America gets first musical road

'Tum-te-tum tum-te-tum tum-te-tum tum tum'

Workers have begun carving grooves on the first 'musical road' in the United States, which will produce notes of the William Tell Overture when cars drive over them.

The high desert city of Lancaster north of Los Angeles placed the grooves on another road, Avenue K, last month for a Honda commercial.

The quarter-mile strip was engineered to play the notes - better known as the theme for The Lone Ranger - when motorists hit them at 55 mph.

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VEHICLE ‘JAMMING’ SWEEPS EUROPE
TRACKER warns of motorbike thieves blocking GPS signals

TRACKER, the UK’s leading stolen vehicle tracking and recovery systems specialist, warns motorbike owners that GPS systems will not always help recover stolen vehicles. Today’s thief uses the latest technique, called ‘jamming’, which is commonplace across Europe, leading to rising numbers of stolen vehicles not being recovered. Celebrating its 15th anniversary, TRACKER provides motorists with the facts about ‘jamming’ and how to stop the criminals in their tracks.

Mark Walls of TRACKER explains: “Jamming is a technique used by thieves to block the satellite signal to the GPS receiver, or prevent GSM-based communication with the tracking device, making it impossible to trace a stolen vehicle. This is a major problem for motorbike owners, who rely on GPS/GSM solutions to help them recover their bike and may be unaware of the system’s vulnerability.  Whilst GPS/GSM devices have their place in stolen vehicle recovery, there really shouldn’t be sole reliance on this technology.

“Jammers are frighteningly easy to build using publicly available information and basic components and are cheap to buy from numerous sites on the internet,” continues Mark Walls. “UK police routinely find GPS and GSM jammers in stolen vehicles. However, TRACKER Stolen Vehicle Recovery (SVR) systems are immune to GPS/GSM jammers and are much more resilient against this form of attack, offering motorists effective safeguards against theft.”

TRACKER Stolen Vehicle Recovery systems work like an electronic homing device using Very High Frequency (VHF) technology and currently recovers an average of £2million worth of stolen vehicles each month. The system places a covert transmitter on the owner’s vehicle, providing no visible evidence for the thief to suspect any security device. The signal is then tracked by any UK police force, directing them to the exact location of the stolen vehicle.

Paul Lambotte, Head of the ACPO Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service AVCIS adds:  “We support vehicle locating devices, and it is clear that as technology moves on so does the ingenuity of the criminal. We have identified the continued development of devices to interfere with the equipment used and have undertaken to work with the industry and partners to devise innovative solutions. Using a number of technologies will force the thief to take increasingly more steps to facilitate the crime. The thief will be forced to take steps to tackle all of the vehicle locating technology that may be present, which in turn exposes them to additional risk. These risks increase the chance of detection.”

“AVCIS will continue to work with the industry, and TRACKER is one of our partnership organisations. These partnerships will reduce the likelihood of persons becoming the victim of crime and directly counter the attempts by criminals to defeat location devices.  It is our firm belief that only through this integrated approach, police and industry working together, will the fight against organised crime be successful.”

Mark Walls concludes, “There is an over-reliance particularly on GPS as a security and recovery system. Although GPS has a part to play, current UK standards do not recognise the impact of its vulnerability, while more and more UK motorists fall victim to attack from jamming devices. We strongly advise consumers to choose a system that provides a more resilient solution and, better still, one that deliver multiple means of location and communication.”

“Celebrating our 15th anniversary, TRACKER has helped the police to catch over 1,700 suspected thieves and recovered over 17,000 stolen vehicles. This is a proven system that is far less susceptible to jamming devices and techniques, making it a powerful tool for motorbike owners in the fight to protect their bike from thieves. By using our proven VHF technology motorists will drastically reduce their chances of falling prey to the growing gangs of bike thieves, routinely using GPS/GSM jammers..”

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Driver follows sat-nav into lake

A Polish driver steered his mini bus straight into a lake - after his sat-nav told him to.

Stunned police got a frantic call from the bus driver as he called from the Mercedes van screaming that he and his two passengers were drowning.

"A man phoned in panic from his mobile phone. He managed to say that he had driven into a lake and he was sinking fast," said police spokesman Marcin Guzenda in Glubczyce, south west Poland.

