Study: Drivers who text 23 times more likely to be in a crash

It isn't exactly breaking news that texting while driving is a bad idea. But a study released Monday night reveals just how dangerous it really can be.

After examining the behavior of truck drivers covering more than 6 million miles of road, the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute concluded that people who send text messages while driving are 23 times more likely to be in a crash (or what they call a near-crash event) than non-distracted drivers.

To conduct the study, researchers mounted cameras inside drivers' vehicles. They studied where drivers' eyes were looking as they did various things, such as texting, dialing a cell phone, talking on a phone, and reaching for an object. Not surprisingly, the numbers (PDF) showed that the tasks that took people's eyes off the road caused the greatest amount of danger.

In crashes or near-crashes, texting took a driver's focus away from the road for an average of 4.6 seconds--enough time, the report point out, to travel the length of a football field at 55mph (88.5kmh).
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The non-transforming Transformers Camaro

Capitalizing on the new Transformers film, GM has announced a Transformers Edition Camaro to coincide with this year's San Diego Comic-Con. As an appearance package that can be added to the Camaro LT or SS model, the Transformers Edition kit adds black rally stripes, Transformers logo door sills, and Autobot badges on the front fenders, wheel center caps, and stitched into the leather of the center console. The kit doesn't interfere with the RS package accessories.

The idea is that owners can pretend to be Shia LaBeouf by riding around in Bumblebee from the Transformers movies while shouting: "No! No! N-no!" But as an admitted Transformers addict, I see a few inaccuracies. Prepare for Transformers-nerd rant in 5, 4, 3...
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Vizualogic lets you DIY DVD players in your headrests

Adding rear-seat entertainment to a car used to involve cutting up your headliner or gutting the headrests to make room for an LCD display or two, but not anymore. The Vizualogic Road Trip Universal Dual Headrest DVD System is a kit that ships with a pair of touchscreen LCD monitors preinstalled in a set of replacement adjustable headrests. The system is self-contained and includes a DVD player hidden behind one of the monitors and an SD card slot for digital media playback.
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Meet Flossie, a headless motorcycle-riding robot

Flossie is one tough biker dude. He can ride in extreme temperatures. He doesn't get tired or saddle sore, and he is totally unflapped by the bike's searing noise as its engine screams away at speeds up to 16,000rpm. Yep, Flossie could pretty much leave any motorcycle gang in the dust.

Castrol, a maker of motorbike engine oils, is leaning on this headless robot rider to test its products' performance under conditions like increased power or acceleration. Flossie can be fitted onto any bike or scooter and comes equipped with a self-learning mode that lets him know the vehicle's gear change pattern, clutch feel, and throttle response.
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Parajet Skycar: Preorder now

To the doubting Thomases who said flying cars are a pipe dream, the yoke's on you. The British-developed Parajet Skycar has undergone a funky redesign and is now available for preorder with a tentative release date of 2010. That's right, friends, the future is late next year!

We're probably getting ahead of ourselves a bit here--people have been promising flying cars since the Jetsons. But an early Skycar prototype was flown 9,656km from London to Timbuktu by an team led by former British army officer Neil Laughton, so there's a higher chance than normal it will see the light of day.
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