safety

The majority of motorists on U.S. roads feel less safe than they did five years ago, according to a new study from AAA.

AAA reported in its "2010 Traffic Safety Culture Index" that 52 percent of motorists feel unsafe while driving. A whopping 88 percent said that text messaging or responding to e-mails is a "very serious threat to their safety." AAA said 62 percent of respondents consider talking on a mobile phone a serious threat to safety.

The problem is AAA found that those who fear for their safety are engaging in the very … Read more

ALAMEDA, Calif.--I'm hurtling down a piece of asphalt, my right foot jamming the accelerator of the Lexus I'm driving to the floor, speed building rapidly, my heart rate rising, when suddenly, I add my left foot to the mix, jamming it down hard on the brake pedal.

The car screeches to a halt.

For anyone who's been paying attention the last year or so, the memory of Toyota's highly publicized troubles related to cars suddenly and irrevocably accelerating should still be fresh. And that's almost certainly why the Lexus representative--and professional driver--who's sitting … Read more

Google has launched a new resource for parents to help them keep their kids safe while surfing the Internet, the company announced on Friday.

The Family Safety Center provides tips from child-safety experts on keeping kids away from adult content on the Web and on how to ensure kids aren't contacted and lured by an adult online. Google has also included a page detailing its own child-protection services on its many products, including SafeSearch and YouTube's Safety Mode.

The Partners page is also useful in that it includes links and brief information on the many organizations that provide &… Read more

Ever wish you could be a fly on the wall for what your kids post on Facebook and other social media sites? One option would be to get them to friend you, but a lot of kids are reluctant to let that happen. Privacy issues aside, some kids find it uncool to have their parents show up on a friends list.

AOL, in partnership with SocialShield, is launching AOL SafeSocial, a $9.99-per-month service that lets parents monitor their kids' online activities without having to be a "friend."

The service doesn't work in stealth mode. In fact, … Read more

To date, most safety features have been about protecting vehicle occupants in a crash, but more manufacturers are adding active safety technology to vehicles that prevents accidents from occurring in the first place.

Nissan announced Tuesday its Forward Collision Avoidance Assist concept, which uses radar sensors to monitor the distance and relative speed of objects in front of the vehicle and delivers early alerts to warn of impending accidents. If the driver doesn't slow down quickly enough, the system will also intervene to prevent an accident by pushing up the accelerator pedal and partially applying the brakes to assist … Read more

Like iHound before it, Family Tracker was a fairly useless iPhone app until iOS 4 and multitasking came along. Now the app offers a fairly effective way for you to keep tabs on iPhone-carrying family members.

The question is, should you?

Family Tracker works much like the locator services carriers such as AT&T and Verizon have offered for years. In a nutshell, the app transmits GPS location data from the iPhone. Anyone you authorize can monitor the phone's location via a Web browser or another iPhone.

Shades of Big Brother, right? Yes and no. I can recall … Read more

When it comes to the health of your hearing, how much noise is too much noise? Sometimes it's hard to know.

A pair of intelligent earplugs, however, can make that determination for you. In quiet environments, the Quietpro+ earplugs "open" so wearers can hear normally. When the noise level rises, the 'plugs automatically filter out the clamor while continuing to let speech through.

The earplugs, from Norwegian company Nacre, are already in use by the U.S. Army, special operations forces, Navy, and Marines, as well as NATO forces (the Air Force has its own ear-protecting gear). … Read more

Though it has successfully resisted pressure to install a mandatory "panic button" on users' home pages, Facebook has permitted the U.K.'s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) to build an app for its platform that members of the social-networking site can use to report online abuse directly to CEOP or seek advice about potential dangers of the Web.

Called ClickCEOP, the app has been released following negotiations and eventually a partnership with Facebook. On Tuesday, U.K.-based Facebook members between the ages of 13 and 18 will see an ad on the site that … Read more