Do the construction or the princess kids’ dish designs that accompany this post look familiar? Does your child have a similar plastic plate, bowl, or eating set that features animals, superheroes, or other kid-friendly themes? If so, check over those plates and bowls: They may be one of millions of dishes that could have its plastic coating peel off, posing a choking hazard to the child.
There have been 372 reports of the plastic film peeling off the area with the graphics. Of those, 11 have ended up in children’s mouths, and four caused the child to choke. Those children are now fine, but these plates and bowls should be taken away immediately.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission is circulating images of the Playtex dish set featuring a construction scene and a princess as examples, but they are not the only designs included in this recall. Other designs that are not pictured include DC Comics superheroes, cars, and giraffes.
The recalled dishes have been on the market since 2009, and were sold individually and in a “Mealtime” set with a printed cup and two utensils. They were available at Babies ‘R’ Us, Walmart, Target, and other stores where you can buy Playtex products for babies and children.
Take the dishes away and don’t use them for the child. Contact Playtex for a refund: The CPSC is not instructing consumers to bring these products back to the store where they were purchased. If you have any questions about the products or about the recall, you can call Playtex at 888-220-2075, or visit the company’s recall site at playtexplatesandbowls.com.
It would be a little bit confusing to open a microwaveable pot roast and find a microwaveable meatloaf instead. However, it could be seriously problematic for people with food allergies, since while meatloaf has bread crumbs and soybean oil, pot roast doesn’t. That’s why the incognito meatloaf has been recalled.
Affected products were sent to Publix stores in Georgia and Florida. The mislabeled meatloaf comes in a 15-ounce plastic tray labeled “Publix homestyle beef pot roast with seasoned gravy.”
Affected packages have a lot code of 72487338, and a case code of 09080/43303, and the USDA establishment number on the label is 17789B. The “Use by/freeze by” date is Dec. 4, 2017.
The error was discovered when a customer discovered meatloaf instead of pot roast in the package. If you have no food allergies and happen to like meatloaf, you can probably eat this product with no harm other than disappointment at missing out on the pot roast you were expecting.
However, the company urges people to throw the product out or return it to the store for a refund. If you do have this product and have allergies, sensitivities, or an abiding hatred of meatloaf, return it to the store.
If you have questions about the product or the recall, call 309-291-2112.
L.L. Bean is arguably the apparel brand most widely associated with the outdoors, but when the plaid-clad company dared to use the term “outsider” in a marketing campaign, it put its duck boot into a bit of a legal mess.
Alfwear Inc. is the corporate name of outdoor apparel company KÜHL. In Aug. 2017, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office granted Alfwear’s trademark for “The Outsider,” a brand to be used on “Rugged outdoor clothing, namely, belts, bottoms, hats, jackets, pants, shirts, shorts, T-shirts, tops.”
KÜHL says it has been selling “The Outsider” pants since June 2015:
Having the registered trademark would preclude competitors from using “The Outsider” brand for their apparel items, but can the trademark be used to stop L.L. Bean and others from simply using the term “Outsider” in a marketing campaign that doesn’t sell any specific clothing item?
Alfwear thinks so, and has sued [PDF] L.L. Bean in a federal court in Utah, alleging trademark violation for Bean’s “Be an Outsider” (get it? “Bean Outsider”?) ad campaign.
This is also a matter of competing trademark applications. In June 2017, L.L. Bean applied for the mark “Be An Outsider,” for the purpose of retail store services and apparel. It’s used the phrase in ads and as part of a new company manifesto, as well as on its gimmicky full-page ad in The New York Times.
According to KÜHL’s lawsuit, this could be confusing to people, and they may be led “to incorrectly conclude” that L.L. Bean’s “goods or services originate with, or are authorized by” the company, which would damage both KÜHL’s business and the public.
The complaint alleges that L.L. Bean used this phrase to intentionally mislead, deceive, or confuse customers, “while trading on Alfwear’s reputation and good will.” KÜHL notes that it requested in writing that L.L. Bean cease and desist from its allegedly infringing actions.
