All posts by Admin
We’re Sharing The LOVE This Valentine’s Day!
Texting and Driving OR Eating and Driving…
Cheeseburgers and steering wheels are a dangerous combination, just as bad as texting and driving.
A resident of Cobb County, GA learned this the hard way when he was ticketed for eating and driving – that’s right! He was doing what many folks do every week: juggling the demands of two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions, a sesame-seed bun, and brakes. That’s when an unnamed police officer decided that this resident’s eating habits posed a threat to himself and other motorists, in violation of the county’s distracted driving law.
Was the officer right?
There are a number of dangers that lead to distracted driving, such as texting and driving, and how both teens and adults do it behind the wheel, even though they know it’s wrong; and parents and how distracted they can be, coddling their baby bundles of joy.
But eating and driving?
We probably don’t think about it because it’s so common, and nearly all of us are guilty of it. If we weren’t, fast-food restaurants would likely have far fewer pick-up windows.
Next time you stop for that oh-so-important, hunger-satisfying-burger-on-the-run take a moment to think about how or if it will impair your driving.
Beach Auto Brokers has been in business since 1985, Driven by excellence and proudly serving the Hampton Roads community for over 25 years. The Beach Auto Brokers full inventory of vehicles is available for you to look at, test drive, and ask questions about. And our knowledgeable staff is ready to help you. And while you’re here, we’ll take a look at your current vehicle and tell you what its worth – on the retail market and the trade-in value.
Supporting Wags For Warriors
This Saturday, December 13th the Wags for Warriors of Virginia truck will be at Beach Auto Brokers all day!! Our goal is to fill the truck with dog food and toys for their rescue dogs. Wags For Warriors is a 501-C3 No-Kill Animal Shelter; and they also train Rescue Dogs for Wounded Warriors and PTSD Victims!! Come out and help us support this great cause!!! For more information, go to http://wagsforwarriors.org/
Are You Brand Loyal When It Comes To Your Car?
Well, the answer could depend on how long you’ve owned it.
The longer you keep your car, the less likely you are to replace it with another model from the same brand.
There may be plenty of brand-and-model exceptions, but that’s what a new analysis from Experian Automotive finds across the vehicle market—and it definitely upends some inferences about the two, as they’re often used in advertising and marketing.
Experian found that, on average, only 33.8% of those who owned a vehicle for 12 years would choose another vehicle from the same brand family; whereas for those who only owned a vehicle for one year, the loyalty rate was nearly 25% higher—57.3%. Loyalty keeps up near 60% through three years of ownership, then it skews quite sharply downward.
Both Dodge and Buick owners held on to their vehicles the longest (113 months, or about nine and a half years). But Dodge had a very low loyalty rate of 22.6%, while Buick did better, at 38.4%.
And apparently, with more time you’re not exposed to the latest and greatest from the brand you currently have, comes a greater the chance you’ll set eyes on something with a different badge.
“Over the course of seven years of ownership, a lot of things change, including vehicle product offerings, vehicle budget and credit score,” said Experian’s director of automotive market statistics, Brad Smith. “Additionally, the increase in time between dealer interactions, whether they are for sales or service, increases the probability of a customer defecting to the competition.”
Ford and Subaru were among the top brands for loyalty, at 61% and 59.4%, respectively. Among those, Subaru stood out as having a markedly lower, 85-month length of ownership.
Among luxury brands, Acura and
Volvo were the brands with the longest length of ownership.
Beach Auto Brokers has been in business since 1985, Driven by excellence and proudly serving the Hampton Roads community for over 25 years. The Beach Auto Brokers full inventory of vehicles is available for you to look at, test drive, and ask questions about. And our knowledgeable staff is ready to help you. And while you’re here, we’ll take a look at your current vehicle and tell you what its worth – on the retail market and the trade-in value.
Transportation in 2030 – Where are the flying cars?
When we were all kids, The Jetson’s promised that one day “in the future” we’d all be driving around in the sky in flying cars that looked like spaceships. It seems as though that one day is still a very long time away.
