Car Accidents and Black Boxes

Today many modern cars have onboard computers that record data about speed, air bag deployment or failures, braking and other mechanical functions. This information can sometimes help to determine the cause of a car accident.

Police can establish for example how fast a car was travelling at the time of impact from recording devices onboard the vehicle. These recording devices are much like the black boxes everybody has heard about in aeroplanes.

Data recording devices, or black boxes, in both your car and in the car at fault, are one of the many tools experts can use as evidence to help determine fault for a car accident.

Nearly every car being manufactured right now comes with a little added bonus by way of a tiny recording device nestled under the centre console. And if you’re looking to keep your driving habits under wraps, you might want to start worrying.

As many as 96 percent of the cars mass-produced in 2013 include event data recorders, or EDRs, yet the existence of these small “black box” surveillance devices are rarely known among the automobile drivers whose data is being collected with every quick turn of the steering wheel.

This following story from the USA indicates how these will affect court cases in the future, and this includes Australia:

Roadwork's Not To Blame for Car Accidents

The continuing saga of ongoing road works around the country has been a frustrating exercise for most motorists including those who have ever been on a visit or holiday to the area. With roadwork's reducing speed limits and increasing congestion, motorists are becoming increasingly frustrated at the holdups and congestion they cause, but are road works the cause of car accidents, or are there other factors that contribute to these accidents. 

Some police officers have reported an increasing number of car accidents related to the ongoing construction and roadwork's on our major highways. However, the increase in car accidents hasn’t been caused by the roadwork's. The increase in car accidents is due to drivers refusing to put down their mobile phone while they’re driving.

Recent surveys indicate that one in three car accidents that happen at roadwork's can be traced back to talking or texting while driving.

Mobile Phone Texting and Social Media Increase The Risk Of A Car Accident

The number of car accidents caused by either mobile phone usage, either texting or talking on a mobile phone whilst driving, or social networking long into the night have been a major factor in  a majority of car accidents increasing the number of personal injury compensation Claims.  

Some of these facts include young drivers with an addiction to electronic socialising, who are increasingly at risk of being injured in a car accident caused by driver fatigue.

There is an increasing number of teenagers who have been involved in car accidents because they’re so tired from staying up all night using their electronic devices.

According to authorities, people under the age of 30 account for nearly two thirds of accidents involving sleepy drivers.

QR Code Scanning Isn’t Just A Young Person’s Activity

QR code scanning – once the domain of the younger crowd – is becoming more evenly distributed across various age groups, according to [download page] data released by ScanBuy. The company, which says it processed a new high of 6.7 million scans via ScanLife in March, reveals that 57% of mobile barcode scanners were aged 35 and older in Q1, up from just 41% a year earlier. In particular, the 45-54 (18% share, from 12%) and 55 and older (14%, from 9%) groups represent rapidly growing proportions of scanners.

Advertisement

During that yearlong period, the biggest drop came from the 25-34 crowd. In Q1 2013, that age bracket constituted 35% of mobile barcode scanners, but that’s now down to 25%.

While QR code scanners seem to be getting older on average (a trend first noted here), their gender split hasn’t changed that significantly. In Q1, 65% of scanners were male, which is slightly (but not drastically) down from 68% in Q1 2012. In terms of operating systems, Android remains the leader at 57% share, up from 53% a year earlier, while iOS’ share has dipped 2% points to 41%.

The study also shows that QR code scanning tends to be popular throughout the week, with 14% share of scans occurring each day from Tuesday through Friday during Q1. Scanning volume did go up slightly on the weekend (16% on Saturday; 15% on Sunday) before dipping on Monday (13% share). Scanning volume also tended to rise after lunchtime and see sustained levels of activity until the primetime hours.

Other Findings:

• The most scanned QR code campaigns in Q1 connected users to product information, social media, and mobile commerce.
• The top industries, in terms of scanning activity, were retail, food and beverage, and wireless.

Source: www.marketingcharts.com

Social Media Statistics Australia – April 2013

Another month has flown by and it is now time to report our Australian Social Media statistics for April 2013.

As I have mentioned in the past, social media growth in Australia has slowed right up. The larger networks are now reaching saturation point and not growing like we saw in 2010 and 2011.

In Australia both Facebook and LinkedIn are happy to speak with members of the press about Australian user numbers. For some reason Twitter has never been so willing.

