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* Europe - Road Safety
* France - Could Cruise Control Kill You?
Rueil-Malmaison,France -The Car Connection, by Richard Read -Aug 9, 2013: -- For decades, cruise control has been a common feature on automobiles. It's beloved by many road-trippers, who say that it reduces fatigue and boosts fuel economy... But others aren't so sold on the technology... A new study from the VINCI Autoroutes Foundation suggests that cruise control poses other dangers... Researchers identified a number of problems among those using cruise control and speed-limiters:
- Drivers frequently engaged in unsafe behavior when overtaking other vehicles.
- When cruise control-users did move back into the slow lane, they tended to do so without leaving a safe distance between their vehicle and the one they'd just passed.
- Drivers in cruise control scenarios didn't correct their direction as often as other test subjects, meaning that they had a greater chance of slipping into another lane or drifting off the road entirely.
- Reaction times of those using cruise control were slowed by an average of one second. At a speed of 70 mph, that one second translates to a stopping difference of over 100 feet.
Researchers attribute some of these problems to a lack of attentiveness on the part of cruise control users. Though many proponents of the technology claim that it reduces driver fatigue, the motorist's lack of engagement when using cruise control could cause the opposite to be true...
Labels: road safety
posted by Unknown @ 12:29 PM
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