Archive for the ‘Safety’ Category

Taking a long drive and wishing we were “there already!”

Posted by Colin Hensley on April 15, 2009 in Safety

I feel a little guilty as I have just skipped a week on the blog, because I was away on holiday. We went to Italy to enjoy some spring skiing. This meant a return trip of almost 2000km experiencing driving conditions in 5 different countries*.

It was actually quite an eye-opener to see how different driving styles are from country to country, though I won’t get into any of the details here, at the risk of damaging international relations. However, as I sped (figuratively not literally, of course) down the highways, through the toll-booths, and we wove up the mountains I really started to wish that we had already implemented some of the systems that are parts of Toyota’s Integrated Safety Management Concept.

Long drives can be tiring and even a small lapse of attention can increase the risk of an accident, so I particularly like the work that is assists driving by linking to the navigation system. We must have entered and exited 20 different highways, and passed through dozens of villages as we went along. It would have been a great help to have the car give me some tips and warnings as I went along. But that’s for the future, if you are interested in more future technologies have a look at TMC’s terrific website which explains all about the things that are being developed at Toyota for the future.

* (Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland and Italy)

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