What Is An Intelligent Transportation System?

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) are technologies designed to make transportation safer, more efficient, more reliable and more environmentally friendly, without necessarily having to physically alter existing infrastructure.
ITS technologies include sensor and control systems, advanced communications methods, and computer informatics. These technologies are already benefiting businesses and the travelling public. For example, in Saskatoon an advanced traffic management system is minimizing traffic congestion, alerting crews to accidents and providing drivers with up-to-date road information. In Vancouver, new software has enhanced monitoring of the movement of dangerous goods in and out of port jurisdictions, enabling authorities to locate these goods more quickly.
ITS is just one of a number of areas in which the Government of Canada's Strategic Highway Infrastructure Program (SHIP) is investing. SHIP is a $600 million program that has the Government of Canada

A Ship For Canadian Highways?

Say the word "ship," and the first thing that comes to mind is an image of a boat. But say the acronym "SHIP," and now you're talking about improving our national highways, making border crossings more efficient, upgrading intersections, refitting bridges and making our national road system safer and more efficient.
The Government of Canada Strategic Highway Infrastructure Program — or SHIP — is a $600 million program working with the provinces and territories to identify those parts of our national highway system which — because of growing traffic and increasing trade — need immediate attention.
Highway improvements from coast to coast represent a big part of SHIP expenditures. For example, a new 23 metre long single-span bridge will replace the existing one crossing the Pinette River near Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.

Sharing The Road Safely With Commercial Vehicles

 Since the 1970s, the number of vehicles on Canada's roads has increased by 80 per cent. Despite this dramatic increase in traffic, the number of road fatalities has been cut by more than half.
While every province and territory is responsible for highway safety by enforcing laws and maintaining highway infrastructure, Transport Canada is improving the safety of our roads by funding upgrades to parts of the national highway system. But better roads are not the only answer to our road safety challenges. Smarter driving is needed to keep our road safety records improving. Awareness of commercial vehicles is an important part of this.
In 1999, crashes involving commercial vehicles resulted in 556 fatalities and 11,591 injuries. According to Transport Canada, drivers of passenger vehicles need to be aware that commercial vehicles often manoeuvre much differently than cars or light trucks.

AUTO ACCIDENT INSURANCE CAIM Getting Reimbursed For Your Pain and Suffering

You’ve had a motor vehicle accident some time ago when a local character by the name of Fred Fuddle smashed into your rear end but now you're in the home stretch with his Adjuster, I. M. Strong, and you’re going to be paid for your loss by Strong’s employer, Rock Solid Insurance. A good portion of it will be for your "Pain and Suffering". That is, in the lingo of insurance claim settlements, your "Compensatory Damages". Let's talk about that:
BODILY INJURY PAIN: How much pain can an individual stand? The answer to that is: Reaction to pain not only differs with each of us, but often within each of us. While pain can usually be scientifically measured, the limits of human endurance cannot. We all have a different "Pain Threshold" - - that is, the point at which we begin to feel physical distress as we enter into, and then deal with, a period of suffering.
A lot depends on what's going on in your life and how you experience it. Temperament and psychological factors are involved. Like, for example, your personal life is in a shambles (for any number of reasons) and that has hindered your ability to recover. Or, perhaps the company you work for is on the brink of bankruptcy!

Keeping Your Toyota Hubcaps in Shape

So your Toyota vehicle is no longer just another car passing in the street or parked in another fellow's garage.
Just a month ago you were bored with your car's looks and have been scouring the market for ways to give your beloved Toyota ride a little facelift without necessarily wiping the face off your wallet, or your credit card. You were happy to find that Toyota offered a vast array of top of the line car parts and accessories to give your car that additional zing - from colorful seat covers, floor carpets, and steering wheels for your car's interiors to body kits, ground effects, spoilers and hubcaps for its exterior.
For your car, you picked the Toyota hubcaps (also known as wheel covers) - those round metallic disks designed to fit snugly over the center space of a car's tires.

Medical Bills - Evaluating Your Personal Injury Insurance Claim

The value of a personal injury claim has a direct relationship to the amount of your medical bills. Why? Because a claim with medical bills of $500.00 is worth three to five times more than a claim with $100.00, or less. And that’s a fact of life in the world of insurance claims.
The adjuster will reason if you were hurt badly enough to run up $500.00 in medical expenses than it’s correct to assume that your injuries must be substantial. But, if you see your chiropractor or physician only once or twice, and your final bills are in the vicinity of $100.00, that adjuster will assume you weren’t hurt too seriously.

