GOOGLE'S NEW SELF-DRIVING CAR WILL EVEN ALLOW THE BLIND TO GET BEHIND THE WHEEL

Web giant Google has already changed the way we search the internet, watch video and navigate.

But the firm's latest breakthrough could be its biggest innovation yet.

The company promises that its self-driving car will enable blind people to drive, as the vehicle takes over nearly all the functions of the car currently controlled by humans.

The project has been several years in the making, and was officially unveiled in October 2010.

But recently it has taken a further step forward, after putting blind people in the driving seat and inviting them to test the technology which could revolutionise their lives.

Google has released a video showing Steve Mahan, dubbed 'Self-Driving Car User #0000000001', using the car to carry out his daily routine.

Mr Mahan, who is 95 per cent blind, drives to buy a taco and pick up dry-cleaning - activities which may seem humdrum, but which are shut off to many blind people who do not have a companion or carer to accompany them.

Although Google employees sat with the driver in the Toyota Prius, they were not involved with the vehicle's navigation during the journey around Morgan Hill, California.

Instead the car, which was patented in December, uses cameras, radar and lasers to move safely around pre-programmed locations.

Mr Mahan's test drive leaves him clearly delighted with the life-changing vehicle as he jokes: 'Look ma, no hands... and no feet!'

At the end of the journey, he tells his passengers: 'You guys get out, I've got places I have to go.'

The concept of it is pretty awesome,' Eric Bridges, a spokesman for the American Council of the Blind, told Fox News.

'They’re helping to change the world in a lot of ways.'

But a lot more needs to be worked out before the cars hit the road without the direct supervision of Google engineers.

It would be a brave government which issued driver's licences to the blind - but the wonders of technology could still make it a reality.

WHY CHINA CAN’T AVOID OIL ADDICTION

China raised gasoline prices 7% last week to $4.42 a gallon — the largest single increase in nearly three years — in a move partly aimed at suppressing the country’s expanding hunger for oil. A steady series of such adjustments, combined with massive investments in renewable energy, suggests China is serious about controlling its dependence on fossil fuels. But if the country is hoping to avoid the American experience with oil addiction, it might already be too late.

The central culprit? A zealous car culture remarkably similar in its development to the one that pushed the U.S. into the arms of foreign oil producers.

China’s annual bill for imported oil averaged just $66 billion between the year 2000 and 2010, according to the International Energy Association. The IEA predicts that figure will jump to $251 billion in 2012, accounting for 60 percent of the nation’s total oil consumption.

Steep as this month’s increase in fuel prices might seem, it will have a limited impact on China’s appetite for oil because the country is just entering the take-off stage of car buying.That notion might seem to fly in the face of recent media reports suggesting China’s insatiable appetite for the automobile has begun to taper off. But China is still a young market, and the current bout of slower growth comes more from Beijing’s inflation-beating efforts rather than any underlying weakness in demand for cars.Even with sales growing at a slower pace, car-crazy Chinese are expected to buy 20 million rides this year. Eight out of ten new car buyers in China are purchasing for the first time in their lives, according to the latest numbers from J.D. Power and Associates, and only one in 10 new car buyers relies on car loans to fund their purchases. In other words, there’s plenty of cash around for new cars.

Moreover, at $4.42 a gallon, Chinese drivers are still paying about half as much for gas as drivers in Tokyo or Berlin.Policy makers in Beijing are acutely aware of the risks to national security that come with too much dependence on foreign oil. But they find their hands mostly tied, in large part because Chinese vehicle owners, like their American counterparts, have grown accustomed to affordable fuel. Raising fuel prices too quickly would produce significant backlash from city folks and farmers alike, increasing the risk of domestic unrest.

Lifting prices too slowly, on the other hand, only deepens the addiction, giving China more headaches in tension centers like Iran and the contested seas around the Spratly Islands.To relieve some pressure, officials in Beijing are encouraging the auto industry to develop electric vehicle technology. But the batteries that drive electric cars remain expensive: Use of batteries makes an electric car $10,000 more expensive on average than the same model powered by a gasoline or diesel engine.

Moreover, there are limits to how far you can travel an electric car – around 100 miles – before you need a fresh charge. Annual sales of electric cars in China, therefore, remain stuck in the low thousands. Meanwhile, total car demand in China is projected to climb to 30 million a year – twice the current size of the U.S. market — by 2020, according to an IHS Global Insight report released earlier this month. Assuming a modest increase in oil prices, China will be spending more than a half a trillion dollars on imported oil every year by the end of the decade.

This vexing dependency is bound to get much worse before it gets better. As the U.S. knows all too well, addictions usually lead to trouble. The world should get ready for heightened conflict wherever oil deposits are concentrated.

AMERICANS PUT A PRIORITY ON STAYING CURRENT ON THE CAR LOAN, A STUDY FINDS

    NEW YORK — The recession and its hangover may have turned bill-paying habits upside down. Cash-strapped Americans are paying off their car loans before they pay credit card bills and make mortgage payments, a study finds.

It used to be that Americans would pay their home loans first, then their credit card and car loans. After all, homes have been the most valuable possession for most people for decades, and nobody wanted to jeopardize that.

But Trans Union, a credit information company, studied the payment patterns of 4 million Americans with at least one car loan, one credit card and a mortgage and found a clear priority for staying current on the car loan.

Among Americans who were late on payments last year, 39 percent were delinquent on the mortgage while current on the car loan and credit cards, and 17 percent were late on credit cards while current on the other two.

