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| Testing time |
A young New Zealander worried the owner of a car he was thinking of buying by taking it for a 500km test drive. Police in Timaru, 100 km southwest of Christchurch, said the 16-year-old boy returned the car after taking it on the lengthy ride, and won't face charges as the owner hadn't indicated how far the teenager could go. |
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| Safer century |
The 100th anniversary of German traffic statistics was marked recently by the publication of new figures showing that German drivers were 56 times more likely to be killed on the roads in 1906 than they were in 2005.
Despite the fact that the number of vehicles registered in Germany surged from 27,026 in 1906 to 56.3 million last year - a 2,083-fold increase - road deaths rose by a factor of only 37. |
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| Heads up |
A German employee who had an accident while at his office Christmas party was awarded damages by a court in Frankfurt.
The man suffered damage to his skull after slipping on the steps of a restaurant while attending the annual celebration, but the court ruled that the employer's accident insurance would have to make a disability award to the employee because he was technically still at work. |
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| Wwwacky website |
It may be rather morbid, but if you ever were to find yourself in the unenviable position of needing to find a grave, this site is the ideal starting point. www.findagrave.com lists the famous and the non-famous deceased and has a handy guide by name and also by location to help you find the dearly departed who are currently residing six feet under. This is an addictive site for the celebrity obsessed, but also for dedicated family historians, as the locations of more than 10 million graves of ordinary people are also listed here.
Womens workshop
This is a reminder to register now for your chance to be involved in the WA Womens Workshop. It's fun and informal, so grab a friend and click here to sign up! |
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Volume 11.05
May 2006 |
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Hello Welcome to the May edition of Fleettorque, brought to you by Fleetcare.
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Sat-nav hazard |
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 As more and more of us become reliant on sat-nav to find our way about, new research shows that the popular gadgets may be more of a hindrance than a help.
A study carried out at Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK found that following directions from a satnav system requires more mental effort and concentration than trying to navigate on your own. And the results were reportedly the same whether the driver relied on voice instructions or visual guidance via the dash-mounted screen.
Researchers monitored the eye movements of 24 drivers using a rally-driving simulator and discovered that those receiving no directions concentrated more on the road and experienced only half the stress levels of those who were following audio and visual directions.
They concluded that attempting to do two things at once takes its toll on the human brain, which means that drivers may respond slower in a road emergency. A similar survey for UK insurance company Privilege discovered that a high number of accidents are caused by satnavs through drivers fiddling with the controls instead of concentrating on the road ahead - more than 10 per cent of British motorists admitted to setting a satnav computer while on the move, rather than programming it before departure. |
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Big yawn |
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 If you've ever had the feeling that you might be boring the pants off your co-workers or dinner guests, but been afraid to ask, then this new bore detecting device could be just what you (and your friends) need.
The 'emotional social intelligence prosthetic' was originally devised to help people with autism and consists of a handheld computer that vibrates when it detects that the owner's companions are growing weary of his or her company. It works by receiving images from a tiny camera attached to a pair of glasses and then analyzing them to detect people's emotions.
One of the problems facing people with autism is an inability to pick up on social cues. Previous computer programs have only detected the six basic emotional states of happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise and disgust, but the new device is said to detect 90 per cent of human emotions. |
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The benefits of window tinting |
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 Our friends at Instant Windscreens are offering our readers a special discount of over $100 off their RRP on window tinting.
Each tint comes with a fully comprehensive lifetime manufacturer's warranty and has many advantages including protection from the sun and additional privacy which can reduce the risk of vandalism and theft to your vehicle. It also creates a look that can improve your vehicles appearance to create a greater resale value.
If you would like to know more about the advantages of window tinting you can click here to visit the Instant Windscreens website. |
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Virus power |
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 In their on-going quest to create smaller and smaller machines, scientists have engineered a virus which can attract metals and then use them to build minute wires for microscopic batteries.
The international team of researchers, led by a group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, used the M13 virus, a simple and easily manipulated virus to create nanowires for use in minuscule lithium ion battery electrodes to power tiny machines.
Each virus, and thus each wire, is only 6 nanometers - 6 billionths of a metre - in diameter, and 880 nanometers long. |
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Bright sparks |
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 Spark plugs may be a thing of the past if the boffins at Colorado State University can perfect their new mini-laser plugs for fuel ignition.
The hi-tech replacements won't wear out or get dirty like the old-style plugs and work by sending an infra-red laser beam down a fragile hollow glass-fibre tube that contains helium gas to prevent any unwanted sparks from leaping out. When the beam reaches the end of the strand, it is focused into a high-energy spot inside the engine's cylinder, thereby making the fuel combust in an instant.
The scientists confess, however, that their invention is tricky to produce.
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