Vehicular Accidents: What to do before and after collision

When minor vehicular accidents happen, involved car owners usually just end up blaming each other and overlook what should be done for future settlements. Aside from the possible injuries, accidents can be the worst nightmare if you don’t know what you have to do to save you from the headache after the scenario. Here are some steps which could help you regain control during a minor accident and remind you of what should be done for future claims.


Upon Collision

Stop your vehicle. It’s hard enough to lose control of your vehicle, but it can also be fatal for other motorists if you let the vehicle take control over you. Regain control of your vehicle and stop it from hitting others. In some countries, it is illegal to move the vehicle from the accident area, so try to warn the passing traffic by turning on the hazard lights.

Check the vehicle for dangerous damage. Gas leaks could turn any minor vehicular accident into a full-blown disaster. Turn the ignition off, go around the vehicle and check for any visible gas leaks or other things that could be as potentially dangerous.

Stay clear of the vehicle. You can’t afford more injuries, so it’s best to move away from it as soon as you have done the previous steps. Don’t linger too much on inspecting the vehicle; just check out the obvious and warn others who are involved of the damage which could also be harmful to them.

Check for injuries and call for medical services. After making sure that you are safe from further harm, check yourself for any injuries. Ask help to any willing motorist to call for medical help if you are suffering from minor injuries. It is also best to report the incident to the police which could help settle the damages and control the traffic caused by the accident.


After the Collision

Exchange information with the other driver. Make sure that you get the real identity and contact information of the other driver by asking for a valid ID, or better yet, ask for their driver’s license. Ask for the names of any passengers. Ask for the number of driver’s insurance company as well as the coverage they have applied for. Take note of the vehicles make, model, year and license plate number.

Get witness statements. Ask people or passing motorists who are open to give witness statements to write down their name and telephone number. You can also ask them to leave a signed witness statement if they cannot wait for the police to arrive on the scene.

Speak with police and obtain a copy of police report. You and the other driver involved should be prepared to give personal accounts of the accident Use the witness statements to confirm your personal account. After all the statements have been gathered, ask the police where you can claim a copy of the police report. Cooperate with the police until they allow you to leave the scene.

Now what’s left to do is to contact the insurance company. If the other party is at fault, the claim process may be tedious but it is best to remain in contact with the insurance company until you have completed the settlement.

Nobody wants to get into a car accident. But as much as any driver would want avoid it, accidents do happen due to recklessness. Prepare yourself and lessen the troubles minor accidents can cause by keeping your mind in track and informed.

by: Bianca Villares

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Applying Feng Shui Principles To Your Car

Feng shui may be an ancient practice but it doesn’t mean you can’t use its core principles and apply them to your favorite set of wheels. And come to think of it, it does make perfect sense to optimize the positive energy inside something you spend some time in everyday. Here’s a brief rundown of some simple things you can do:

The Way of the Water. Water is pure and free-flowing. Adapt these qualities by keeping a bottle of water inside your car. Plus, you’ll never go thirsty!

Tidy Up! Get rid of all the unwanted stuff — candy wrappers, cigarette cases, old receipts, empty bottles, etc — and make your car spic-and-span! Doing so will give you more freedom of movement and more space.

Purge Negativity! Of course, you can always start by thinking positively. Then you can make use of certain time-tested agents and tokens of positivity like sweet grass, sea salt or you could hang a crystal on a blue ribbon on your rear view mirror.

Heaven Scent! Keep the air inside your car fresh and clean. Lemon is a good choice, so is rosemary. Always go for organic instead of artificial.

Get by with a little help from your animal friends. Dragons are supposed to be good protectors against evil elements. Of course, finding a real dragon may not be that easy, you can choose to put a cute dragon stuffed toy on the dashboard instead.

Affirm! Never underestimate the power of affirmation. Scribble an affirmation phrase on a piece of paper, e.g. “I got the coolest ride in town!”, and put it in your glove compartment or better yet, glue it on your steering wheel. And before you know it, you already have the coolest car in town!

Know your color! Go red if you’re ambitious. Pick silver or gold if you hunger for adventure. If you’re constantly afflicted with wanderlust, paint your car violet or green. If you’re the type who likes to get down to business all the time, then blue or black is the color for you.

For some of us, the car is like a second home. And what better way to have it “cleansed” of unwanted elements than to have it feng shui’d? Besides, it won’t cost you that much.

by: Guile Canencia

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Vehicles Men and Women Want

by Amalia Aviles

We’ve seen how vehicles evolved through the pictures in history books and museums. They had different forms and functions. However, function wasn’t the only important factor to designers and consumers. Aesthetics and style played crucial and constant roles as well.

Ancient civilizations have started the tradition of designing and embellishing their chariots, wagons and other ancient forms of transportation. Egyptian chariots of gold and silver decorated with date palm branches, animals and other motifs were the most preferred.

Today we see how different people especially the men, choose to buy cars with slick wheels and other parts and accessories. The whole craze is absolutely nothing new and as the famous saying among men goes- “you don’t drive a car, you wear it”. A car can magnify a lot, if not all of the traits of its owners and here some of those clues.

