Oh sure, Americans are adamantly against texting while driving (in theory), but that's not stopping those mischievous Gen Y-ers from getting their SMS on while behind the wheel. According to a new survey of 1,200 people conducted by Nationwide Mutual Insurance (we know, we know), a third of the Gen Y-ers admitted to "always multitasking while driving," and while the "always" bit does indeed frighten us a tad, the real juice was in the next statistic: 37-percent said they sent text messages while driving. Before you start belaboring the imprudent youth, think long and hard about your own in-car cellphone usage -- remember that time you just had to reply "y w pep plz" in order to salvage your friend's pizza order? Tsk tsk.

[Via About]

While most of the cool kids are off whizzing around courses in Mario Kart Wii, the gurus at Force Dynamics are reminiscing about the one that started it all. Apparently the firm has tweaked its 301 motion platform to actually control the kart in the SNES hit, and the rider's chair even leaps up along with Mario, Peach or any other jumping character you choose. Sure, it's missing those absolutely brain-melting Wii graphics (but not by much, if you catch our drift), but we'd probably take a ride in this over an hour with the Wii Wheel any day. Check out the full video waiting after the break.

Oh sure, we've seen alleged criminals wriggle out from under the strong arm of the law, but this one takes things to an entirely different platform. Reportedly, a truck driver in Germany was pulled over for yapping on his cellphone while cruising, but apparently, said trucker actually wasn't talking when the boys in blue saw his handset upside his melon. As the story goes, the 43-year old was actually using the freshly recharged mobile to "warm his ear" in an attempt to alleviate an earache. Astonishingly enough, he was even able to provide "an itemized telephone bill proving he had not been using the phone at the time he was stopped," thus, a court in Hamm accepted the excuse and let him go sans penalty. Something tells us this guy's got friends in low places.

[Via Switched]

Sure, your racing games are exciting... we guess. Though when you think about it, they don't really deliver the kind of visceral, knock-about action of an actual race, do they? That's where the Force Dynamics 401 comes in -- a simulator chair which features a "direct transfer of information," i.e., you get bruises if you drive poorly. Judging from the video (which you can see after the break), you'd be hard-pressed to get a more realistic experience... unless you were actually driving a race car at breakneck speeds around tight chicanes whilst passing speeding, desperate competitors.

We've already seen whips that brake for us, steer for us and wheel us into that last remaining spot on 5th Avenue without marring someone's BMW, so it follows logic that we'd see vehicles that peer into our minds, too. Research done by a crew at the Technical University of Berlin has shown that a "smart dashboard" could one day deactivate distractions within the vehicle in order to improve driver response if things simply get too hectic. Reportedly, the system could switch off in-car gadgetry (you know, navigators, radios, Hello Kitty headsets, etc.) when one's brain became overloaded in order to speed up reaction time "by as much as 100-milliseconds." Of course, this is assuming that said brain won't melt down even further when that beloved iPod inexplicably shuts off just as Slash gears up for some serious shredding in Welcome to the Jungle, but nevertheless, we applaud the effort.

[Image courtesy of TAMU]

According to a report from the Boston Globe, a man claims that he was typing a text message into his cellphone when he lost control of his SUV and fatally struck a 13-year-old boy on a bicycle. In a stark and sad reminder of the cause for recent laws put into effect governing texting / phoning while driving, it appears the man was so distracted that he didn't even realize what had happened until later that night. Ironically, the friend of the boy who had been walking with him attempted to call 911 on his phone, but was unable to get through. The driver is being charged with motor vehicle homicide, leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death, and driving without a license. A tragic story -- and unfortunately not the first we've seen -- but hopefully a cautionary tale for anyone who regularly juggles driving and texting. Don't.

Usually you can't tell that there's a problem with one of your tires until you've already swerved off the road and crashed into something stationary, but thanks to a group of scientists from Purdue University, the next generation of wheel wraps may be able to detect problems before you're face-to-face with the base of a telephone pole. Led by Gary Krutz of the school's Electrohydraulic Center, the team was able to produce a multi-layer design that can sense damage or defects anywhere on the tire, and which immediately alerts the driver to danger via an embedded chip. First up to adopt the new tech will likely be race car sponsors, who have a high incentive to protect their expensive investments against flats; unfortunately, this safety improvement for drivers will come at the expense of the nation's rabid NASCAR fans, as the likely decline in crashes will only serve to direct their blood-lust at fellow spectators.

[Image courtesy of Purdue University]

Simulators similar to the one recently unveiled to the world by Toyota aren't all that uncommon, but this 4.5-meter high pod is "the first to move laterally and has the longest range of 35-meters front to back and 20-meters from right to left." Reportedly, the automaker plans to use its newest toy to "analyze driving characteristics under various conditions such as drunkenness and drowsiness" and subsequently decide what new safety features should be added to its fleet of motorcars. More specifically, the device enables researchers to "conduct driving tests that would be too dangerous to perform in the real world or that require specific driving conditions," and we're pretty sure the 360-degree concave video screen is quite the draw, too. Unfortunately, we have little faith that you'll ever see a tamed version of this here simulator at your local arcade, but one can hope, we suppose.

