Your chances of hitting a deer with your car stand at one in 173 in Colorado, The Gazette reports today.

You can prevent a collision with a deer, moose or elk. Here are some tips from State Farm:

* Be aware of your surroundings. Pay attention to “deer crossing” signs. Scan down the road and far off to each side. At night, use your high-beam lights if possible to illuminate the road’s edges. Be especially watchful in areas near woods and water. If you see one deer, there may be several others nearby.

* Be particularly alert at dusk and dawn when these animals venture out to feed.

* If you see a deer, moose or elk on or near the roadway and think you have time to avoid hitting it, reduce your speed, tap your brakes to warn other drivers and sound your horn. Deer tend to fixate on headlights, so flashing them may cause the animal to move. If there’s no vehicle close behind you, brake hard.

* If a collision seems inevitable, don’t swerve to avoid the animal; your risk of injury may be greater if you do. Maintain control of the vehicle. Report the accident to the police and your insurance company.

* Always obey the speed limit and wear safety belts.

Post from: The Wheel World

Jump on the accelerator, and all six cylinders come to life to bring you up to speed. Once you reach cruising speed, the V-6 shuts down the entire rear bank of cylinders for maximum fuel efficiency. As you start up an incline, the engine moves from three cylinders to four.

You’ll never notice the cylinders dropping in and out, (Eric Taylor, sales consultant for Front Range Honda) says, unless you see the little green light come on the dash that says ECO, which indicates the economy mode.

I was surprised when I was entering Interstate 25 and looked down and the engine had already gone into economy mode, and I was passing other vehicles.

With seating for eight, the Pilot sports a 250-horsepower V-6 engine and gets 16 miles per gallon in the city and 22 mpg highway. Read the full test drive over at SpringsWheels. Or drive a new Honda Pilot for yourself at Front Range Honda, 1001 S. Academy Blvd.

Photo courtesy of Honda

Post from: The Wheel World

* Check oil and fluid levels and change them according to your vehicle manufacturer’s recommendation.

* Consider checking your car’s belts for cracks and missing pieces and examine the  hoses for bulges, cracks, soft spots or brittleness.

* Be sure to check the operation of the windshield wipers and washers and all lights.

* Examine battery terminals regularly. Remove any corrosion with a toothbrush and a mix of baking soda and water.

* Give your vehicle with a thorough cleaning and waxing. It may help provide additional protection from the changing elements.

Source: Rain-X

Post from: The Wheel World

There was never any question as to whether I or my friends would get our driver’s licenses at 16. The only thing that held us back was getting in those practice hours. Now, before you think I’m getting nostalgic about the good old days, I want to remind you this was back in the day before air bags, when mid-size cars were bigger than today’s big sedans. When I got my license, I would haul four or five other kids to softball practice or the mall. Granted, we didn’t have cell phones to distract us, but imagine six teenage girls in a car together — talk about distracting.

Graduated licensing laws here in Colorado and in other states limit when teens can drive and who they can have in the car with them. The laws have helped lower teen crash rates around the country. But is it enough?

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has released a new report that focuses on the costs in terms of lives of allowing licensure sooner rather than later. The message is that licensing at later ages would substantially reduce crashes involving teen drivers. The same conclusion has been reached in other countries. Teens in Great Britain and most Australian states can’t get their licenses until they turn 17, for example. In most EU countries it’s 18. The Institute’s new report is being released at the annual meeting of the Governors Highway Safety Association.

“This is a tough sell,” says Anne McCartt, Institute senior vice president for research, “but it’s an important enough issue to challenge the silence and at least consider changing the age at which we allow teenagers to get their licenses to drive. After all, graduated licensing has been successful ever since states began to adopt these programs more than a decade ago, and raising the licensing age is a logical next step to reduce driving by the riskiest motorists on the road, the youngest ones.”

I’m sure there are a lot kids in their early to mid-teens out there thinking this is a terrible idea. But there are also probably a lot of parents of those kids worried about putting their child behind the wheel. Whether we license drivers at 16, 17 or even 18, they still need plenty of behind-the-wheel time with an experienced driver before they take off on their own.

“Sixteen-year-old drivers have the highest crash involvement rate of any age group in Colorado and are nearly three times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash than the average of all other drivers,” says COTeenDriver.com. The Web site offers lots of tips for teens and their parents and all the information you need about Colorado’s Graduated Licensing Laws.

Post from: The Wheel World

“It’s part minivan, based on its six-passenger capacity, complete with three rows — two, if you like, thanks to 50-50 fold third-row seats. Equally as impressive are the minivan-style sliding doors on both sides.

It’s part sportscar, too, with a lively, 2.3-liter, four-cylinder engine that powers the trendy Mazda3 and Mazda6, along with the crossover CX-7, just to name a few.

