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Department of Transportation Orders Investment in V2V Communication for Cars

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Car Accident

In this month’s Risk Management magazine, Katherine Heires discussed the risks of the Internet of Things —the increasing interconnectedness facilitated by a vast array of products incorporating smart technology and the internet to customize the user experience.

Automation in cars can control just about every component of the driving experience, right down to music, speed and temperature. But so much assistance can also lead drivers to tune out behind the wheel. “Lost in the debate around autonomous technology is that these features pull workload away from the driver and can result in under-arousal,” Bryan Reimer, who researches driver efficiency issues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the New York Times.

So carmakers are now developing technology to help keep drivers alert. According to the New York Times:

Both versions analyze the way a driver acts behind the wheel, taking note of over 70 parameters in the first few minutes of a drive. As the drive continues, the system continuously compares driver activity—including steering movement, steering speed and control operation—to the baseline. It also considers factors like crosswinds and road condition, so as not to be misled by differences in driver response that are related to weather or terrain.

A display on the dashboard provides a continuously updated analysis of attention level and elapsed time since the last stop. If driver inattention approaches a critical level, an alert is issued and a rest stop encouraged.

The government is also now turning to the Internet of Things to try to keep drivers safer. On Monday, the Department of Transportation announced plans to move forward with V2V technology that allows vehicles to communicate with each other in order to prevent collisions. Operating on a dedicated radio spectrum similar to WiFi, V2V systems utilize transponders that can communicate a car’s location, direction and speed up to 10 times per second to surrounding cars. Vehicles equipped with this technology can alert their drivers to potential collisions and some could automatically slow down to avoid accidents.

According to the DOT, V2V could prevent up to 80% of accidents that don’t involve drunk drivers or mechanical failure. “Vehicle-to-vehicle technology represents the next generation of auto safety improvements, building on the life-saving achievements we’ve already seen with safety belts and air bags,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “By helping drivers avoid crashes, this technology will play a key role in improving the way people get where they need to go while ensuring that the U.S. remains the leader in the global automotive industry.”

Does Reputation Really Impact the Bottom Line?

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Last month, the American Customer Satisfaction Index released its latest figures for 190 major brands across all industries. The finance and insurance industries got some good news: satisfaction increased across the sector in 2013. But a careful look at some of the “worst” companies in the survey reveals a trend that may call into question some traditional wisdom on one key risk: reputation.

As Eric Chemi points out in Bloomberg Businessweek, a comparison between these satisfaction scores and 2013 stock returns – factoring in only publicly-traded companies with at least a full year of trading data – shows that customer service scores have no relevance to stock market returns. In fact, when Chemi added a regression line, he found that stock returns actually decreased as satisfaction scores went up.

Customer Satisfaction vs. Stock Returns

The slope is minimal, so there is no statistical relationship between the variables, but the trend itself is curious. Clearly, other factors account for the market success of a publicly traded company, and reputation may impact a company’s bottom line off the NYSE floor. This chart does illustrate, however, that good guys do tend to finish last in even the broadest groupings.

2013 Performance

So, if reputation doesn’t necessarily impact one major metric of a company’s success, is there a secondary market for being liked? Does reputation make or break other metrics, like net profits or market share? Given that many other studies seem to suggest that reputation does have a negative effect on stock prices, there is likely more at work here.

Northridge Quake Remembered

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Last week was the 20-year anniversary of the Northridge Earthquake. The 6.7-magnitude event that hit on Jan.

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17, 1994 at 4:30 a.m. stands as the second costliest disaster in U.S. history, following Hurricane Katrina. Northridge cost $42 billion in total damages, while Katrina cost $81 billion, according to federal figures.

The U.S. Geological Society (USGS) said that 60 people were killed, more than 7,000 injured, 20,000 were left homeless and more than 40,000 buildings were damaged in Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange and San Bernardino Counties.

The San Fernando Valley saw maximum intensities of magnitude-9 in the areas of Northridge and Sherman Oaks. Significant damage also occurred in Glendale, Santa Clarita, Santa Monica, Simi Valley, Fillmore and in western and central Los Angeles, the USGS said.

Seven freeway bridges collapsed, 212 others were damaged and 82,000 residential and commercial buildings were damaged or destroyed. About 200 steel-frame buildings suffering significant cracking, AP reported. Collapsed overpasses closed sections of the Santa Monica Freeway, the Antelope Valley Freeway, the Simi Valley Freeway and the Golden State Freeway.

The quake resulted in $12.5 billion in insurance payouts. If the event happened today, insured losses would be about $24 billion, AIR Worldwide said.

This was a significant event for me, as I was living in Los Angeles at the time. I had been living there for five years and this was my first, and hopefully last ever, earthquake experience. There had been many false alarms over the years that usually ended up being something like an extra heavy truck rumbling by. But when the real thing happened there was no question that it was, indeed, an earthquake.

Pretty much anything that could have been broken in my place was. Bookcases tumbled over sending contents everywhere. One of my sisters, who lived in Simi Valley, had every cabinet and drawer emptied by the shaking. Televisions, appliances and most furniture were ruined. Because there was no power for days and everyone in her neighborhood risked losing all their frozen food, she and her neighbors came together. They brought all of their grills and frozen food into the middle of the street where they proceeded to cook everything, supplying food for the neighborhood for days. This not only used up any food that would have otherwise spoiled, but it gave the kids a chance to run around and play with their friends and get their minds off of the terrible destruction surrounding them.

Because an earthquake is so sudden and severe, experiencing something like that is a shock to the system and takes a while to get over. Driving through L.A., I saw flattened homes, cars, apartment buildings, office buildings and parking structures.

One big success story and source of pride for Los Angeles was the Santa Monica Freeway, one of the world’s busiest, which had two areas collapse during the earthquake. It was a proud moment when freeway repairs were finished a full 74 days early. It’s a testament to what strong wills, traffic tie-ups and a large bonus will do.

The Los Angeles Times reported:

Spurred by the promise of an extra $200,000 a day for every day work was completed ahead of schedule, the contractor, C. C. Myers Inc., will finish the project 74 days before a June 24 deadline and rack up a $14.5-million bonus for the company.

The high-speed construction was made possible by crews working around the clock, seven days a week, and by state officials cutting through red tape.

“This freeway, with its broken bridges, broken connectors, became one of the most visible signs of the devastation brought upon Los Angeles by the Northridge earthquake,” Gov. Pete Wilson said during a news conference at the freeway.

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“Now its rebuilding and its reopening . . . will serve as one of the . . . symbols of the energy of this great community.”

In Sacramento, Caltrans Director James van Loben Sels estimated that without the accelerated effort the project would probably have taken two years to complete.

But the acceleration did not come without cost. With the bonuses given to C. C. Myers, the price tag on the project rose from the original bid of .

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9 million to nearly $30 million.

New Year, New Natural Disaster Emergency Plans

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Along with January renewals and analyzing whether existing policies offer sufficient coverage, the new year is a perfect reminder to review company-wide emergency plans. While 2013 may have been a relatively light year for catastrophe losses, there’s no reason to assume 2014 will be, too.

Check out this infographic from Boston University’s Masters in Specialty Management program for a jump-start on identifying the risks of natural disaster and updating plans for how to handle any emergency:

Survive a Natural Disaster