As the movement against distracted driving continues to gain steam, Ford is doing its part by adding a “Do Not Disturb” feature to its new MyFord Touch system as well as other “lock-out” provisions.

The “Do Not Disturb” button will block incoming phone calls and text-message alerts while the vehicle is moving. Incoming calls will be diverted to your cell phone’s voicemail, but the driver can still make outbound calls. Sync’s 911 Assist feature can still call for emergency services so long as the feature is enabled.

Ford also enhanced its audible text-messaging system by adopting a Bluetooth standard called Message Access Profile, allowing Sync to read aloud incoming text messages with improved accuracy.

Ford has tried to limit distractions even further by reducing the amount of features that are accessible when the car is in Drive. Features that are locked out include pairing a Bluetooth phone, web browsing, playing videos and browsing photos. Anything that requires typing on the keypad is prohibited while the car is moving. 

Of course, you still can use Sync’s primary functions even with “Do Not Disturb” turned on. These include accessing music and making outbound calls. The 2011 Ford Edge and Lincoln MKX will be the first vehicles to offer the “Do Not Disturb” button when those vehicles go on sale later this year.

All 2011 model year vehicles with MyFord or MyLincoln Touch will also get this new feature, but we don’t know how widespread the system will be.

I was reading the latest issue of Car and Driver, and was very much interested by their article on how to avoid blind spots. I am providing a summary of the article for the benefit of all of our readers.

Lots of interested has been generated to come up with a good system, which can avoid blind spots. Several companies have very high tech products which claim to eliminate or minimize these blind spots. These systems are either very expensive or are not versatile enough so that they can be used in all vehicles.

Society of Automotive engineers -SAE published a paper in 1995 providing recommendations on how the side mirror should be adjusted to eliminate the blind spots. According to the paper, the mirror should be adjusted so far outward that the viewing angle of the side mirrors just overlaps that of the car’s rear view mirror. Although this may take some to adjust to and in many cases may be disorienting for drivers who are used to see portion of their car in the side mirrors. But if this advice is followed, the mirrors negate car’s blind spots. The greatest advantage is no more glancing over your shoulder to check any incoming car for safe lane changes. Also you can save lots of money by not spending on complex and very expensive systems.

Picture courtsey: Car and Driver Magazine

Disclaimer: We are providing the above information from a published document for your information only. Please use your judgment before you follow the above recommendations. We will not be liable for any injuries or accident which may occur due to the above information.

Cash for clunker was launched by Federal government on July 27 to give a rebate of up to $4500 by trading in your old gas guzzler car.

Let us find out if we will actually save money by this or is it a another political stunt?

Gas Saving:

For that $1 billion, Americans will trade in roughly 250,000 cars and light trucks. The average gas mileage of those “clunkers” (vehicles such as aging Ford Explorers) was 16 miles per gallon, according to data released Aug. 5 by the Transportation Dept. The average mileage of the replacement vehicles (led by Ford’s small Focus) is 25 mpg.

Now let us do a simple math. Let’s assume that the average number of miles driven for both the new and old vehicles is 12,000 miles per year. The clunker thus would have burned 750 gallons per year. The new car? Only 480 gallons. That’s a savings of 270 gallons per year per car. With gas at $3 per gallon, they’ll save $810 per year, assuming they drive the same number of miles (which actually is a questionable assumption).

And at 250,000 cars traded in so far, that adds up to 67 million fewer gallons consumed in the U.S. per year and with a saving of  $201 million! This number may look very big. However, last year Americans burned over 138 billion gallons of gas. Therefore, cutting down the consumption by 67 million gallons is a drop in the ocean or may be a small step in the right direction.

In terms of the average fuel economy of the entire fleet, the Cash for Clunkers program is hardly even measurable. With 254 million registered vehicles in the U.S., the fact that 250,000 new cars are more efficient is a mere blip. “We’re talking about a tiny amount of cars,” says Lee Schipper, project scientist in Global Metropolitan Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, who studies fuel economy issues.

Carbon Dioxide Emission:

“As a carbon dioxide policy, this is a terribly wasteful thing to do,” said Henry Jacoby, a professor of management and co-director of the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change at MIT. “The amount of carbon you are saving per federal expenditure is very, very small.”

Calculations by The Associated Press, using Department of Transportation figures, show that replacing those fuel hogs will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by just under 700,000 tons a year. While that may sound impressive, it’s nothing compared to what the U.S. spewed last year: nearly 6.4 billion tons (and that was down from previous years).

So overall this program will benefit only a few Americans and may save few million gallon of gas, with no major impact to population at large.