Top Quality Parts for the Ultimate Driving Machine

Every BMW vehicle is truly a source of pride and of sheer driving satisfaction. Through the years, this German vehicle has lived up to the standards of its own catchphrase “The Ultimate Driving Machine.” Performance—this clearly sets a BMW car from the rest of the autos within its class. The moment you rev up the engine, you would already know how your drive’s going to be. The longer you drive it, the more you get convinced it is designed and engineered to give you an ultimate driving experience. The exterior design itself can speak for its agility and responsiveness; that is because BMW has always believed that form follows function.
People behind the design and manufacturing of a BMW car have common things in mind: your safety, comfort, convenience and driving satisfaction. For this reason, every detail in a BMW is made to match the highest standards, including your own specifications.

Getting That Toyota Radiator Fix

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Toyota is one of today's top quality car manufacturers in the world. What first started out as a spin-off of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of weaving machinery in the 1930s, Toyota Motor Corporation Ltd. now produces more than 5.5 million vehicles per year or the equivalent of one vehicle to every six seconds - making it Japan’s largest car builder and the world's third largest manufacturer of automobiles in unit sales and in net sales.
After six decades in the car manufacturing business, Toyota continues to be one of the most admired, most popular and most dependable car makers in the world. Providing a complete line of powerful, innovatively designed vehicle models ranging from mini-vehicles to small cars all the way up to the large and heavy-duty trucks, it compliments these excellent vehicles with top of the line car parts, including what is considered the heart of the vehicle cooling system, the radiator. 

Driving Safely in the Dark

Safety is a primary concern for all drivers, especially at night. Although there are fewer cars on the road, most fatal car accidents happen at night than any other time of the day. Our ability to see the road ahead is seriously impaired at night. Darkness can dramatically alter the driver's ability to cope with even the most normal driving conditions. As we are more vulnerable to dangerous road situations at night or in low visibility, we should double our preparedness, alertness and common sense when driving at night. Preventive maintenance is one of the best ways to protect ourselves from potentially dangerous situations on the road. Here are some of the most important points to consider when driving in the dark.

Finding The Right Shop To Work On Your Car

Don't mess around when choosing a mechanic to work on your car. Keep an ear open for recommendations and warnings when your friends and family have car troubles. If you know beforehand of a body shop you feel comfortable with, you won’t need to make a rushed or incomplete decision when you need one.
Ask friends and associates for their recommendations. I stay in touch with homeschooling families. They’re often part of a larger group that can share recommendations for mechanics they’ve felt were honest and reputable.
Check with your local Better Business Bureau regarding the reputation of a particular body shop. Ask about the number of complaints, if there were any, and how the complaints were resolved. Don’t be too anxious if there were some complaints. No one pleases everybody, and there are some people you can’t satisfy no matter what. But if you see a pattern of the same kinds of problems, beware.

Steel Tariffs Are Needed To Be Lowered From Auto Parts Industry

Some of the automotive suppliers from U.S. have demanded for exclusions from the high tariffs which were mostly agreed by the Bush administration and almost all companies filed range from Tier ! producers to the small Tier 3 Producers.
Motor& Equipment Manufacturers Association (also named MEMA), taking into account the possibilities of serious job losses has required for an expand of existent guidelines of the second stage of exclusions and 'to consider the critical factors of price and supply steel as part of its decisions''s.
Despite the fact that MEMA is prone to support an existent of domestic steel industry, its tariffs had a strong negative effect on the automotive suppliers, according to Chris Bates the president of MEMA. This supply constraints and the increases in price which are generally a result of the high steel tariffs are now obliging large Tier 1 Automotive suppliers to start creating or buying components that they have previously created and purchased from foreign sources.
According to what MEMA claims, a tendency of responding to the increase of steel tariffs is to reduce the production and to start thinking about the movement of some manufacturing facilities permanently abroad. MEMA also claim that the shift of movement facilities and jobs to other countries where prices remain the same is growing fast.

Eleven Money-Saving Auto Insurance Tips for Senior Drivers



Source: http://carinsurancetipsblog.com/

 Like all drivers, senior citizens (or as I like to call them “seasoned citizens”) want to get the best rates on their auto insurance policies. What they may not be aware of is that older drivers may present a higher risk than other drivers, usually leading to higher auto insurance rates.
Following a few simple tips and taking these measures will ensure that you are getting the lowest rates possible on your auto insurance policy.
1. Avoid more Accidents, Pay Close Attention at Intersections.  Auto accidents involving seniors often occur at intersections. Make sure to look ahead if you plan to quickly change lanes after an intersection.  Pay attention to protected left turn lanes with their own arrows, and always keep your tires pointed straight ahead when stopped, so that a rear-end accident doesn't push you into oncoming traffic.

