While the VDS ratings are not always a true indicator of real life with a car, they are still a valuable shopping tool for consumers and manufacturers take them very seriously. In this study, original owners of 3 year old cars are surveyed about the number of problems they’ve had with their car. The gap between Luxury brands and non Luxury brands has definately narrowed. Perhaps most amazing to us here in The Garage is that 2 of the top 3 are traditional domestics. Lexus has fewest problems, followed closely by Mercury and Buick. Bringing up the tail end of the list is Land Rover, with almost 4 times the problems reported by Lexus owners!

Complete stats and press release after the break
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In support of National Safety Month, DriveCam has released it’s list of the top causes of fatal crashes. DriveCam sells small video systems that mount on the back of the rear view mirror and record erratic driving situations to be analyzed by fleet bosses, or even Mom & Dad. Big Brother is watching your driving habits! We can’t call it a top ten list, because they only listed the top seven, so here they are.

The Top Ten Seven “risky driving behaviours”.

• Tailgating
• Poor awareness approaching intersections
• Distracted driving
• Not looking far enough ahead
• Speeding / driving too fast for conditions
• Driver Fatigue
• Risky lane change/passing

Notice that they didn’t specify what constitutes distracted driving. Would masterbation be as distracting as talking on the phone while juggling a latte?