http://www.tctimes.com/articles/2010/12/25/news/police_and_fire_beat/doc4d13ba65064f5258066706.txt
dropped cell phone leads to crash

On Friday, Dec. 3, a 24-year-old woman was cited for failing to stop in a safe distance after she rear-ended a vehicle stopped and waiting to make a left turn from North Bridge Street into the Linden Free Methodist Church parking lot. Linden police office Gary Conklin said the woman told the responding officer that she dropped her cell phone and as she reached for it, struck the rear of a 2011 Chevy Volt, driven by a 44-year-old man. The woman’s 2-year-old son sustained minor injuries, as his head struck the back of the front seat of her 2005 Ford Explorer. Conklin said the boy was in a safety seat; however, the seat was apparently defective. The Volt was towed from the scene. Conklin urges all motorists to avoid distractions while driving. If a driver drops a cell phone, he advises them to not reach for it until they have safely stopped the vehicle. Causing a crash by being distracted could lead to a citation for reckless driving.

http://www.tctimes.com/articles/2010/12/25/news/police_and_fire_beat/doc4d13ba65064f5258066706.txt dropped cell phone leads to crash

Given that it's in Michigan, near Detroit, would that likely be a GM fleet car? It'd be a true pity if it was a brand new Volt owner's car. If it's a GM car one would think they'll give it a good going over for real world crash results.

It had to be a GM-driven captured test fleet car, as no Volts have been sold to consumers in Michigan yet. Good find though...sounds like something Jalopnik should post. I hope everyone involved is OK.

no Volts have been sold to consumers in Michigan yet.

No Volts have been sold in Florida yet either, but that doesn't seem to be stopping anyone :-)

Its list as happening on Dec 3rd which is before any where sold to customers, so it must be part of the GM test fleet.

Bummer... The first Volt gives it's life to save its occupant.

There are many interesting topics brought up in this news article:

1) Texting while driving is causing more than 4000 deaths a year in the U.S. That's like a 9/11 every year but with more deaths!

2) Ford is promoting their new voice controlled mobile Internet system now but admit it is a distraction, only less than manually texting or playing with a smartphone. Taking your eyes off the road while driving is bad. Duh.

3) Researchers proved that any distraction, even the hands-free kind, causes at lest four times more accidents. Ford claims that their system is justified because people are going to use their smartphones no matter what and that their system is much better because the drivers eyes (maybe not their concentration) are still on the road.

4) Oprah is pissed! She works hard having people sign her no-phone-zone campaign to keep people off the phone or texting while driving. Good for her. It's ironic that her losing battle with obesity may make it socially OK to be over weight and that resulting condition may cause more deaths in the U.S. than all her help put together. Funny how things work.

5) All of this texting-while-driving elimination activity is a waste of time, just like worrying about Climate Change. People will use their smartphones and they will burn every fossil fuel they can get their hands on, no matter the laws against it.

6) In 10 - 20 years there will be almost no accidents or un-assisted driving. Autonomous driving is improving exponentially and will soon prevent most accidents. Drivers will be free to do as they like, even work at their in-car offices. The computer is thousands of times faster, has far more advanced sensors and all cars will communicate with each other and anticipate any collisions long before they occur.

7) We need to set up a system for totaled Volts. These will be very valuable for hackers and gear heads. One can obtain a working Voltec system for a fraction of the $41,000 purchase price. Imagine putting Voltec in a tube and fiberglass kit car that weighs much less than half the weight of the Volt? Imagine a two seater with 1/3 rd the weight with much better aerodynamics. Imagine hacked software that allows more battery capacity, different modes of operation, increased use of the 16 kWh battery pack, imagine different gen-sets like turbines, biofuel, NG, etc. Imagine the possibilities. Think of these as research kits.

http://www.tctimes.com/articles/2010/12/25/news/police_and_fire_beat/doc4d13ba65064f5258066706.txt
dropped cell phone leads to crash

On Friday, Dec. 3, a 24-year-old woman was cited for failing to stop in a safe distance after she rear-ended a vehicle stopped and waiting to make a left turn from North Bridge Street into the Linden Free Methodist Church parking lot. Linden police office Gary Conklin said the woman told the responding officer that she dropped her cell phone and as she reached for it, struck the rear of a 2011 Chevy Volt, driven by a 44-year-old man. The woman’s 2-year-old son sustained minor injuries, as his head struck the back of the front seat of her 2005 Ford Explorer. Conklin said the boy was in a safety seat; however, the seat was apparently defective. The Volt was towed from the scene. Conklin urges all motorists to avoid distractions while driving. If a driver drops a cell phone, he advises them to not reach for it until they have safely stopped the vehicle. Causing a crash by being distracted could lead to a citation for reckless driving.

No Volts were sold as fleet cars. If this car were a Volt, why would the door panel be gutted out? I don't believe that this a Volt!

"Fleet" as in captured test fleet, which would be the ons GM employees have been driving for months.

Almost had an accident with my new 3 day old Volt today. With 2 feet of snow today, I was driving my wife to the dentist and the Volt was driving in the snow fantastically. However, other cars were not. About 100 yards coming at me, a car lost control of the rear end and was sliding all over the road. About 30 yards from me, they ran into the snow drift on the side of the road (luckily for me and my Volt as it looked like it was going to be a head on collision). Never been in an accident in 35 years of driving and almost had one within 3 days of owning a Volt.