The insurance industry wants teens off the road, period. But there's a potentially deadly payoff.
By J.P. Vettraino
News that fewer teenagers are getting driver's licenses has been greeted with consternation in some corners, but it couldn't make the insurance industry happier.
There are lies, damned lies and statistics--and sometimes legitimate, measurable trends. While some experts have quibbled about how some states report their information, no one argues the basic point: More teenagers are forgoing a driver's license longer than at any time in at least 20 years.
The most recent federal data say that, compared with a just a decade ago, about 17 percent fewer 16-year-olds exercise their right to obtain a driver's license. Released by the Federal Highway Administration last spring, the figures compare the number of teens who obtained their licenses annually from 1999 through 2008. The downward trend extends beyond 16-year-olds.
Fewer 17-year-olds--16 percent fewer, as a share of all 17-year-olds--got licenses in 2008 than in 1999. In some states, fewer 18-year-olds got licenses, reducing the national take rate for that age by 8.4 percent. Put another way, the number of newly licensed U.S. drivers ages 16 to 18 declined by 161,000 between 1999 and 2008--even though the number of people in that age group increased by 1,051,000 during that time. A host of social, economic and regulatory issues might contribute to this trend, and one of them might be graduated driver licensing (GDL).
TTRS is the baby R8 we’ve all been waiting for.
Manufacturers can hold back interesting models from American shores for any number of reasons. Typically, it has to do with emissions or crash standards that would either cost too much to meet or be too much of a hassle to test. But occasionally, automakers keep hopped-up sports machines that are available in Europe off the American order sheet because they’re worried that the vehicle might snap up sales that would otherwise go to another important model in the showroom. Until recently, we thought that’s why buyers in the old country could have their way with the 360-horsepower Audi TT RS, while in the States we were stuck the less than pulse-quickening, 265-horsepower TTS. With just 60 horses fewer than the mighty R8, the TT RS is capable of blasting off zero-to-60-mph runs in the 4.6-second range; the company’s midengine halo R8 can achieve the same in 4.3 seconds. We’re guessing that the average buyer won’t be able to tell the difference -- they will, however, notice the staggering disparity in price between the two cars.
Automotive X Prize announces awards.
After months of evaluating 136 vehicles from 111 teams around the world, the $10 million in prize money has been divvied up among the three ultra-fuel-efficient winners of the Automotive X Prize.The first prize purse of $5 million, in the mainstream category, was awarded to the Very Light Car from Edison2, a team of racing engineers from Lynchburg, Va. The vehicle had to meet several requirements: seat four; achieve a zero-to-60-mph time of 15 seconds or less; include a heater, air conditioner and stereo; carry 10 cubic feet of luggage; and a boast a driving range of at least 200 miles. Oh, and get at least 100 mpg; that part is important. The Very Light Vehicle, living up to its name at a mere 800 pounds, achieves all of this thanks to an extraordinarily low drag coefficient -- a definite necessity when your Yamaha 250cc internal-combustion engine running on E85 fuel puts out a mere 40 horsepower.
A performance version of the Focus is headed to the U.S.
European badges take note: Ford believes America is a viable market for small, sporty cars -- which is why the company will unveil three new body types for the newest Ford Focus at the Paris Auto Show later this month and, thankfully, the company today announced that a performance version, the Focus ST, will indeed be headed to the U.S.The new Focus will go on sale in Europe, the dominant market for hot hatches, later next year; the U.S. models will hit in 2012, probably as a 2013 model year vehicle.
The Focus ST will be a front-wheel-drive vehicle with a 250PS performance version of the 4-cylinder EcoBoost engine -- a turbocharged 2.0-liter engine with 250 horses.
By Dale Jewett
Rally star and DC Shoes purveyor Ken Block has delivered another piece of wild driving with his latest Gymkhana video--this time carving up the high-banked track at France's Linas at l'Autodrome.
If you can dream it, Block can do it--180-degree and 360-degree turns and figure eights in a custom-built, all-wheel-drive Ford Fiesta. There's even a shower of sparks at the end.