Taking Care of your Volvo's Cooling System

All automobiles are equipped with an internal combustion engine. Put simply, the internal combustion engine converts fuel into motion so that the automobile can move. To create motion from gasoline, it has to be burned inside the engine, thus the term internal combustion. There are different types of internal combustion engines including diesel engines, gas turbine engines, HEMI engines, rotary engines, and two–stroke engines. But, whatever the type of internal combustion engine, one thing is common to all – all of them produce heat and waste gases and compounds. Overheating is one of the dangers of combustion. When this happens, the engine can break down if it cannot dissipate the heat that has built up in its chambers.
Temperatures inside the engine can rise to over 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Such a high temperature will put serious stress on the engine's parts. The engine parts will have to work harder as the metal expands.

The Importance of a Healthy Car Exhaust System

Many people tend to disregard the exhaust system of an automobile. They may think that the exhaust system does nothing more than to discharge the waste products of the combustion process. Although this is exactly what the exhaust system does, the way these waste product is discharged out of the engine is essential to the performance of the engine. A gasoline engine involves three processes: combustion, mechanical drive and exhaust. If one of these processes is impeded, the condition of the engine will depreciate.
The exhaust system has three major functions, the first of which is to channel out the waste products of combustion out of the engine to allow it to continue to burn fuel unhindered thereby ensuring that the engine runs smoothly. An efficient exhaust system allows the waste gas and compound to escape quickly out of the system. If these waste products do not escape from the engine immediately, they may choke up the engine thus causing it to break down.

What You Should Never Do When You Buy A Car

Sooner or later most people buy a new car. It doesn't matter if it's your third new car or your first, it almost always happens sometime.
There is an art to buying a new car and if you know it, you're better prepared when that day arrives.
Every car buyer knows that there are tricks to getting a car at a reasonable price. Dealerships and private sellers rarely mark the car at it's actual worth.
Instead, they mark the price up a little so that they make a good profit for themselves. Another reason is that this lets them give their salespeople better commissions, and this makes them work harder to sell the car to you.
Whatever the reason, almost all dealerships can be talked down on their initial prices, if you know how to haggle properly. When you buy a car, keep this in mind all the time.

The True Cost of a Speeding Ticket

Have you noticed more autos on the side of the road with an officer issuing the driver a speeding ticket? Have you seen more trucks surrounded by DOT transport police? I sure have. There are several reasons for this increased activity.
One is that after 9/11 many departments have increased patrols. The additional police presence is to assure the public that efforts are being taken to prevent terrorist attacks like the recent sniper killings. The other reason is that cities and states are faced with budget deficits in these tough economic times. Since traffic tickets are a politically correct form of taxation, many jurisdictions are increasing fines as a means of balancing the books.

The Grandest and Newest Offerings from Lincoln Motors

Presenting the brand new Lincoln car models… All dashing and stylish. All booming and modish. All exhilarating and voguish. Take your pick.
First halt is this 2005 Lincoln Aviator. This 2005 Lincoln Aviator is available in two trims, the 4X2 Luxury and the AWD Luxury. This is an exciting 4-door, up to 7-passenger luxury sport-utility car. Upon introduction, both trims are outfitted with a customary 4.6-liter, V8, 302-horsepower engine that pulls off a superb 13-mpg in the city and 18-mpg on the highway. A 5-speed automatic transmission in the company of overdrive is set. This 2005 Lincoln Aviator is an impressive carryover as of 2004. The MSRP of Lincoln Aviator (Monroney Sticker Price gives you an idea about the base price, the

Honda Oxygen Sensors: Critical To Promoting A Clean Environment!

An oxygen sensor plays a critical part in reducing deadly emissions from your vehicle. Like any part your Honda's oxygen sensor will age and wear out, therefore it must be replaced or your car will be found spewing noxious fumes into the atmosphere. You can take charge and replace the part, but you must be careful to find a product that meets rigorous standards and is built to last. Not just any oxygen sensor should be placed in your Honda vehicle, so let's look at some of the requirements for a good replacement part.
Bosch oxygen sensors are considered to be amongst the finest ones in the industry, particularly since Bosch brought the first ones to market in 1976. Bosch's product is considered to be the benchmark for Honda oxygen sensors, BMW oxygen sensors, and for others found in vehicles throughout America. Indeed, their product meets OEM [original equipment manufacturer] requirements on a wide variety of vehicles.
Oxygen sensors are made of several important parts, all critical to helping reduce emissions.
Your OEM replacement part must contain:

5 Ways To Find Affordable, Quality Parts For Your Vehicle

The latest offerings from American automakers has the industry buzzing. Coupled with steep discounts, cars are rolling out of showrooms at a record clip. Not everyone is buying a new car these days, instead a significant number of car lovers are maintaining and keeping their cars for five or ten years, even longer. However, finding affordable, quality parts for any model car can be difficult particularly as the car ages. Let’s look at five ways you can find parts for your soon to be classic.
1. The Dealers. Some dealer inventories are extensive and include parts for classic models including the Dodge Charger, Coronet, and Omni; Ford Mustang, Thunderbird, and LTD; and Chevrolet Camaro, Caprice, and Vega. Their prices, however, can be steep as you are paying the dealer rate and receiving genuine manufacturer parts.