The apparel company claims it has suffered as a result of the alleged trade trademark infringement, and will continue to “suffer loss of income, profits and good will,” while its competitor “has and will continue to unfairly acquire income profits and good will.”
The lawsuit accuses L.L. Bean of violating the Lanham Act, and claims that its actions constitute federal unfair competition. It’s seeking a court order requiring L.L. Bean stop using the line “Be An Outsider” in any publications, ads, or websites; damages, and all profits the Maine company made as a result of its alleged infringement.
L.L. Bean declined to comment, citing pending litigation, but a spokesperson told The Bangor Daily News that the company firmly believes it is “well within” its legal rights to “use the call to action Be An Outsider,” and that it looks forward to resolving the issue.
A company that supplies stock market indexes reportedly warned investors in August 2016 that Equifax, one of the nation’s three major credit bureaus, appeared to be ill-equipped to fight off a sophisticated cyber attack. Apparently Equifax didn’t get that warning; otherwise, hackers may have been prevented from accessing the sensitive financial information for more than 140 million Americans.
The Wall Street Journal writes that MSCI, which provides a number of indices for tracking and predicting the behavior of the stock market, concluded last summer that Equifax was no longer a company investors could reasonably rely on to keep its data safe.
MSCI has a group of stock indices that take into account a company’s economic, social, and governance (ESG) factors. Prior to last summer, Equifax had been included in these indices, but then MSCI determined that Equifax had failed to perform regular cybersecurity audits, train its employees to recognize risks associated with an attack, or have an emergency response plan in the case of a breach.
At first, Equifax remained on the MSCI ESG Leaders index, but with a 0/10 score for privacy and data. (Competing credit bureaus TransUnion and Experian scored a 4.9 and 6.9, respectively.) Then, in Nov. 2016, Equifax was removed from this index over concerns about data security.
That was still nearly four months before March 8, 2017, when the Department of Homeland Security’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team sent Equifax a notice of the need to patch a vulnerability in the company’s software public-facing network. However, the company failed to patch all the holes, and by May 2017 the hackers were stealing data from Equifax.
It wasn’t until the end of July — nearly a full year after MSCI downgraded Equifax’s privacy and data score to zero — that anyone at Equifax was aware of suspicious activity on its network. The public wasn’t notified until Sept. 7, 2017.
Grassland Dairy Products is a 113-year-old company that has been selling butter since it was hand-churned, and currently produces more than a million tons of the stuff each year. There’s a good chance you’ve eaten Grassland Dairy products, even if you didn’t realize it.…hand-churned, and currently produces more than a million tons of the stuff each year. There’s a good chance you’ve eaten Grassland Dairy products, even if you didn’t realize it.
Bloomberg Markets reports that Grassland is a multibillion-dollar business that sells one-third of the butter used nationwide.
It sells cultured butter, Amish butter, and soybean oil-clarified butter blends. The company says that it has 850 suppliers, which bring milk from cows fed a diet free of genetically modified organisms and from cows that don’t receive injections of bovine growth hormones.
Where are you likely to find Grassland’s products? You can buy them at the store, but you’ve probably bought it without realizing it. The company sells one-third of the butter it produces under the Grassland brand, but also makes private-label butter for retailers, sells bulk quantities to bakeries and other food processing plants that use real butter, and was the butter supplier to McDonald’s when the chain made the long switch from using margarine chain-wide in breakfast foods to using butter.
The company had the good fortune to acquire a competitor around the time that Americans regained our interest in butter. In 2005, the country collectively was eating more butter than margarine again, reversing a trend that had started during World War II rationing.
While consumption of butter per person isn’t close to the 16 pounds per person that Americans gobbled at the beginning of the 20th century, more of us are now eschewing margarine and other non-dairy spreads, and Americans now eat an average of six pounds of butter each per year.
Never one to rest on its frankenfood laurels, Taco Bell continues to generate new menu items by playing Mad Libs: “How about we take some [decidedly non-taco food item], form it into [shape] and sell it at our taco chain?” How else can you explain the return of TB’s triangular chicken nuggets or, inexplicably, the chain’s new “Chicken & Biscuits” in a cup?