Block's Fiesta for the Gymkhana Three video is built by Olsbergs Motorsport Evolution and weighs 2,425 pounds. The Olsbergs engine can make up to 800 hp but was restricted to 650 hp for the video to give Block a fat torque band. With a six-speed sequential transmission, the car delivers 660 lb-ft of torque at 4,000 rpm and can rocket from 0 to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds.
That's enough words. Let's watch:
Chrysler teases images of upcoming 200 mid-size sedan.
Chrysler has released three teaser images of its upcoming 200 midsize sedan, a vehicle it hopes will help the brand -- under Fiat's stewardship, of course -- on its long march back towards legitimacy. The 200 will have the option of two powertrains: the 2.4 liter inline 4-cylinder or, for higher trim levels, the 3.6-liter Pentastar V6 putting out 283 horsepower and 260 lb-ft of torque. A 4- or 6-speed automatic transmission is also on the table.
By Greg Kable
With a little more than a year before the arrival of a brand-new model, Porsche has revealed yet another version of the existing 911, the Carrera GTS, in both coupe and cabriolet body styles.
Set to underpin the German sports-car maker's stand at the Paris motor show, the newest addition to the 911 lineup receives a revised version of the 3.8-liter horizontally opposed six-cylinder boxer engine found in the Carrera S. It boasts a sports exhaust system and a long list of standard features--all aimed at ramping up the appeal of today's 911 in the face of stiff supercar competition from the Audi R8 and the Aston Martin Vantage.
Traffic deaths fall to record low
Good news from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: Highway fatalities fell to their lowest number in 60 years in 2009. Even more telling, the fatality rate fell to its lowest level in history, at 1.13 deaths for every 100 million miles of travel.
Now brace yourself: The same safety agencies that correctly cite improvements in safety technology or seatbelt use will start haranguing Washington about how much safer roads would be if only we stopped more speeders. As ever, take their apocalyptic warnings and crush them beneath your high-speed radials -- preferably at 75 or 80 mph, which is the highway speed that’s eminently safe and sane for any reasonable driver when traffic and weather conditions allow.
The single-year drop in highway fatalities was perhaps most remarkable: 33,808 last year, a nearly 10 percent drop from the year before. Injuries fell to 2.2 million from 2.35 million. Those drops came even as Americans drove 0.2 percent more miles than in 2008. As Dave McCurdy, CEO of the American Association of Automobile Manufacturers, noted, that statistic -- more miles driven, but vastly fewer deaths and injuries -- defied skeptics who suggested that the recession was somehow responsible for declining deaths. And of course, I'll argue that the same goes for speeding; it's a distraction, of course, and dangerous when done by a drunk or an idiot, but it's not the crisis we should be focused on.
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Contributors
Clifford Atiyeh has spent his entire life driving cars he doesn't own. Raised in Volvos, he has grown to love fast, irresponsible vehicles of all kinds. He is the senior news editor at MSN Autos and also reports for Car and Driver, Road & Track, The Boston Globe and other publications.
In the garage: 21-speed Iron Horse, 2002 Jeep Wrangler X (not his)
Doug Newcomb has covered car technology for over 20 years for outlets ranging from Rolling Stone to Edmunds.com. In 2008, he published his first book, "Car Audio for Dummies" (Wiley). He lives and drives in Hood River, Ore., with his wife and two kids, who share his passion for cars and technology.
In the garage: 1996 Chevrolet Impala SS, two 1984 Chevrolet Blazers, 2008 Honda CR-V
James Tate learned to drive stick at age 13 in a 1988 Land Cruiser - in La Paz, Bolivia. He's since been a mechanic, on a pit crew and has wrenched on every car he's owned since his first 1989 Honda CRX Si (and won't stop until the car is a 1973 Porsche 911 RS). His work has appeared in Car and Driver, Popular Mechanics, Automobile and others.
In the garage: 1995 Porsche 911 Carrera, 1988 BMW M5