[Via Yahoo / Reuters, image courtesy of Tech.co.uk]

Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't as much fun as a Governor as he was in The Terminator... just ask California's teen drivers. The former action movie star has signed a new bill -- which we told you about in August -- into law, making it illegal for anyone aged 16 or 17 to use a mobile phone, pager, laptop, or handheld computer while driving a vehicle. Effective July 1, 2008 (the same day that California's ban on non-hands-free mobile-use while driving takes effect), the state will begin to fine offenders $20 for their first incident, and $50 for each recurrent violation. The law is targeting teen drivers due to the wealth of statistics that demonstrate young motorists are more likely to end up in car accidents which result in death. According to reports, 13.6-percent of all fatal accidents are caused by teenagers, and studies show that car crashes are the leading cause of death for people between the ages of 16-19. "The simple fact is that teenage drivers are more easily distracted," said Schwarzenegger in a statement, adding, "We want to eliminate any extra distractions so they can focus on paying attention to the road and being good drivers." He then paused and remarked, "We just don't want to say 'Hasta la vista, baby' to young drivers anymore."

UK Drivers caught texting or operating a range of gadgets behind the wheel -- including MP3 players and GPS systems -- could face a new maximum of two years in prison. Currently the crime is punishable by £2,500 fines or community orders, although the most common offense is using a mobile phone whilst driving, which results in a £60 fine and three points on a license. Shifting to a higher category of dangerous driving from the previous category of careless driving might not solve the problem of people ignoring the current restrictions: if the current problem is poor enforcement, then it's hard to see extra deterrence making a difference. But hey, the cops over there seem to think that hovering drones and unbridled surveillance does the trick in other areas of criminality, so who are we to argue?

[Via PocketPCThoughts]

MIT -- long known for winning all sorts of competitions involving modern technology -- has entered into another heated contest which will test its mettle against a wide-variety of opponents... and that contest is the DARPA Urban Challenge. DARPA, who we know and love for its fantastic flights of scientific fancy (see the shoot-through shield and laser-guided bullets) has posed a challenge to contestants to create an autonomous auto (AKA a self-controlled vehicle) which can traverse an urban landscape (such as city streets) all by its lonesome. To create such a vehicle, a team at MIT has taken a typical Land Rover, outfitted it with 40 CPU "cores", high-end GPS receivers, inertial sensors, laser scanners called LIDAR (light detection and ranging), highly sensitive odometers, and a slew of video cameras. The team hopes to pool all of these disparate sensing technologies into a cohesive whole which will imbue their vehicle the preternatural ability to operate on its own in an urban setting. These are truly exciting times to be a car.

California certainly won't go down as the first place to ban cellphones whilst driving, but if Governor Schwarzenegger signs a new bill into law, mobiles won't be the only thing teens can't operate while behind the wheel after July 1, 2008. The bill, which was overwhelmingly approved by the Assembly, prevents anyone "under the age of 18 from using their cellphone," even with handsfree devices; as if that wasn't enough, any "mobile service device" -- such as "walkie-talkies, pagers, two-way messaging devices, PDAs, and laptops" -- will also be illegal for teens under 18 to use while driving. If signed into law, violators will reportedly be fined "$20 for the first offense, and $50 for subsequent offenses with no violation points on the driver's record."

[Via Textually]

Count IBM in as one of the many companies looking to skyrocket the cost of our future cars, er, protect our lives by developing must-have active safety systems that are sure to become the standard fare in vehicles of the future. Dubbed a research initiative to "equip cars with technologies that can help reduce traffic congestion and prevent accidents," IBM is looking into driver assist technologies that "exchange information with other cars and with the road infrastructure, take corrective action where appropriate, and provide essential feedback to the drivers to help avoid dangerous situations." These electronic reflexes are said to be much quicker than those possessed by humans, and while the team is not trying to replace the need for driver judgment entirely, it is hoping to provide adequate feedback to help the motorist avoid potential perils. No word on when IBM plans on ushering its marketing team into automakers' headquarters, but we'd enjoy the feel of personally steering and accelerating while you still can.

[Via Physorg]

Every once in a while, a device comes along whose stupidity is exceeded only by the individuals advocating its use; a device so confusing and controversial, it creates twice as many problems as it solves. Enter Highway Safety & Technology's "Cellular Detection System" (or as we like to call it, the "Automatic Civil Unrest Creation System"). The idea is this: through some magical, thoroughly unexplained array of "electronic sensing equipment," the system can somehow detect drivers talking on their phones and set the subsequent legal process in motion without any law enforcement involvement whatsoever. Never mind that other people in the car might be using their phones and the fact that headsets are almost always legal when handsets are not, we guess. The product is actually so ridiculous that we're leaning toward it being an elaborate hoax -- or we're hoping as much, anyway -- otherwise it'll allegedly be available to overzealous municipalities this fall.

[Via Techdirt]

We're sure somewhere Drew Curtis's head is exploding over this one: submitted for your perusal, one California State Senator Carole Migden -- former voter for a state bill that fines people for using their cellphones while driving -- rear-ended her state-issued SUV into a Honda sedan on Highway 12 in Solano County, today. While on her phone. The driver of the Honda was taken to the hospital with minor injuries, although the most painful aspect of this story is surely the jaws-of-life-biting irony. Then again, at least we know Midgen's heart is in the right place; like the cleaned-up drug addict invited to tell schoolkids to stay off the dope, surely this morning more than others Midgen felt all the more confident in having voted the way she did.

[Via Raw Feed]