Articles in Behind the Wheel
Happy Distracted Driving Awareness Month. Please Pay Attention At the Wheel As Distractions Cost 3,500 Lives Each Year
April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month, a 30-day period that is intended to call attention to how distractions compromise the safety of the driver, passengers, pedestrians, and people in other vehicles.
It’s only the first days of April but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that distracted driving claims approximately 3,500 lives each year.
In recognition of this appalling statistic, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration launched its 2024 campaign to …
The Last Days of What Was Once Boston Chicken. From Humble Beginnings, the Once-Flourishing Boston Market Fast-Casual Chain is Now Mired in Ignominy
Poor Boston Market. The once-great chain of what we now refer to as “fast-casual” restaurants has gone from its humble origins as Boston Chicken followed by a rebranding ten years later to Boston Market, and ultimately an expansion to some 1,200 restaurants.
Now it exists… barely… in ignominy.
What exactly is ignominy in this business? It’s when a franchise business is so desperate to survive that it would move to allow anyone …
New York Auto Show Returns for 2024 Promising an ‘Electrifying Experience’
NEW YORK — The New York International Auto Show returns once again to the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center and electric vehicles and new cars from Korea are commanding the spotlight.
Show organizers are promising an “electrifying” experience to visitors.
“The automotive industry is in the midst of a seismic shift towards electrification, and nowhere is this more evident than at the New York Auto Show’s EV Test Track,” the group that …
Happy Birthday Apple CarPlay. The Innovative System Turns 10 This Year.
In the last century, cars had a radio, an 8-track player, or perhaps a compact cassette tape player, and eventually a CD player. What they did not have, however was infotainment systems.
The idea of “infotainment” in a car is a relatively new concept and its origins can be traced back to the granddaddy of such systems, BMW’s iDrive, which was introduced in the 7 Series in 2001.
Before that, cars had …
Tesla Owners Can’t Unplug Their Charging Plugs in Cold Weather
It’s hard to be a pioneer sometimes… especially in cold weather. Four weeks ago, Tesla left some of its owners quite literally out in the cold when owners of the futuristic electric vehicles found that their batteries had discharged a good amount of their charge.
More than a few Teslas became inoperative while on line for charging and had to be towed, versus a mere jump start from roadside assistance or …
Report: Tesla Full Self-Driving System Was Complicit in 2022 Death of Tesla Employee
The Tesla employee who was killed in 2022 when his Tesla Model 3 went off the road was using Full Self-Driving mode after a day on the links in the Denver, Colorado area, a new investigation shows.
Hans von Ohain, the driver and a Tesla employee, appears to be the first known fatality using what involves and possibly implicates Tesla’s highest level of driver-assistance technology.
The automaker offers three levels of …
No Jokes, No Puns as Federal Officials Attempt to Arrest Humor in Highway Signs: Why Dynamic Message Signs Confuse Many Drivers and Increase the Number of Accidents
State and local highway officials in the United States love using quirky humor, puns, jokes, and double entendres in what are officially called variable message signs, the digital signs drivers see warning of an accident ahead or road closure. The Feds, not so much.
Federal officials recently updated the not-very-often-updated Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (the last version of the manual was the 2009 edition although there were updates in …
