Word: driver
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Were you stunned by the reception? No. George and I actually thought it was a bit of a scream. We all went to Britain and there was tremendous reaction. I can remember walking across the street and a London taxi stopped and the taxi driver - he was a tough-looking cookie - came out and said "You're Hillary, aren't you?" And I said "Yeah." And he said, "Congratulations. You know you've done a great job for us!" He got back in his cab and drove of. Now, the contrast was when we arrived back here in New Zealand...
...under the hood. The engine - all two cylinders, 624cc and 33 horsepower of it - is in the back, just like the Volkswagen Beetle of old. The speedometer and other instruments cluster in a central pod in the middle of the dashboard rather than directly in front of the driver, the easier (and cheaper) to offer both left- and right-hand versions when Tata Motors starts exporting the car to Southeast Asia and Africa in a couple of years. The top third of the over-sized headlights act as the turn signals (indicators) and look like cheeky yellow eyebrows above...
Driving while talking into a cell phone is sort of like driving with one eye closed - studies suggest that your brain processes only half of the visual information it receives. So obstacles like pedestrians and swerving cars may go unregistered by the distracted driver. The effect is the same whether you use a handset or a hands-free phone, but, interestingly, listening to the radio or engaging in conversation with a fellow passenger isn't nearly as distracting. "There is something about talking on the phone that trips up the brain," says David Strayer, the study's author...
People have always multitasked behind the wheel: They smoke, brush their teeth, put on makeup, yell at the kids in the back seat. But the recent explosion in wireless technology has introduced a host of new and more complicated driver's side activities, like programming navigation systems, text messaging (which is even more dangerous than talking on the phone) and using laptops. "The distractions now are more cognitively demanding," says Strayer. "Now instead of short manual tasks like lighting a cigarette or changing the radio station, they have become mind-occupied tasks that take longer, placing a greater demand...
...Though Strauss eventually secured $130,000 in grants from the Carnegie and Ford Foundations for the project, the early days of the project were less financially stable. On one occasion, he and his friends had to convince a bus driver to let them on board by offering postage stamps as currency...