Only 10 percent were late on the car loan while current on the other two. When Trans Union first did the study in 2006, staying current on the mortgage was the priority, says Ezra Becker, the company’s vice president of research and consulting.

“Today, most people need a car to get to a job or to look for a job, and that has made cars a priority,” he says.

It hasn’t helped that home prices keep falling while the mortgage remains by far the biggest payment for most people. The latest Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index found that prices in big cities had fallen to 2002 levels, down 34 percent from the peak.

There is also more leeway on the mortgage. Foreclosure can take two to three years. Cars can be repossessed 90 days after people stop paying.

Matt Saxton of Columbia, Md., was not surprised by the study’s results. Saxton is on unpaid medical leave from work, recovering from spine surgery and relying on his savings.

ELECTRONIC GADGETS DISTRACT TEEN DRIVERS

Use of electronic devices is a leading distraction for teen drivers, and girls are twice as likely as boys to use cell phones or other electronic devices while driving, a new study has found.

The study from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety also found that teenage drivers were three times more likely to take their eyes off the road when using these devices.

In the final phase of a three-part study that used data recorders in the cars of 50 North Carolina families with a novice teenage driver, researchers examined six months of video clips for each family.

A total of 52 drivers were recorded -- 38 of whom had just received their licenses, and 14 teen siblings.

In nearly 8,000 clips, electronic devices were used nearly 7 per cent of the time, accounting for more than any other distracted-driving behaviour, such as adjusting controls, eating and drinking or turning around.

And girls were the worst offenders. In video clips, they used electronic devices 7.9 per cent of the time, while boys clocked at 4 percent.

The time of day or day of week did not affect distracted-driving behaviour.

Carol Ronis, the foundation's senior communications manager, said the study was important because car crashes remained the leading cause of death for teenagers in America. Teen car crashes are roughly four times higher than they are for adults.

"We know that teen drivers are avid users of cellphones and other technologies," she told ABC News.

"Continue the conversation with your child. Set a good example. They are always watching and modelling our behaviours," she suggested giving an advice "Keep your hands on the wheel, eyes on the road and mind on the task."

AT DISTRACTED DRIVING FORUM, A FOCUS ON DANGER BEYOND '2 SECONDS'

Last month, while driving to Madison, Wisconsin, Lee glanced down to review a playlist on his car's MP3 player. He scrolled through the titles, looking for Bruce Springsteen songs, "wanting to avoid the Adele songs that my wife had put there."

Lee, an expert at human-machine interactions at the University of Wisconsin, had just co-authored a paper titled "Scrolling While Driving." And despite his own heightened awareness about the dangers of distracted driving, he had spent three to five seconds with his eyes off the road, a time lapse that placed him well into the danger zone.

The incident, he said, demonstrated the insidious creep of distracting technology into the automobile.

"It seems like the old technology," he said of his car's audio system. "It seems like a radio. But it isn't."

And if Lee -- who has forsworn cell phone and text messaging in his car -- can be lulled into a distracting experience, anybody can, he said.

"I've been very well-trained to the dangers of distraction, and yet I'm vulnerable," he said.

Lee's anecdote at a National Transportation Safety Board all-day forum Tuesday hit upon two themes -- the invasion of pernicious technology in automobiles and the precious few seconds it takes to go from an attentive driver to a distracted one.

Lee and a panel of experts said that any distraction of two seconds or longer significantly increases the likelihood of a crash.

Novice drivers are 16 times more likely to take a dangerous glance inside the vehicle than experienced drivers, the experts said, citing one study.

And the risk of a crash increases "four-fold" if a driver was on the phone, regardless of whether they were using a hand-held or a hands-free device, they said.

Some agreement; some dispute

The forum comes at a time when the NTSB and the Department of Transportation are at odds over just how far the government should go to restrict digital devices in cars. The Department of Transportation is recommending that states ban the use of handheld cell phones and text messaging devices. But the NTSB wants to take it a step further, banning the use of hands-free devices, except those that aid driving.

"Things that are hands-free are distracting too," said NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman.

"We'd like to see requirements and standards that look at all distractions, not just the manipulative or the visual distractions, but recognizing that there's a cognitive distraction," she said.

Experts call it "looking but not seeing."

"The issue of cognitive distraction seems to have been left off the table -- forgotten a little bit," she said.

Driver distractions are hardly new, safety board members and panels acknowledged. Everything from billboards, to beautiful scenery, to pretty girls, have distracted drivers since the advent of automobiles, they said.But new texting technology creates a "perfect storm" of activities that create danger, prompting users to look and engage.In addition to taking a driver's eyes off the road and hands off the wheel, texting devices can engage people's minds so that they're paying less attention to the task of driving, the experts said.

And the technology is evolving faster than its impact can be appreciated, Lee said.

"The pace of change is daunting. The pace of change far outstrips the pace of regulatory response," he explained.

An often-quoted study on distracted driving known as the "100 car study" was conducted in 2003 and 2004 -- before the introduction of Facebook (2004), Twitter (2006), the iPhone (2007), and iPhone apps (2008), Lee said.Driver distraction is a growing contributor to U.S. traffic fatalities, said Jeff Caird of the University of Calgary. In 1999, there were 4,563 distracted driving fatalities, accounting for 10.9% of all fatalities. In 2008, there were 5,870 distraction fatalities, 15.8% of the total.But police reports are not a reliable source of information for the cause of distracted driving accidents, said Anne McCartt of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The cause of accidents is frequently not reported, and there are very large differences across the states, McCartt said.