By Andrew Ardizzi

Toronto, Ontario -- April 19, 2013 -- Mitchell has announced the 2013 winners of its AutocheX Premier Achiever awards for customer service and satisfaction.

Mississauga, Ontario -- April 18, 2013 -- Fix Auto has announced the sale of Fix Auto Gloucester to Dan and Vicky Lorbetskie. The facility is located at 4320 Ramsayville Rd. in Ottawa, Ont. Seller Pat Hopkins has been a valued member of the Fix Auto Network for over 10 years and the company wishes him the very best in his future endeavors.

Elk Grove, California -- April 18, 2013 -- There’s more to digital piracy than illegal downloads of movies and games. Business software is frequently the target of pirates. In particular, ALLDATA has just announced the successful arrest and prosecution of a software counterfeiting operation. ALLDATA has a long-standing program dedicated to tracking down illegal sales of its products, an effort which the company says routinely results in prosecution.

By Andrew Ardizzi

Toronto, Ontario -- April 18, 2013 -- A study conducted by two former University of Toronto PhD students on the affects of pedestrian countdown timers at intersections across Toronto indicates a connection between the installation of the timers and an increase in vehicle-on-vehicle accidents.

"We find the installation of countdown signals resulted in approximately 21.5 more collisions citywide per month, a more than five per cent increase over the average (intersection) without countdown signals," says the study's co-authors Sacha Kapoor and Arvind Magesan in the conclusion of their academic paper to be published in the American Economic Journal. "Although they reduce the number of pedestrians struck by automobiles, countdowns increased the number of collisions between automobiles. We show that countdowns cause fewer minor injuries among pedestrians for every pedestrian on the road and more rear-ends among cars for every car on the road."

The study's sample was taken from raw Toronto Police report collision data between 2004 and 2008, with their focus restricted to intersections that had installed crosswalk countdown timers. Kapoor and Magesan focused on 1,794 intersections over the five year period, totalling in nearly 108,000 intersection observations. Toronto's first countdown timers were installed in 2006.

"When we first started doing this, I didn't expect to find what we found. I thought it might have a tiny affect," says Magesan, now an Assistant Professor of economics at the University of Calgary. At the outset he felt their study could just as easily have shown a decrease in collisions at signalized intersections.

The paper's co-authors arrived at their conclusion after taking the average number of accidents per month and multiplying it by 12 and then by the number of intersections in Toronto to arrive at their figure. They also calculated that pedestrian-on-vehicle collisions decreased by an average of five per month.

Magesan believes the increase in vehicle-on-vehicle collisions can be narrowed down to a simple choice facing drivers when they arrive at an intersection with a timer that's counting down.

"Drivers approaching the light may see they only have three or four seconds left and instead of saying to themselves, 'well, if I put my foot on the gas I'll get through,' they could say, 'well, if I put my foot on the gas then there's some chance I'm going to end up in the intersection right when the countdown is done. I don't want to do that, so I'll slow down.'"

Magesan says drivers may look at the descending count and use that information to speed up in order to get through the intersection to arrive at their destination much sooner.

"I think typically drivers are impatient and if they pull up to a light and see they have just enough time to get through if they put their foot to the gas, they will," he says, noting he and most people he talks to on the subject were guilty of the same action in the past. "I think that's what's going on and I think that combined with the fact that different drivers react differently, some will be more cautious while some will be more aggressive."

Although Kapoor and Magesan's paper indicates an overall average increase of collisions in intersections across Toronto, transportation services' Mike Brady says the increase is not reflected in the total collision numbers across the city over a 10 year period.

"The data they used is what I would call a relatively short period to look at," says Brady, manager of traffic safety with the City of Toronto. "I think the researchers found a larger number of collisions than what occurred in the city. Our data doesn't support their conclusion."

Brady notes a gradual decrease in total collisions across Toronto from 2002, in which there were just over 68,000 collisions, and 2004 — when Kapoor and Magesan's study began — where there were nearly 52,800 collisions. In 2006, the year the city of Toronto began installing the timers, total vehicle-on-vehicle collisions decreased to nearly 49,400. However in the years that followed the total number of vehicle-on-vehicle collisions rose to roughly 52,000 where it stabilized until 2011 and 2012 when total collisions dropped to about 50,000 and 49,000 respectively.