And, with fuel economy that nears 30 miles per gallon, the Mazda5 defies characteristics of both a minivan and sports car. I guess it’s part sedan, too.”

With up to 44.4 cubic feet of cargo space and seating for six passengers, it’s definitely a vehicle for the driver that needs to move people, gear or both.

The Mazda5 got a face lift for 2008, with an updated exterior to enhance its wedge-shaped body and a five-speed automatic transmission that yielded much better gas mileage. The 2009 edition receives only slight refinements, including a couple of color changes.

But it hasn’t lost Mazda’s soul of a sports car. It has the engine as the CX-7 — “Think what (that engine) can do with the lighter (by some 500 pounds) Mazda5,” says Carmody. It also uses the same fully-independent suspension as Mazda’s sports car models.

“Call it what you want: a mini-minivan, Eurowagon or multi-activity sports vehicle. However you slice it, the 2009 Mazda5 provides plenty of options, versatility, style and, of course, with any Mazda, fun.”

You can read the full test drive here. Or test drive your own at Bob Penkhus Mazda Motor City, 1101 Motor Drive.

Photo courtesy of Ford

Post from: The Wheel World

Luckily, there’s a way to check to see if that car you’re considering buying has been totaled — or stolen.

The National Insurance Crime Bureau has created a free, searchable public database of totaled vehicles (3 million are totaled every year) using records supplied by insurance companies. Prospective used car buyers can go to the Web site — www.nicb.org — and click on VINCheck. Enter the vehicle identification number to determin if a vehicle has been reported as stolen, but not recovered, or has been reported as a previously declared total loss vehicle by cooperating NICB members.

Post from: The Wheel World

Loaded with extras, like a heated and cooled driver’s seat, park assist,  and proximity key, the test vehicle was also equipped with the optional technology package that adds a Lexicon Discrete 7.1, 17-speaker - no, that’s not a typo - surround sound audio system. The only other vehicle you’ll find that system in, master elite sales consultant DuWoyn Snipe tells me, is the Rolls Royce Phantom (which sells for more than 10 times what the Genesis costs). “You can feel like you’re at the concert while you’re in this car,” Snipe says.

Equipped with a 3.6-liter, V-6 engine, the Genesis pumps out 290 horsepower and 264 foot-pounds of torque, has quick acceleration and a smooth and quiet ride.

You can read my full test drive over at SpringsWheels. Or drive one for yourself at Phil Long Hyundai of Chapel Hills.

Genesis front seat

Park assist and gauges

Genesis's Multimedia Controller

Back seat leg and headroom

Post from: The Wheel World

After you take the quiz, if you’ve determined you’re ready to sell your car yourself, they give you tips for preparing the car for sale, pricing it, listing it and negotiating the sale. They even offer some other resources to help you out.

And if you’re not the private sale type, they give you some alternatives, including information about trade-ins and donation programs.

As usual, Click and Clack offer up some really useful tips while managing to be entertaining. Although, if your idea of entertainment is more high brow, Tom and Ray may not be for you.

The Car Talk Web site has lots of information and resources for car lovers, people looking for help with their car or those desperate to kill some time. You can even listen to podcasts of their radio show.

Post from: The Wheel World

GM said the Volt will cost about 80 cents to fully charge at a rate of 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, which is about the national average. After that, the batteries will be recharged by a small gasoline engine that allows the car to travel hundreds more miles. GM said the engine will be able to run on E85 ethanol, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline.

“It’s proof that the century-old General Motors is alive and well and that it intends to lead in reinventing the automobile,” Wagoner said.

The Volt is due in U.S. showrooms by November 2010.

Post from: The Wheel World

For example, even though Americans rated drunk driving as the most serious traffic safety issue, almost 10 percent  admitted to driving during the previous month when they thought their blood alcohol content was above the legal limit. And while 82 percent rated distracted driving as a serious problem, more than half of those same individuals admitted to talking on the cell phone while driving in the past month, and 14 percent even admitted to reading or sending text messages while driving.

The overall death toll on U.S. roadways has consistently exceeded 40,000 every year since the early 1960s with the sole exception of 1992. With these statistics in mind the aims of the index are simple:
• To investigate the public’s traffic-safety-related knowledge, attitudes, behaviors and experiences.
• To create a baseline measure of traffic safety culture in the U.S.
• To monitor America’s traffic safety culture.
• To guide traffic safety research and public outreach.
• To foster dialogue about traffic safety and how to improve it.

If, as to the report says, three out of four of motorists believe they are more careful than others behind the wheel, who’s doing all the bad driving?

Because I know it’s not one of us, it must be the other guy. But just in case, let’s all try to be a little safer on the roads. Check out some of these traffic safety links at AAA Foundation for more information.

Post from: The Wheel World