If you have a teenager who is just beginning the process of getting a driver’s license, you are probably looking for whatever help you can get for him or her. The folks at the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety have created a program aimed at teen drivers that might help. It’s called Driver-ZED, and it attempts to develop reaction and forethought skills. Instead of taking the teen out on the road or to a parking lot, this program uses an interactive DVD.
That way mistakes don’t cost so much. The program is $24.95 plus shipping, and you can get more information at www.driverzed.org.
I found the program’s graphics a little dated and was surprised to see that the tachometer on the computer-vehicle’s dashboard indicated RPH instead of RPM.
Nevertheless, a 17-year-old first-year driver that I had run the program thought it was “cool.”
Legislators in Hawaii have passed a bill that prohibits riders from using cell phones that use those annoying walkie-talkie features or that ring instead of vibrate. The bill does not prohibit people from talking on phones but rather mandates that they be silenced. The rationale is that the sudden ring tones with everything from dogs barking to a clip from the latest hip-hop song to a sudden piercing tone are a distraction to the drivers of the buses there and create a hazard.
It’s kind of like the existing rules against using radios without headphones. I think it sounds like a good idea on the buses. Personally I’d like to see those walkie-talkie phones banned on general principles just because they are annoying.
If you have OnStar in a vehicle made before 2002, you might find that the system doesn’t work this time next year. Many of the nation’s cell phone companies are getting rid of the analog systems that are currently used by pre-2002 OnStar systems. Systems made between 2002 and 2004 might be upgradable, although it could cost you the better part of $200 a year to make the switch. Most OnStar systems made after 2004 will not be affected.
Yet another state is considering ways to raise revenues other than by using the tax on gasoline. Legislators in Tennessee are looking into creating a “user fee” that would use global positioning satellite information to determine how many miles you have driven andcharge you accordingly. It’s an idea being considered in other parts of the country as well.
The problem is that states are finding that the gas tax isn’t raising enough money to pay for transportation needs. Cars are getting more miles per gallon and higher gas prices are leading more people to drive less and this leads to a real dilemma for transportation departments trying to deal with aging infrastructures. I expect this idea to gain wider acceptance in the years ahead.