• For the women, safety, reliability and value are at the top of their list while men prefer performance, power and style.

According to Imre Molnar, dean of College for Creative Studies (Detroit), men’s desire to showcase power and aggression with the vehicles they drive stems from an “animal nature”. They dress up their vehicles as if it’s “mating season,” he quips. Molnar further elaborates that these attributes of masculine, big wheels, flush or protruding wheel faces and high “shoulder line” and taut lines can be found in most vehicles men drive today. Predator-looking vehicles that sit higher at the back have the “ready to pounce” look and this has become very common among sedans. At the top of the list are vehicles made for looking good and going fast or as Molnar calls them “testosterone show-off devices”.

• Studies, however, prove that most women prefer vehicles that are understated, opulent and with a comfy interior.

“Ease of entry and useful interior storage, including space for a purse, are elements that make vehicles especially attractive to women,” states Brigid O’Kane, a design professor and coordinator of the Transportation Design Track program at the University of Cincinnati.

• To create a distinctive look, women wear jewelry, high-end fashion and expensive handbags rather than cars while men create an image of wealth and influence by the cars they “wear”.
• Buying used vs. buying new: While men are most likely to buy used vehicles if they can’t buy the flashy new one, women are prone to settle for a new affordable car rather than their dream model.
• In general, men are more willing to sacrifice a smooth ride for sharp handling than women or to overlook an impractical cargo arrangement for an engine more pep, experts say.
• Strategic Vision’s new-vehicle experience study shows that 31 percent of men said driving is one of their favorite things to do, while only 18 percent of women said the same.
• According to the experts, SUVs with a “big and powerful” look resonates with men, while small, inexpensive vehicles are preferred by women.

So now you’ve got clues on what vehicles most men and women want. These studies and indicators fairly explain what vehicles both sexes prefer to drive or “wear.”

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6 Things You Should Know About Car Idling

by Guile Canencia

A lot of people, and I mean a lot of people, think that it’s perfectly alright to let their vehicles idle. Everyday, we see people leave their engines running while they’re picking up a snack at the fast food drive-thru or when they’re dropping their kids at school. A few even leave their cars idling for a few minutes in order to “warm up the engine” before going out for a drive. With the rising gasoline prices, many resort to car idling in order to save up on fuel. Unfortunately, car idling does more than harm than good in the long run. Here’s why:


Idling is never good for your car’s engine. An idle engine actually causes incomplete fuel combustion, which in turn causes undue accumulation of fuel residue that will ultimately damage vital engine parts like cylinders, spark plugs and even the car’s exhaust.

Idling is not an effective way to warm up your car, even in cold weather. Idling is never the best way to warm up your engine. The best way is surprisingly simple — drive. Start driving and the engine and essentially all your car’s moving parts will get all the warm-up they will ever need.

Idling wastes fuel. Say you’re idling your car for about fifteen minutes. For that amount of time, you have already consumed 0.20 liters of fuel and you haven’t moved an inch at all. Now multiply that with the latest gas prices and the number of times you’re idling your car in a day, in a year. The numbers won’t look good.

Turning off your car and starting again is actually better than idling. If you’re thinking that this will only cause unnecessary wear and tear, you worry too much. Restarting only causes minimal wear to your starter motor and battery, which are designed to withstand constant restarting activity in the first place.

Idling is hazardous to your health. Fact: Idle cars produce emissions that can cause various respiratory illnesses and even cancer. Exhaust components like ozone have been proven to aggravate asthma and lung and throat cancer. Pneumonia, emphysema and bronchitis have been linked to car emissions. The list goes on and on.

Idling is bad for the environment. Idling cars emit tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into Earth’s atmosphere every year — just ask Al Gore. Unchecked carbon dioxide emissions have resulted to smog-filled cities in several countries. Fortunately for some select countries, environmental groups have convinced their governments to take “Stop Idling” campaigns seriously.


And it’s time we do, too. Car idling is bad for our health, the economy and the environment. So the next time you want to grab a cheeseburger, park your car instead of using the drive-thru. You’ll get better mileage that way.

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Petroleum vs. Diesel: Which vehicle is more suited for you?

by Mark Lorenzana

In the advent of rising oil prices, choosing a vehicle based on engine type (petrol or diesel) might prove to be a very wise decision. Each engine type has its own advantages and disadvantages and your decision on what to purchase might well boil down to the vehicle’s purpose (i.e. for city driving, for hauling cargo, for heavy duty use, etc).

Let us compare a petrol and diesel engine and see how they stack up against each other, based on the facts:

Fuel Economy
Diesel has a higher energy density than petrol. This means it takes more petrol to equal the power output of diesel, therefore diesel engines are more efficient per liter of fuel burned. Diesel units also use about one third as much fuel at idle as petrol units. Over the years, this advantage could be significant, especially if you drive a lot of kilometers.

Noise/Vibration
Despite huge improvements in engine-noise technology in the past 10 years, diesel engines are still generally louder and shake more than their petrol counterparts. At idle, the clatter and shake of a diesel vehicle is clearly noticeable, while it's tough to tell if the petrol engine is even running. Under low-speed acceleration, a diesel engine is still noisier.

