driving

How defensive driving techniques would help you avoid being a ‘car-jacking’ victim

By Michael J. Moody 1 week ago

With the increasing frequency of car-jacking incidents all of us should perhaps consider taking better precautions, understanding the hazards of where we are going, recognising potential threats before they can escalate and knowing the correct action to take should we need to quickly evade danger.

Clearly this is not anything you want to experience, especially when you have your family on board; that said, if you own a prestigious car it is more likely you could be involved in a “car-napping”, as it’s also becoming known. 

Driving courses covering the skills needed to prepare you for such an awful event are available; some are more extreme than others. These include surveillance and threat detection, evasive action skills and anti-ambush manoeuvres in moving vehicles, in all weathers and various types of road surfaces. 

This sort of training will stand you in good stead should you drive in downtown Johannesburg or

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What’s Driving Avis Budget Group Higher Friday?

By Michael J. Moody 2 weeks ago

What happened

Shares of Avis Budget Group (NASDAQ:CAR), a global provider of mobility solutions and rental vehicles through its Avis and Budget brands, were trading 8% higher as of 1:32 p.m. EST Friday.

So what

One possible news item that could have been motivating investors to bid the shares up was Morgan Stanley analyst Billy Kovanis’ recent upgrade of Avis Budget.

Kovanis kept an overweight rating on the stock, which is an optimistic view of its potential, and lifted his price target from $44 to $56. That move was based on his prediction that travel will inevitably rebound and that Avis will benefit more from that than the market is currently giving it credit for.

After reaching what was by far their worst peak of the pandemic last month, new COVID-19 diagnoses in the U.S. have been heading downward steadily in recent weeks. The number of new

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Apple Car reportedly shopping for the eyes of its autonomous driving

By Michael J. Moody 2 weeks ago

Apple’s autonomous car project is hunting for the well-rumored EV’s eyes, a new report suggests, with the iPhone-maker said to be in discussions with multiple LIDAR specialists. The scanning technology is widely – though not universally – believed to be key to building vehicles that can drive themselves, given its ability to map an environment, in real time, and in great detail.

Multiple companies develop LIDAR sensors currently, for automotive and robotics use, among other purposes. Apple has also used the same core premise of the technology for its own custom sensors, the so-called LiDAR Scanner that launched on the iPad Pro and later appeared on the high-end iPhone 12 Pro Max.

Now, Apple is currently speaking with multiple sensor companies, Bloomberg reports, quoting insiders familiar with the negotiations. Talks are still ongoing, it’s suggested, and Apple is not yet believed to have picked a likely LIDAR candidate. Whichever hardware

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Not driving can hurt your car. Here’s what to do to prevent that.

By Michael J. Moody 3 weeks ago

If the pandemic has you working from home, shopping more online and drastically reducing any other travel, it might be time for you to think about the last time you drove your car. The fact is, a car left parked for three weeks or longer needs attention just as much as one driven on a more regular basis.

According to the Maine Department of Transportation, there was a 30 percent drop in vehicle miles traveled in the state in the early months of the pandemic. Traffic since then has picked up, but at the end of December, it was still between 6 and 9 percent lower than the same weeks in 2019.

Here are a few things you should do if you find yourself not using your car for weeks at a time.

Don’t park on empty

According to Josh Reardon, owner of Reardon’s Automotive and Diagnostics in Bangor,

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