Chicken chips are back on menus nationwide now, either as a six-piece order served with nacho cheese, or served with nacho cheese sauce for just $1.99.
Taco Bell is also stuffing them inside tortillas with cheese, as well, for $3.49 each or in a $5 box with a Doritos Locos taco, a crunchy taco, and a medium drink.
And in a move that is sure to infuriate more than one food purist, Taco Bell says its new chicken and biscuits breakfast item includes “fluffy biscuit triangles” paired with the chicken chips and a choice of sweet and spicy jalapeno honey or a nacho cheese dipping sauce for $1.99 an order. No gravy, and it’ll only be available in Indianapolis for a limited time.
If you live in Knoxville, TN, you may see a new Bacon Ranch Naked Chicken Chalupa at your local restaurant, which the chain is testing for $3.49 à la carte and in a $5 box for a limited time.
Taco Bell first debuted its “naked chicken” concept back in January with its Naked Chicken Chalupa. After just a few months, the chain ditched the fried chicken shell fare. Soon after, its breaded chicken chips — which are neither naked, nor chips — arrived as a limited-time offering.
For months, government agencies have been warning that popular antivirus software could be giving Russian intelligence agencies a back door into American computers and secrets. Now a new report says not only that it could happen, but that it already has, at least once.
The Wall Street Journal reports that hackers working for the Russian government were able to access “highly classified” National Security Agency documents after a worker for the agency opened them on a computer using Kaspersky products.
The theft actually happened in 2015 but wasn’t discovered until 2016, sources told the WSJ. The contractor opened work files — which included detailed data about how the NSA accesses and penetrates foreign computer networks — on his home PC, at which point the hackers were able to access them.
Kaspersky products have never been authorized inside of the NSA, the Journal notes. Employees and contractors were “advised” not to use them at home, but were not prohibited from doing so at the time of the 2015 incident. However, many other security-related agencies, including including the Army, Navy and Air Force and the departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Justice, and Treasury all used Kaspersky software at some point, the WSJ adds.
Until earlier this year, Kaspersky Lab for the most part largely enjoyed a very positive reputation in the United States.
The company, named for founder Eugene Kaspersky, began operations in Russia in 1997 and expanded its offerings to the U.S. in the years immediately after.
Its antivirus and security products have been consistently well-regarded since the early 2000s. Just last month, for example, PC Mag gave Kaspersky one of its “editors’ choice” stamps in its annual antivirus rankings roundup.
The company offers a full security suite of products for home, small business, and enterprise users, and also now offers mobile products as well. At this point, Kaspersky Lab is one of the largest cybersecurity and antivirus companies in the world, boasting about 400 million users.
And that was all well and good, for a while… and then 2017 happened.
Bloomberg actually reported on Kaspersky’s ties to Russian intelligence back in 2015. While those reports gained some attention among national security officials, they went by and large unremarked in the wider world.
Security expert Brian Krebs told NPR in 2015 that he personally used Kaspersky products, and thought the concerns about them were largely overblown.
“If Kaspersky Labs wanted to do something bad, there’s absolutely no question that they could,” he told NPR — perhaps prophetically — at the time.
But, he added, “if Kaspersky was somehow found to be acting at the behest of the Russian government to spy on its customers, I think they’d pretty much be out of business overnight.”
Here in 2017, however, concerns about Russian interference in American politics, intelligence, and affairs have been spiraling up in D.C. for months — and that includes Kaspersky.
This breach, the WSJ notes, is the first known instance of Russian entities actually using Kaspersky software to conduct espionage against the U.S. government. The suspicion that they could do so, however, has been slowly brewing for years and accelerating rapidly this year.
The company’s reputational downfall in the U.S. has been swift:
On the same day, the federal government removes Kaspersky Lab from the list of approved vendors that U.S. agencies are allowed to do business with.
A few days later, the Department of Homeland Security formally orders any federal agencies using Kaspersky software to stop, providing 30-, 60-, and 90-day windows for identifying what products are in use and figuring out how to replace them.