Fuel Cost
Because diesel fuel is easier to refine, taking less time to get from crude oil to final product, it's usually priced lower than petrol.

Short-Term Maintenance
Regular maintenance on a diesel engine is more costly, due to larger volume of oil in the engine and because fuel filters and water separators must be serviced more often. Modern petrol engines have an even bigger advantage thanks to extended service intervals on spark plugs, engine oil, etc.

Long-Term Maintenance and Durability
A diesel engine has an expensive initial cost but the flip side is its excellent durability. The average petrol engine is good for only around 200,000 kilometers before needing a rebuild and isn't designed to constantly pull a heavy load. A diesel engine can go more than three times this amount before needing an overhaul.

Exhaust Smell/Emissions
Despite oil companies’ best efforts at producing diesel fuel with lower sulfur levels, burned diesel fuel still smells much worse than burned petrol. Beyond the smelly tailpipe, diesel lags behind petrol in the areas of Nitrogen Oxide emissions.

Power/Torque
Petrol engines have the advantage in horsepower, while diesel engines produce more torque. By design, petrol engines rev faster and are able to reach higher rpm peaks than diesel engines. This allows them to attain greater horsepower numbers.
However, for towing capacity and pulling force, a diesel owns a petrol engine. The torque advantage of a diesel vehicle is suited for pulling heavy loads, even up steep inclines. Because of the relatively high-compression ratio necessary to ignite the diesel fuel (17:1 diesel versus 9:1 petrol), a diesel engine makes all its torque and power low in the rev range.

Conclusion:
As stated in the beginning of this article, choosing between a petrol or diesel engine comes down to what you'll do with the vehicle and where you live. If you want quick, quiet acceleration, rarely haul a heavy load, and you don't plan on keeping the vehicle past 170,000 kilometers, you may want to consider a petrol engine. However, if you are going to use your vehicle for towing, value good fuel economy, and plan on racking up loads of mileage, diesel is for you.


About the Author:
Mark Lorenzana is a fulltime copywriter for IBC Japan. He has written a regular column and articles for various newspapers and moonlights as a copyeditor and freelance writer.

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Handicap-Accessible Cars: Empowering the Mobility-Challenged

by Guile Canencia

We have certainly come a long way when it comes to empowering mobility-challenged people, which includes the wheel-chair bound, paraplegics and the elderly. Indeed, modern technology has provided new ways in which the physically handicapped can lead lives less encumbered by their limitations. And in the case of handicap-accessible vehicles, there have been some significant improvements in the last decade.

Through the years, we have seen numerous types of handicap vans, which are also called wheelchair vans or wheelchair conversion vans. They usually come with all kinds of modifications, depending on the user’s specific needs.

Handicap vans can be generally classified into three types. The first type is what we call the Up Front type. This allows the disabled person to occupy the vehicle’s front seat, just beside the driver. The second is the Rear Access type. As its name implies, this kind of vehicle allows the disabled person to occupy the back or rear end of the vehicle. Cars of this type usually feature a bigger space in the rear area to allow easy entry and exit.

The third is the Independent or Drive From type, which is specially designed to allow the handicapped to drive the vehicle themselves. Naturally, since it is designed to give more freedom, this kind usually features more elaborate customizations. For instance, some models feature wheelchair lift capabilities. A few even have easy-to-use permanent (or portable) hand controls. Traditional foot controls may be replaced with specialized switch systems or joysticks. Popular auto manufacturers like Chrysler, Ford, Honda and Toyota have already introduced handicap-accessible vans in selected markets.

For those whose preferences are not limited to handicap vans, they can choose another car model and have it converted. There are plenty of vehicle-conversion shops that are widely available in the US and in the UK. These shops can convert pick-up trucks, SUVs and other multi-purpose vehicles. Depending on the extent of the conversion, it may take a month or a few weeks. It is always best to discuss the specific needs with the conversion shop in order to get maximum results.

Another option is to rent. One can find many organizations in the US and Europe that offer handicapped-friendly vehicles that can be leased for a specific duration of time. Some of these organizations even offer repair services, reconditioning and maintenance for these kinds of vehicles.

Of course, with all these diverse choices of vehicles for the mobility-challenged, the key is to choose which car works best for the handicapped person. Naturally, costs should be considered before buying one as well as the cost of maintenance for that vehicle. But the most important factors are the ones that directly involve the experience of the disabled. How easy is it to operate the car? Does it provide comfort? Is it safe? How user-friendly is the car? Ease of entry and exit should be considered. With wheelchair users, space is essential. And depending on the climate, ventilation systems must be properly in place, too. Chairs should be structurally secure while other fixtures and accessories mustn’t hinder the person’s movement.

And lastly, it’d be nice if the car looks good, too. Besides, what good is a ride if you can’t show it around town?


About the Author:
Guile Canencia is a writer and researcher for the IBC Japan Team, a company that specializes in exporting used cars from Japan. He is an avid blogger and likes to play soccer on weekends.

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