 fewer deaths because of the automated enforcement programs, and shows that the red light cameras have a huge benefit in reducing all types of fatal crashes at intersections, said a representative from the Institute. They believe that this may be due in part to red light running fatalities being underreported when there are no witnesses, as well as the likelihood that drivers are more cautious when they know there are cameras present.

Honey, The Car Says You’re Too Drunk to Drive

Posted & filed under DUI, Technology.

Okay, we all know about basic ignition interlock devices that analyze your breath and determine whether or not your key will function – it’s a device generally used to punish drunk drivers. But new technology currently in an early prototype phase uses automatic sensors to gauge a drivers fitness to drive in an instant, though federal officials and researchers say it could take as long as a decade before it’s in use across the board.

Recently, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood spent time at the Waltham, MA-based R&D facility QinetiQ North America, where he witnessed the first public demonstration of a device that can measure whether or not your blood alcohol content is at (or above) the legal limit of 0.08 and then prevent the vehicle from starting. Unlike existing interlock systems, however, this doesn’t require you to blow into an analysis device. In fact, it’s designed to be fairly unobtrusive.

Instead, the new system, which is known as the Driver Alcohol Detection Systems for Safety (here’s hoping they call it DADSS, and use that as an advertising hook) can also analyze your breath, but it also uses touch-based sensors attached to steering wheels and door locks to determine your level of drunkenness (or not) from your skin. Either way, there are no extra steps required from the driver, and if you’re sober, you don’t have to wait for it to decide to let you drive.

Secretary LaHood referred to the DADSS device as “another arrow in our automotive safety quiver” and emphasized that it was envisioned as a voluntary, optional piece of equipment that auto manufacturers could offer.

Also present at the demonstration was David Strickland, head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, who also estimated that this technology could prevent as 9.000 fatal alcohol-related crashes every year, though he was very aware that it is still in early testing stages, and unlikely to be commercially available for 8-10 years. He stressed that the systems would not be employed until the technology could be proven to be “…seamless, unobtrusive and unfailingly accurate.”

The NHTSA co-funded the initial $10 million research program with the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety, and industry organization that represents many car makers around the world.

The DADSS system is not without its critics, however. The American Beverage Institute’s Sarah Longwell expressed doubts that such a system could ever be completely reliable, and not prevent some completely sober people from taking the wheel. She said, “Even if the technology is 99.9 percent reliable, that’s still tens of thousands of cars that won’t start every day.”

Her organization also disputes that a limit of 0.08 is high enough to stop all drunk drivers, since blood alcohol levels can rise during a trip, depending on how recently it was ingested, and whether or not there was food as well. “It’s going to eliminate the ability of people to have a glass of wine with dinner or a beer at a ball game and then drive home, something that is perfectly safe and currently legal in all 50 states,” Longwell said.

Secretay LaHood, on the other hand, said that the threshold in cars would never be set below the legal limit, and he denies that the system would interfere with “moderate social drinking.”

According to Bud Zaouk, director of transportation safety and security fr QinetiQ, in the demonstration, which took place last Friday, a roughly 120-pound woman in her 20s drank 2 1.5-ounce glasses of vodka and orange juice about half an hour apart, snacking on cheese and crackers between drinks to simulate a typical social setting. She registered a blood alcohol level of 0.06 using both the touch- and breath-based prototypes, making her able to start her car.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving president Laura Dean Mooney was also at the demonstration, and she said this technology could “…turn cars into the cure.”

Mooney, whose husband died in an accident caused by a drunk driver nineteen years ago, didn’t anticipate the DADSS device ever being mandated by the government, but she told the press should could envision it someday being as common as anti-lock brakes or air bags, especially if insurance companies institute incentives for those drivers who use it.

YouTube Tuesday: Who Decides if a Car is Totaled?

Posted & filed under Car Insurance, YouTube Tuesday.

None of us wants to think about our cars being totaled because of an accident, but at some point many of us are going to have to face that issue, when we file a claim. But what if your car isn’t as badly damaged as your insurer think, or you know that you won’t get enough money to replace it if it’s totaled. Who decides what to do?

That’s the subject of this week’s video:

Massachusetts Repair Shop Owner Charged with Insurance Fraud

Posted & filed under Insurance Fraud, insurance news, Massachusetts Car Insurance.

If you’ve been one of the many people concerned about the alarming amount of fraud in the auto insurance industry, you can rest a little bit easier this week, because a man from Massachusetts who was alleged to have collected more than $28,000 in fraudulent insurance claims for repairs done at automotive and glass companies that he owned has been arraigned on charges of fraud and larceny.

According to investigators, Robert Giller of Swampscott, MA, who is the President and Owner of Advanced Automotive Concepts in Peabody, MA, and treasurer of its affiliate, New England Glass Co., was the mastermind behind an arrangement that included faking invoices and other paperwork, then submitting them to insurers in order to receive payment for work that was never actually performed.

The state’s attorney general says that Mr. Giller is facing twenty counts of insurance fraud, eighteen counts of larceny, and two counts of attempted larceny.

Connected Vehicle Technology Challenge

Posted & filed under insurance news, Technology.

There’s a scene in at least one Star Trek movie, and a couple of the episodes of the various series, where the folks on one ship use the command codes of another ship to remotely lower shields, or disengage life support or…whatever. Has anyone ever not wanted that ability with respect to other cars on the road?

Look, we Americans have a transportation system that’s one of the best in the world, but as drivers, we’re a reckless bunch, prone to speeding and not using signals, and even without that we face risks from the environment, the high cost of fuel, and our own use of handheld electronics. But what if the wireless tech we’re all so fond of could make our driving safer, our roads less risky, and our transportation system “greener”?

With DSRC, that may be possible. DSRC, or Dedicated Short-Range Communications, allows vehicles of all kinds, traveling at all speed to communicate with stationary roadside equipment, mobile devices, and each other, and while there are a variety of applications for it, so far most of them have been aimed toward crash avoidance.

That’s where you come in.

The United States Department of Transportation (DOT) has initiated a new program to develop, “new applications, devices, products, business solutions, and a range of services” geared toward improving transportations role in the quality of life, and in safety, and has issued a call-out to the general public to submit ideas.

The invitation, which begins with the tag-line, “When vehicles talk to each other, what should they say?” is known as the Connected Vehicle Technology Challenge. It began on January 24th and is open until May 1st. Here is the information from the website for the challenge:

The Connected Vehicle Technology Challenge (the “Challenge”) is soliciting short descriptions of novel, implementable ideas for products or approaches that utilize DSRC to offer benefits to travelers or society at large. The six best submissions will be awarded a trip to the premier global conference on advanced transportation technology, the 2011 Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) World Congress, to be held in Orlando in October 2011. Awardees will be the guests of honor at a special session of the ITS World Congress. In the session, they will present their winning idea to an audience of ITS experts, business professionals, and potential investors in the development of their concepts.

The challenge is open to EVERYONE, and you don’t have to be tech-savvy; you just have to be imaginative.

For more information, visit the website: Challenge.gov.