Safety

LAS VEGAS--Garmin, a company best known for its Nuvi line of GPS navigators, is getting into the GPS tracking business with the announcement of the GTU 10 locator, which allows users to keep track of the GPS position of persons and property over the Web.

In theory, the GTU 10 should be easy to use. Simply register the device on My.Garmin.com and attach it to something that needs tracking--clip the unit to a family pet's collar, toss it in your backpack, hardwire it to your car, or duct-tape it a baby. The unit features a built-in rechargeable … Read more

For an unlucky few, a severe accident will indeed be a learning experience. And the Audi Accident Research Unit puts these lessons to good use.

Audi's team of researchers recreates and deconstructs accident events, taking more than 400 photographs of the vehicle and logging approximately 1,300 technical details in its database to improve safety systems. The carmaker has formed a partnership with the AO Foundation, and Audi's accident database will now be available to the organization's global association of orthopedic surgeons.

The partnership will be a new link in the accident research chain. A case isn'… Read more

OEM car stereos and in-dash navigation systems typically deter would-be thieves, because these units usually only work in the vehicle in which they ship. A thief would have a harder time selling, for example, a stolen Honda Civic stereo to anyone other than other Honda Civic owners who likely already have Civic stereos! However, in the European market, the popularity of Volkswagen vehicles combined with the modular nature of the manufacturer's infotainment systems makes VW's optional RNS 310 and RNS 510 navigation units prime targets for getting nicked. In reaction to a rash of thefts, VW has come … Read more

Police speed-trap and road hazard reporting service Trapster was purchased by map and traffic data provider Navteq earlier this week.

Trapster is a cross-platform mobile app for iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry devices, as well as a Web service providing data to other smartphones and standalone GPS devices. While driving, users submit the GPS locations of spotted police speed traps, road checks, red-light cameras, and other roadway hazards using the app's interface and receive live updates on the 3.5 million traps reported by the service's 9.5 million users, potentially avoiding unnecessary speeding tickets. Garmin and TomTom users … Read more

It only takes a village to raise a child, but it apparently it take the Twitterverse to find a stolen car. This month, the Seattle police department became one of the newest Twitter users and will use @GetYourCarBack as a way to find stolen vehicles.

Consider it a poor man's lo-jack or an Amber alert for newly jacked cars. When the Seattle police get a report of a stolen vehicle, they will report on Twitter the year, make, model and color of the missing car with instructions to the public to call 911 if they spot the vehicle. The … Read more

The less you drive, the less likely you are to get into car accidents--at least that's how insurance companies look at it. To better align drivers' automobile insurance rates with risk, State Farm is offering its California customers discounts based on their odometer readings.

The insurance giant created Drive Safe & Save (DSS), a new voluntary program for California customers that adjusts future policy rates based on the previous six months of driving. Prior to the program, the insurance company rated drivers as either a low- or high-mileage driver, with the cutoff point at 7,500 miles per year. … Read more

The Lexus LFA, which is available this month, will feature new inflatable seat belt technology.

The Takata "Airbelt," or SRS Seat Belt Airbag, is built into the webbing of the seat belt. It's designed to protect drivers and front-seat passengers in front- or side-impact collisions.

From the looks of it, and a description of how it works, the airbag will fill up with air on impact. It looks strikingly similar to the inflatable rear seat belts revealed last summer from Ford for the 2011 Ford Explorer.

The belt expands directly to spread the shock-load over a wider … Read more

Expertly piloting a car around a race track is a hair-raising experience requiring a good deal of skill on the part of the driver. However, even without the skill in place, most licensed drivers could at least make it around the track in a production car (however slowly) without making a total mess of things. But could you do it while blindfolded? New Zealander and racing driver Jonny Reid could and did in this latest promotional video for the 2011 Volvo S60.

Reid's lap around Hampton Downs Raceway in Auckland, New Zealand, was apparently done without the aid of … Read more

We've all been there. You're enjoying a nice drive with your favorite tune pumping on the stereo, when you look down and realize that you're going 90 mph in a 65 mph zone. Sometimes the music carries you away like that. A new app by OVK called Slow Down for iOS devices aims to use your music in the opposite way to help keep your speed in check.

After installing, users can select the music playlist to which they want to listen from within the app. After manually choosing the speed limit for the road being driven, … Read more