Today, we look out our windows and see congestion, and have to wonder if it will ever get better? New York University’s Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management researchers put on their thinking caps, talked to some of the best minds in the transportation field, and envisioned what our highways and byways might look like in 2030, a mere decade and a half from now. The result is called Re-Programming Mobility: The Digital Transformation of Transportation in the United States. You can download the full study here: http://reprogrammingmobility.org/
Researchers looked at four areas of the U.S. where traffic is particularly heavy: Atlanta, Boston, Los Angeles, and the state of New Jersey. They then crafted possible scenarios for each area, based on terrain, population density, infrastructure, and even climate. Ultimately, any of the four scenarios could play out in any of the four study areas. They represent extreme cases and show what hell — or heaven — we could be heading for. Who knows if any or all those scenarios will play out exactly as envisioned. Still, the study makes for good reading. As the authors say in the introduction:
“We present these scenarios as a provocation to transportation policymakers, managers, and planners with the goal of stimulating a national debate about the potential impacts of these new technologies and services, and how government can accommodate their vast potential to improve transportation and anticipate and mitigate their unintended consequences.”
THE SCENARIOS
Atlanta: Georgia’s capital city could be a bright spot in America’s transportation landscape by 2030. That’s due a number of factors including topography, its location, and its close ties to Google. That creates a perfect storm for Google’s autonomous cars, which can use city infrastructure and apps like Waze to help travelers navigate around traffic snarls. Researchers envision the creation of special transit lanes for autonomous vehicles, which, in turn, boosts adoption of the vehicles, easing traffic along the way.
Boston: Unlike Atlanta, Boston is on the coast. It’s also an old city, with a well-defined downtown. In the Rudin Center’s scenario, downtown Boston becomes a magnet for young people who want to live in a compact, walkable city. Like Times Square in New York, much of the city is converted to pedestrian thoroughfares and bike lanes. And in an interesting twist, deliveries are made at night, while residents sleep, keeping carriers off city streets at the busiest hours of the day.
Los Angeles: Los Angeles has a reputation for hellish commutes, and in the Rudin Center’s scenario, things only get worse. Like Atlanta, Los Angeles becomes a hotspot for autonomous cars. Unlike Atlanta, however, those cars come from a range of automakers, all of which use competing communications standards, which prevents them from “talking” to one another. That – combined with the fact that many older drivers want to continue driving themselves around instead of relying on a computer – leads to complete chaos. And probably a lot of road rage.
New Jersey: The Rudin Center study gives the Garden State the “mixed bag” treatment. On the one hand, New Jersey is imagined as a place wracked by intense storms over the next few years, which destroy much of the state’s roadway infrastructure. On the other hand, that adversity forces New Jersey to reevaluate its transportation policy, and in doing so, the state chooses to invest heavily in mass transit – namely, trains and autonomous buses. This catches on quickly with New Jersey’s younger residents, who prefer not to own vehicles.
So although we won’t be flying around in the sky, we will all still need vehicles in 2030, and Beach Auto Brokers is here it help you!!!
Beach Auto Brokers has been in business since 1985, Driven by excellence and proudly serving the Hampton Roads community for over 25 years. The Beach Auto Brokers full inventory of vehicles is available for you to look at, test drive, and ask questions about. And our knowledgeable staff is ready to help you.
Is Idaho Really Home to America’s Rudest Drivers?
Surprisingly, yes.
We’ve all encountered rude drivers. Some have behaved aggressively, cutting us off and flipping the bird as they zoomed ahead. Others have been more passive, like the kind of self-absorbed numbskulls who putter along in the passing lane, leisurely enjoying a cell phone chat.
A survey conducted asked approximately 2,000 licensed drivers across the U.S. for their opinions about the states with the rudest drivers. Pollsters then carried out a bit of simple math to calculate averages for each state. They also kept tabs on where complaints were coming from, so they could identify not only the home states of rude drivers, but also the states that hated those drivers the most.
Interestingly, Idaho — quiet, out-of-the-way Idaho — nabbed the survey’s top spot, thanks to its 50/50 mix of aggressive and clueless drivers. The state’s reputation was worsened by its mountainous, sometimes hazardous terrain, which causes many newcomers to slow down, holding up restless natives in the process. Of those surveyed, folks from Arizona seemed to hate Idaho drivers the most. Rounding out the top five “rudest” spots were Washington, D.C. (hated by drivers from Maryland), New York (loathed by Californians), Wyoming (despised by their neighbors from Montana), and Massachusetts (strongly disliked by their peers in New Hampshire).
