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Getting rear-ended may never be your fault, but that doesn't mean it's not a pain in the ass to get a busted bumper fixed. One way to help avoid such situations is with a product like Sudden Stop, an array of ultra-bright LED lights that reside on the left and right sides of your license plate. Sudden Stop works by detecting G-forces, meaning it doesn't hook into your existing brake lighting system. If it senses a certain level of G-forces from you slamming on your brakes, the bright LED lights will flash and warn the driver behind; assuming they're not busy texting, it could provide enough advance warning to prevent a collision. The Sudden Stop is battery-powered and available for $30. [ Product Page via TRFJ ]
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Depending on your vehicle of choice and experience behind the wheel, backing up can be one hell of a dastardly task what with the kids, other cars, people and more objects to contend with. One possible solution to this is products like the "Our Lady of the Trunk." This device is a backup alarm that connects to the brake lights. Put your vehicle in reverse and a deafening 100dB female voice will warn all around that you are backing up. It's available for $10, which makes it a pretty much a no-brainer for those without dignity, class or Murilee's ability to fashion creative solutions out of junkyard parts. We're still checking if the alarm could be modified to work with forward-moving vehicles . [ American Science & Surplus via Giz ]
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We may be inching towards the future of autonomous vehicles, but we're not quite there yet and a bus driver in Seattle has yet to figure that out. This is just another instance of individuals putting too much faith into GPS navigation devices. Following the directions from a Garmin GPS navigation unit, the Seattle bus driver attempted to go under a low footbridge that was a bit too low as it managed to scalp the bus and injure five. The driver was carrying home the Garfield High School girl's softball team. This unfortunate accident does bring up an interesting conundrum. The driver had put the Garmin device on the "bus" setting and failed to notice the signs prior to the bridge. Obviously the driver is to blame, but how much consideration should Garmin and other GPS manufacturers take when including a "bus" setting? galleryPost('gpsbuseattle', 3, 'GPS 1 Bus 0'); Garmin told the Seattle PI that its GPS navigation units don't include height...
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Oh fudge. So, if you've never used a GPS empowered navigation unit, the single most annoying thing about them is the lawyer's message that you have to agree to every single time you turn the damn car on. Yes, it's even more annoying than being given cockamamy directions. And you can now expect that screen to get even longer . Because yesterday one such system guided a computer consultant across some train tracks where he promptly got stuck. Lo and behold, here comes a train. The guy tried to warn the engineer to stop, but to no avail. The train plowed into the car at 60 mph and the car exploded. No one was hurt, as the driver ran to safety before the impact. About 500 passengers were stranded for a couple of hours. No word on what type of car, how it got stuck, or who rented it out. Any guesses? [ MSNBC.com ]
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