Mind the Black Car!

A recent research, done in Australia, shows the black cars are most likely to be involved in car crash.
But is not a matter of superstiction, or just of misfortune.
It deals with a fact that black colour is less visible on the roads than the white one and the rest of bright colours, like yellow, orange etc.
On the other hand, say the australian reaserchers, if everyone had to buy a white coloured car, the contrast which make them more visible on the roads would vanish.
So, the best thing, is to pay attention and drive without assuming first any drink or any drug.
Also turning on the lights would be a good signal to keep accidents away.

To know more go to the link below:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1288457/Black-cars-likely-involved-accidents.html

drunk with chats

So it's true! Chatting and talking can make your head confused as you had an excess of alcohol in the blood.
That means it's very dangerous to drive while talking at the phone even on a lawful hands-free phones.
It's exactly the result of a research conducted by psychologists J. Watson and D. Strayer.

To learn more read the whole story by Daily Mail Reporter

Hands-free phone devices are as dangerous as drink drivers, scientists have claimed
Drivers having a conversation on a hands-free mobile phone could be as dangerous as those who are drunk behind the wheel, scientists believe.
Researchers found that using a handset on speaker phone, or fitted with a headset, while in control of a car causes a drop in concentration equivalent to being over the drinkdrive limit.
Motorists using the legal devices took almost a fifth longer to hit the brakes in an emergency and were shown to be less aware of traffic around them.
Psychologists Jason Watson and David Strayer said their findings were important because they prove the vast majority of us can't do more than one thing at a time.
But while this is true for 97.5 per cent of drivers, the researchers discovered that 2.5 per cent of their subjects were 'supertaskers' who are able to do two things at once.
Dr Watson and Dr Strayer asked 200 volunteers to drive along a motorway in a simulator.
The subjects were monitored for their braking reaction time, the distance at which they followed the car in front and asked to carry out simple maths and memory problems.
They then repeated the simulation while having a conversation on a hands-free mobile, which involved memorising words and carrying out more maths problems.
The 2.5 per cent of supertaskers had no increase in braking time, following distance or maths ability while talking on the phone - and their memory abilities actually improved 3 per cent.



But Dr Watson warned that they were exceptionally rare.
He said: 'While we'd probably all like to think we are the exception to the rule, the odds are overwhelmingly against it.
'In fact, the odds of being a supertasker are about as good as your chances of flipping a coin and getting five heads in a row.'
Although it has been illegal for drivers to hold a mobile at the wheel since 2003, it is still lawful to use a hands-free kit as long as motorists are in proper control of their vehicle.
But now the research by the University of Utah psychologists, published in the journal Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, could throw the law into doubt.
It found that the drivers on their phones took 20 per cent longer to hit the brakes when needed.
The average following distance also increased by 30 per cent - which the scientists said reflected drivers' failure to keep pace with traffic around them.
Memory performance declined 11 per cent, and the ability to do maths problems fell 3 per cent.
The results show that driving performance routinely falls while using a hands-free mobile phone and is comparable to the impairment seen in drunken drivers.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1262447/Hands-free-phones-risky-drink-driving-We-things-time-say-scientists.html#ixzz0jjEshRNP

At least parking

Well, at least parking we can say are better than women! According to a recent scientist research male's boasting on much skill driving seems to be right!

Read more by daily mail sunday reporter Tom Harper.

Men ARE better than women at parking: Feminist scientists proves what sexist motorists have known all along
By Tom Harper, Mail on Sunday Reporter

Male drivers have long boasted they are superior to women, particularly when it comes to parking.
And now their claims have been borne out by the first scientific study into the subject.
Psychologists asked 65 volunteers to park a £23,000 Audi repeatedly in a sealed-off university car park.
Reverse psychology: Women drivers were slower and less accurate, tests found
The results, which are bound to reignite long-running arguments between couples, found that women took up to 20 seconds longer to park in the same space.
But although they were more cautious about edging into position, it did not make them any more accurate, and they tended to end up much closer to the edge of the bays than the male drivers.
Scientists from Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, found men were better at driving both head-on into the space and reversing into it.
However, the biggest difference was in parallel parking, where men were found to be five per cent better in their handling and positioning of the vehicle.
Researchers concluded the men had better co-ordination and spatial awareness because their brains could process the changing speed and position of the car more quickly.
Dr Claudia Wolf, who co-wrote the study, said she was prompted to investigate the subject after getting fed up with chauvinistic jokes about female drivers .
She told The Mail on Sunday: ‘These prejudices exist and as a scientist I decided to find out if they are true or based on myth.
‘I don't think that feminism or the cause of women is in any way set back by these findings. It only proves what previous studies about the spatial differences between men and women have shown.
Germaine Greer: 'You must remember women also have bosoms, which makes it very difficult to turn around'
‘Besides, it is not as if there was a massive failing by women. It is just about parking - not the triumph of men over women.'
The drivers - who had varying degrees of driving experience, but were of similar ages and intelligence - were asked to park an Audi A6 Limousine automatic, a large, family saloon, in a 15ft by 6ft space.
The scientists measured both the time between the car's first movement and the driver turning off the engine and how close the car ended up to the white tape marking out the bays. The more central the car ended up in the space, the better.
The psychologists admitted they were surprised that females' extra caution did not bring better results.
Their paper noted: ‘The marked difference in parking duration could be explained in terms of general driving habits. Several studies prove that men take greater driving risks.
‘However, a sex difference in riskassessment leading to women parking more cautiously, and thus more slowly, does not explain why women's final parking position was less accurate than men's, especially for parallel parking. Slower driving should lead to a better and not worse result.'
Last night, feminist author Germaine Greer admitted that men were better parkers than women, but criticisedthe scientists for undertaking the ‘pointless' study.
She said: ‘I can believe that men were proven to have a very insignificant advantage in spatial awareness when it comes to parking.
'My mum parked appallingly, but that's because my father did not let her drive very often and she was frightened in the car.
'You must remember that women also have bosoms which makes it very difficult to turn around.
‘However, did we really need to know this? Should we now stop women from parking? Of course not. These scientists were just trying to provoke people like me and it sounds like an extreme waste of resources.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1237236/Men-ARE-better-women-parking-Feminist-scientists-proves-sexist-motorists-known-along.html#ixzz0aDihxGVf