At the bottom of the list, we find the nicest drivers — or rather, the least rude. And among Americans, no state’s drivers are nicer than those from North Dakota (though folks from Michigan have worse things to say about them than most). Also faring well on the survey: Maine (hated by Marylanders), New Hampshire (hated by Minnesotans), Montana (hated by D.C. residents), and Minnesota (hated by those from Wisconsin). Which only goes to show: you can’t please everyone.
Survey respondents were also asked about the one or more behaviors that they despised the most in a fellow motorist. Of the 18 possible options, these were the most frequently cited:
Talking on a cellphone while driving – 47%
Tailgating – 37%
Not signaling turns – 35%
Weaving in and out of lanes – 28%
Driving too fast, like every road is a highway – 26%
Beach Auto Brokers has been in business since 1985, Driven by excellence and proudly serving the Hampton Roads community for over 25 years. The Beach Auto Brokers full inventory of vehicles is available for you to look at, test drive, and ask questions about. And our knowledgeable staff is ready to help you. And while you’re here, we’ll take a look at your current vehicle and tell you what its worth – on the retail market and the trade-in value.
The Apple vs Android Battle is Taking It To The Cars!!!
The Apple vs Android battle has been going on for a few years now… and the battle may be turning into a war – as Google unleashes its plans for dashboard domination. Before the end of the year, we will see the Android infotainment system in Audi, General Motors, Honda, and Hyundai vehicles. The official name for this new system – Android Auto.
Of course there is a catch, you have to have an Android smartphone for the system to work. Well, this is great news for Android users, but not so great for iPhone users – who will have to wait for CarPlay.
So, how does this system work?
Android Auto users will plug a phone into the dashboard, then pair the device with Android Auto via Bluetooth. Once that’s done, the car’s center tack essentially becomes a second screen for the phone. If you have an Android device, or even if you use Google Chrome as your web browser, you’ll find some familiar offerings among Android Auto’s feature set.
Google Maps will be used for navigation.
You will have a Concierge that you can ask about operating hours for restaurants and other key information.
You’ll be able to browse through and play all of your music.
Android Auto will tell you when you receive a text message, and even read it aloud to you.
And if you use other Google services – calendar, email, hangouts – Android Auto will integrate those into your vehicle for you as well.
Regardless of what technology you get in your next vehicle, Beach Auto Brokers is here it help you! Beach Auto Brokers has been in business since 1985, Driven by excellence and proudly serving the Hampton Roads community for over 25 years. The Beach Auto Brokers full inventory of vehicles is available for you to look at, test drive, and ask questions about. And our knowledgeable staff is ready to help you.
Great Job America!!!
There are a lot of questions that we get when people are looking for a vehicle – What are the safety features? Does it have the latest technology?
And the most common question – What is the fuel economy like? And we confidently answer:
Cars are much more efficient and cleaner than in 2007!!
How do we know this? Smaller and more efficient vehicles are becoming more popular in the U.S., so it should be no surprise to learn that fuel economy figures have climbed steadily since 2007. New data from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) has determined that the combination of average fuel economy and emissions is at its lowest level in the United States since 2007.
The distances driven are still at 95% of what they were in 2007, but the amount of fuel used has dropped considerable as well as the emissions of greenhouse gases from new vehicles. The latest data shows a 23% reduction in overall vehicle emissions over the last six and a half years!! The average fuel economy today is 25.2 mpg; representing a significant increase from 2007 when it was 20.1 mpg.
So we have to repeat – Great Job America!!!
Regardless of what your questions are about your next vehicle, Beach Auto Brokers is here it help you! Beach Auto Brokers has been in business since 1985, Driven by excellence and proudly serving the Hampton Roads community for over 25 years. The Beach Auto Brokers full inventory of vehicles is available for you to look at, test drive, and ask questions about. And our knowledgeable staff is ready to help you.