Last month I got a response from the official Twitter Australia, Twitter account – in regards to a question I have long been asking them: How many Australian’s are on Twitter?

This is a strange reply as Twitter have commented many times to the media about the US user numbers.

April 2013 stats:

(Please note the numbers below are the number of Unique Australian Visitors to the site over April).

1. Facebook – 11,489,380 Australian users/accounts (down approx 220).
2. YouTube – 11,000,000 UAVs (steady)
3. Blogspot – 3,000,000 (down 200,000)
4. WordPress.com – 2,900,000 (steady)
5. Tumblr – 2,800,000 (up 200,000)
6. LinkedIn – 2,700,000 ( down 57,000)
7. Twitter - 2,167,849 Active Australian Users (see calculation below)
8. Instagram - 1,083,924 Active Australian Users (see calculation below)
9. Flickr – 860,000 (up 10,000)
10. TripAdvisor – 830,000
11. Pinterest – 630,000 (down 10,000)
12. MySpace – 300,000 (steady)
13. Yelp – 220,000 (steady)
14. Reddit – 180,000 (up 10,000)
15. Google Plus – approx 100,000 (my estimation *revised*)
16. StumbleUpon – 95,000 (steady)
17. Foursquare – 51,000 (steady)
18. Digg – 33,000 (steady)
19. Delicious – 31,000 (steady)

Aussies social media use 'in decline'

The amount of time Australians spend on social media sites is declining, according to new research involving three million internet users.

Interest in sites like Facebook and Twitter grew rapidly in Australia from 2010.

But new data shows time spent on these sites via fixed-line internet connections fell in 2012, with average users now spending 14 minutes out of every hour online using social networks, compared to 16 minutes per hour in 2011.

Similar falls were recorded in the US and UK, according to broader research by information services firm Experian, involving another 22 million internet subscribers.

'The online landscape is constantly changing and it could be that we're starting to see social networking sites reaching their peak,' said Experian manager Matt Glasner.

Coalition says NBN will be cheaper and better

The federal coalition will deliver a faster, better, cheaper national broadband network (NBN) to all Australians if it wins government, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says.

Whether for good or ill, these job seekers made a strong first impression

Mr Abbott launched the coalition's broadband policy in Sydney on Tuesday with communications spokesman Malcolm Turnbull.

"We believe in a national broadband network," Mr Abbott told reporters.
"We will deliver a better NBN."

Mr Abbott said if the coalition won government this year, users would be able to access a minimum download speed of 25 megabits per second (mps) by the end of its first term.

If it won a second term, the minimum speed would increase to 50mps for the vast majority of households.

While 25mps is about five times better than Australians get now, it's still well down on the average 100mps being promised by Labor.

But Mr Abbott said rolling out fibre optic cable to the node - or street corner - rather than all the way to the home or business as Labor would do, would be cheaper.

"We will build fibre to the node and that eliminates two thirds of the cost," Mr Abbott said.

"So we will be able to do this for under $30 billion, compared to the over $90 billion it will cost the National Broadband Network (under Labor)."

Mr Abbott also announced plans for three inquiries, including a commercial review to be completed within 60 days of the coalition winning office into how quickly the NBN builder can meet coalition objectives.

There would also an audit into Labor's NBN "mess" and an independent study into Australia's broadband future needs, which would include a cost benefit analysis.

Under the coalition's plan, the NBN rollout would be completed by the end of 2019, instead of the current deadline of 2021.

Priority would be given to areas with the poorest broadband services today.

The coalition also says basic broadband plans will "always" be more affordable.

It projects prices would be $24 cheaper per month by 2021 than Labor's projected NBN prices.

But in areas where there was very strong need for high broadband speeds - such as business centres, educational centres, hospitals and new housing estates - there would be fibre-to-the-premise services.

Mr Abbott also said the coalition planned to sell the network to the private sector once it was ready.

Mr Turnbull said the government shouldn't be building the NBN, when everywhere else such projects were being created by the private sector.

But he acknowledged that if the coalition won government it would inherit network builder NBN Co and would have to work with it.

He said the government had wasted billion of dollars that could not be recovered, but the coalition would save money.

The coalition says its plan will cost $29.5 billion.

Story source: www.ninemsn.com.au