"He said he had two passengers but he couldn't open the doors - and then he got cut off."

Police, fire and ambulance services rushed to the lake and found the driver and his passengers perched on the top of the mini-bus's roof.

The trio were taken to hospital after the accident but released after treatment for shock.

"There used to be a road there until last year until the local water company flooded the valley to build a new reservoir lake," said one police source.

"It seems that the GPS hadn't been updated and was still showing a usable road running through where the lake now is. It's a huge lake and it's hard to imagine how you could ignore or not see it, but he certainly managed it.

"The driver had such faith in his sat-nav that he didn't even notice all the traffic signs saying the road had been closed," they added.

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Car explodes after driver lights up

A motorist has vowed to quit smoking after his liquid gas powered car exploded when he lit up at the wheel.

Peter Tidbury escaped with minor burns after his Peugeot 607 went up in a fireball when he lit a cigarette.

The door panels were blown out, pieces of windscreen were hurled 50ft and nearby homes were evacuated for fear of further explosions.

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Roadworks speed trap reaps £1m

Cameras that monitor motorists’ average speed through roadworks on one of Britain’s busiest motorways will have raised almost £1 million in fines by the time they are removed next month.

An average of 427 drivers a month have been caught exceeding the 50 mph limit on a 10-mile stretch of the M1 in Hertfordshire.

A total of 12,797 £60 fixed penalty notices have been issued since the introduction of the reduced speed limit in March 2006, until September this year. If all the fines have been paid they will have already raised almost £770,000 for the Treasury, with the prospect of a further £65,000 before the roadworks are due to be completed in December.

The Government claims that casualty numbers on the road have halved after the introduction of the average speed cameras. (Sunday Telegraph: November 2)

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Thought for the Month

The recent launch of the Optigrip tyre from Goodyear, which apparently retains its wet weather ability as it wears down, reminds me that still today most drivers don’t really understand much about tyres.

The tyre tread is there for one reason only: to clear water out of the way and allow the rest of the rubber to make contact with the road surface.

Tyres wear at alarmingly different rates and the legal minimum requirement for tread (1.6mm) is far from adequate in really wet conditions.

As winters get milder (apparently), then rain and water become more of a challenge to drivers. If you do nothing else, check your tyres before the worst of the weather takes hold. Oh, and if you need an incentive, each illegal tyre is worth up to £2500 of your hard-earned cash!

Night vision and adaptive cruise control are top

of the consumer wish list for their next car

December 10 2008:  A new survey by MSN Cars of nearly 30,000 people has shown that night vision and adaptive cruise control are the two pieces of technology that Britain’s drivers would most like to see on their next car.

The poll was placed throughout pages of MSN Cars, one of the UK’s most popular motoring websites.  Users were asked:

“If you could only have one of them, which of these new

generation technologies would you like to see on your next car?”

Voters were given the options of:

• Active high-beam: high beam dips automatically when car senses another car oncoming.

• Adaptive cruise control: technology that keeps you a set distance from car in front and brakes/accelerates automatically as needed.

• Internet feed: car receives constant supply of data about weather, traffic info, news etc.

• Lanekeeping assistance: car senses white lines either side and turns wheel for you if necessary to keep you within them.

• Night vision: car uses infra-red to 'see' things before even you do.

• Self parking: find a space, press a button, car reverse parks for you.

• Slow speed autobraking: if car senses a crash is imminent brakes are applied automatically.

• Voice control: order your car around by talking to it.

27,506 people participated in the poll.  The full results were:

• Night vision – 20%
• Adaptive cruise control – 20%
• Self-parking – 13%
• Voice control – 13%
• Internet feed – 12%
• Slow speed autobraking – 10%
• Active high beam – 8%
• Lanekeeping assistance – 4%

“It’s a challenge for car makers to incorporate more and more high technology into their cars while at the same time keeping buying costs down in fiercely competitive markets, especially in the current environment,” comments Tom Evans, Content Manager of MSN Cars.  “Our poll involving a very large sample gives clear indications of the technology the bulk of potential buyers want to see in their next car.”

“It may also indicate that car manufacturers have a challenge in educating the public in terms of the benefits that some of these new technologies can offer in terms of convenience and safety.”

For more information please contact:

Tom Evans @ MSN Cars: 07801 881 342

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