"The numbers are generally going down from year to year," he says. "To do an analysis on collisions you need to do it on clean data and you have to do it over the long term."

Brady did however note a sharper increase in rear-end collisions from the point the timers were first installed across the city in 2006 and in 2010. In 2006 there were a total of 14,600 rear-end collisions across the city at signalized intersections, non-signalized intersections and mid-block intersections. That number increased to about 15,200 in 2008 and to over 16,100 in 2010. It's here where the city's statistics and Magesan's findings run parallel.

"We tried to break it down into the type of collisions and what we found was that the type of car-on-car collisions that increased the most was rear-ending," says Magesan, of their focused look at intersection collisions.  "Our interpretation of what's going on is that you have two cars approaching a light and the car that's behind sees the countdown and thinks, 'I have enough time to get through if I put my foot on the gas' and he speeds up a bit. At the last second the car in front decides to stop when the light is close to being yellow or yellow and the guy behind him hits him."

Magesan says these are the types of accidents he and Kapoor found to have occurred more often throughout the duration of their study, although they did not look at the exact point of the intersections where the accidents occurred. Brady was also quick to point out that the raw collision data the study was based from shows a much larger percentage of collisions occurring at signalized intersections than their more precise data does.

"That difference can be as large as 50 per cent," says Brady. "As such, we have not concluded that this increase in rear-end collisions is directly associated with countdown timers at signalized intersections."

With the study reported, the question now becomes what can be done to make crosswalks safer for both drivers and motorists. While the study's indication of a decrease in vehicle-on-pedestrian collisions is encouraging, Magesan feels the current countdown system needs to evolve.

"I'm wondering if maybe you made the countdown an audible thing that only a pedestrian can hear that a driver who's approaching wouldn't be able to hear," Magesan says, adding this could lead to creating more cautious drivers while still being able to inform pedestrians and provide them the information they need to safely cross an intersection.

Brady says the City of Toronto is also moving forward with their own studies, notably one focusing on the impacts of pedestrian behaviours inside intersections when determining whether they can safely cross.

As for what's next for Magesan, he's interested in looking at larger traffic patterns beyond intersections to understand their findings more clearly.

"One thing we're looking at actually is the flow of traffic in cities and how it's changed with the countdowns," he says. "We're trying to maybe do a more broad study of the affects as opposed to what's just going on at the intersections. There might be factor that happen just down the road from the intersections that we're not picking up here."
 
With his findings publicized, Magesan recounted the emails he's received from Canadians who were concerned about general safety inside intersections and believe his paper has created a sense of healthy awareness.

"There's something about traffic in Calgary and Toronto that has caused people to react the way they did," he says. "I've been getting a lot of emails and phone calls from just average people saying, 'I've been noticing this for a long time, why did it take so long for someone to do this? I see this problem on my way to work and we're glad you did this.' It's a common problem." 

Awareness is what it comes down to for Magesan, who has changed his own driving habits and hopes other drivers and pedestrians can become more aware of their surroundings at crosswalks.

"After we found this I'm actually more aware of what other drivers are doing as I pull up to an intersection," he says. "It's definitely had an impact on the way I drive."

The academic paper entitled, "Paging Inspector Sands: The Costs of Public Information," is available for download by clicking here.

Detroit, Michigan -- April 16, 2013 -- The latest in a continuing series of research studies by WorldAutoSteel suggests that steel auto body structures in the near future can be as lightweight as today's aluminum bodies, while meeting all crash performance standards and at cost comparable to today's steel structures. The studies also show how car makers can form and fabricate sophisticated steel designs and accelerate their implementation in production vehicles. WorldAutoSteel is the automotive group of the World Steel Association. It is comprised of 18 major global steel producers from around the world. 

By Hayden Kenez

New York, New York -- April 18, 2013 -- A television show currently in development promises to reveal fraudulent shops that may be ripping off customers. The show, titled Auto Body Avengers, is set for development as part of Spike TV’s non-scripted slate for 2013.