Ride and Drive Opportunity: Texas Instruments Joins Continental for Safety Demonstration at Fair Park
Who: Jim Gill, Director of Public Relations at Continental Teves, one of the world's leading automotive suppliers of safety technologies.
Scott Cooper, Marketing Manager for Mixed Signal Power and Control at Texas Instruments
What: Gill will discuss electronic stability control (ESC) and provide media a brief overview and a "hands-on" experience of this life-saving technology, during a ride and drive featuring vehicles equipped with ESC. Cooper will speak briefly on the vehicle safety advancements that TI technology has made possible. Both will be available for interviews.
Tours of Continental's Safely There mobile exhibit, highlighting Electronic Stability Control (ESC) and other crash avoidance technologies currently available on new vehicles. It features interactive, multimedia displays and media representatives can "test drive" a vehicle with/without electronic stability control in a sophisticated, 3-D driving simulator.
When: Thursday, December 11, 2003, 9:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Where: Dallas Fair Park, Exposition Parking Lot #1 (on the Dallas Fair Park grounds, just south of Gaisford, between Pennsylvania Ave. and Fitzhugh)
Why: Safety on the highway is increasingly topical. Nearly every morning it seems the traffic update contains a report of a serious crash, or even a rollover.
NHTSA announced new rollover tests and ratings for light vehicles recently, highlighting a promising technology, electronic stability control (ESC). Recent studies show ESC helps reduce single vehicle crashes, including rollovers. Some automakers also have recently announced adding electronic stability control as standard equipment.
More than 700 rollovers occur every day in the United States, with nearly 1,000 fatal rollovers occurring in Texas every year.
Traffic deaths in 2002 reached the highest level since 1990, and fatalities in rollover crashes accounted for 82 percent of the increase in 2002, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). There has been a steady drumbeat of warnings about the dangers of rollovers, especially in SUVs.
* Available safety equipment that is widely used in Europe and elsewhere that could help prevent 5,000 to 6,000 deaths every year is still unknown to most Americans. The Continental "Safely There" exhibit demonstrates this currently available technology to the public.
* The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommended recently that NHTSA expand and expedite its current evaluation of electronic stability control with an eye to requiring it on all vehicles.
* Continental, a major automotive supplier of electronic stability control and other safety equipment, is on a national educational road tour to promote consumer awareness about preventing rollover crashes, injuries and fatalities. More information is available at www.conti-online.com or www.contitevesna.com
B-roll: B-roll of rollover crashes and electronic stability control effectiveness is available.
PRNewswire -- Dec. 8