Choosing The Right Custom Made Cargo Liners and Floor Mats

Your Ford F-150, Dodge Ram, or Chevrolet Silverado truck is a real workhorse when it comes to moving people and stuff. Chances are your cargo bed is utilized regularly as you carry lumber, gravel, furniture, or even groceries. To shield your cargo bed as well as the interior of your truck from abuse, custom made liners and floor mats offer special protection for your vehicle that no off the shelf product can possibly match. Let's take a look at some key features that custom made liners and floor mats offer.
Custom made Husky liners offer maximum protection for your truck or SUV because they incorporate the following characteristics:
Each liner is custom made to the exact specifications of your truck’s cargo bed. No "one-size-fits-all" product here.
They're made from tough polyethylene material to stay soft in extreme weather conditions: summer's heat or winter's intense cold.
Contain molded-in tread pattern grips cargo to minimize shifting of your people, pooch, or packages.
Come in three colors: gray, black, and tan to match just about any vehicle.
Resist snow, ice, hail, sleet, rain, mud, dirt, gas, oil, even battery acid.
Similarly, custom made Husky floor mats offer the following important features:
Developed with the toughest rubber to withstand abusive foot traffic.

Is a Classic Car Right For You?

A vintage or classic car can bring you great joy, but it may also be painfully expensive. The truth is vintage car ownership can sometimes be an illusion because not everyone is suited to the hobby, financially or otherwise. The good news is that by using these tips with caution you could soon be at the wheel of the car of your dreams. Some of which may be as old as the car you're about to buy.
Ask yourself if you can really afford a vintage or classic, remembering that if something breaks it could end up costing a small fortune in repairs. This is especially true of rare or exotic vehicles. Parts may be hard to find, thus the car could be out of service for a lengthy period. Can you handle repairs on your own? Got the talent and experience for restoration? Great... but if not, be prepared to dig deep.

CARAVANS

We will start with the definition of caravan.  A caravan is a group of travelers or merchants banded together and organized for joint support and protection while traveling through unsettled or unfriendly country.  Caravan trade, however, is associated with the history of the Middle East as far back as the records of ancient civilizations extend.  The caravan trade was very well developed before the idea of sea commerce was ever considered.
The history of the caravan trades people has shown how well organized these groups of people were.  The caravans crossed great distances across the unsettled desert trails, with little or no protection from the local governments.
The main modes of transportation were camels throughout the Arabian Peninsula.  Camels could withstand the desert heat, and go numerous days without water,

Understand Vehicle Financing and You Can Save Thousands!

With prices averaging more than $20,000 for a new vehicle and $9,500 for a four-year-old vehicle, most consumers need financing or leasing to acquire a vehicle. In some cases, buyers use "direct lending:" they obtain a loan directly from a finance company, bank or credit union.
In direct lending, a buyer agrees to pay the amount financed, plus an agreed-upon finance charge, over a period of time. Once a buyer and a vehicle dealership enter into a contract and the buyer agrees to a vehicle price, the buyer uses the loan proceeds from the direct lender to pay the dealership for the vehicle.
Consumers also may arrange for a vehicle loan over the Internet. The most common type of vehicle financing, is "dealership financing.", but the smart car buyer knows it's better to shop for financing before you shop for the car, and the internet is fast becoming the "big dog" in auto financing.

How To Find Low Cost Auto Parts, At The Right Price!

Whether it’s for your 4-year-old Chevy minivan, or the vintage Dodge Charger you have underneath the canvas in your shop, finding auto parts that don’t cost you a fortune might be a tough task. Auto wreckers, E-bay, parts locators – these are all valid ways to try to find the auto part you need, at the price you want to pay.
For newer vehicles, you might be inclined to pay full retail price at your local auto parts store, just to get the exact part you need for your vehicle.  What you should realize is there are dozens of cars with parts just like yours, or reasonably close, that are sitting in impound lots, auto wreckers, and on the Internet, just waiting to find a new home.  What makes them more attractive is that these auto parts can be found for a fraction of what you would pay for a new part.  Chances are, they will last just as long – unless they have been damaged.

Catalytic Converter Failure: Now What?

An important device that is standard equipment on vehicles built since 1975 is the catalytic converter. This part, when properly working, will significantly reduce pollutants from your engine before they leave your exhaust. A catalytic converter is essential toward promoting overall environmental cleanliness; most state auto inspection stations will check to see if yours is working as part of their regular inspection of your vehicle. If your vehicle fails inspection your catalytic converter may need to be replaced. Let’s take a look at what a catalytic converter does and how you can save money in replacing one should it fail.
As your engine burns fuel, it produces environmentally harmful gases. These gases, if not handled properly, will leave your car’s exhaust and work harm on the environment.