A spokesperson for the NSA declined to comment on the security breach to the WSJ, saying, “Whether the information is credible or not, NSA’s policy is never to comment on affiliate or personnel matters.”
Under current law, most employer-sponsored health insurance plans have to include birth control coverage, but that will soon change, with the Trump administration announcing today that it is rescinding this requirement, allowing employers to decide whether they want to include this coverage in the policies they offer.
The Department of Health and Human Services issued a pair of new rules today, granting religious and “moral” exemptions to businesses who don’t wish to have their insurance policies cover birth control.
“The United States has a long history of providing conscience protections in the regulation of health care for entities and individuals with objections based on religious beliefs or moral convictions,” reads the text of the two rules, which the administration claims are needed to “protect [moral/religious] convictions for certain entities and individuals.”
There is already an exemption for employer-sponsored insurance provided by religious organizations that oppose contraception, but this expansion would allow any business — regardless of the owner’s religion — to drop this coverage by claiming they are morally opposed to birth control.
Employees at businesses that take advantage of this new loophole would have to take on the out-of-pocket expense for birth control. HHS officials estimate that around 120,000 women would be immediately affected by this change, but it’s unclear how the government calculated that figure.
Both of the new regulations are being issued as “interim final rules,” meaning the administration is sidestepping the normally contentious and drawn-out method for new federal regulations. Rather than go through the process of proposing the rule, issuing a draft, taking public comment and then at least acknowledging that you heard those concerns in the final version, an interim final rule has only a 30-day public comment period before it’s officially part of the federal code.
That public comment period will begin after the rules are published in the Federal Register on Oct. 13, meaning the exemptions could become official before Thanksgiving.
However, the rules will likely face multiple legal challenges. The ACLU indicated in May that it would be prepared to sue the administration if HHS gutted the birth control requirement. The National Women’s Law Center says it is reading the just-released regulations, but it too is expected to challenge the rule change in court.
“By taking away women’s access to no-cost birth control coverage, the rules give employers a license to discriminate against women,” says Fatima Goss Graves, NWLC President and CEO. “This will leave countless women without the critical birth control coverage they need to protect their health and economic security. We will take immediate legal steps to block these unfair and discriminatory rules.”
This year, there have been a record number of retail bankruptcies, but there’s also been a change in the industry. While some of the largest recent retail bankruptcies were preludes to liquidation, lenders and landlords are now working to keep as many stores open as possible after bankruptcy.
Reuters observes that at least 19 major retail chains across the country have shut down, each taking along hundreds of store locations and thousands of jobs. While propping up a failing business is a bad idea in the long run, retailers are now more likely to get another chance.
“We’re seeing a set of situations come together in which the constituencies have more interest in the retailer surviving than not,” a consultant who worked on the bankruptcy of children’s clothing retailer Gymboree told Reuters. Gymboree closed around a quarter of its stores during its Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but will stay in business.
There are three important groups in any retail bankruptcy: The company’s creditors, the vendors where it sources merchandise, and the landlords that hold leases. All three groups have become more receptive to plans that keep stores in business with more manageable debt loads rather than closing everything down and liquidating.
Retail businesses that are salvageable are familiar mall brands like Toys ‘R’ Us and Payless ShoeSource, which face some challenges from online shopping, but which are still able to attract shoppers and make money.
Toys ‘R’ Us, for example, has $5 billion in debt, but takes in $800 million per year, and could still be a viable business. Payless also used its strong cash flow to explain why it could stay in business if its debt payments became more manageable.
Teen-oriented retailer Rue21 recently completed its own bankruptcy process, with landlords granting an average 20% rent reduction rather than letting stores sit empty, a knowledgeable source told Reuters.
For consumers, this means fewer going out of business sales to attack, but the deals at those aren’t very good anyway.
The worst kept secret in merger romances is apparently getting achingly close to becoming a reality, with a new report claiming that the parents of T-Mobile and Sprint are putting the final details together on an arranged marriage that would see these two kids wed before Halloween.
This is according to Bloomberg Terminal, which notes that both Sprint’s parent company — Japan-based Softbank — and T-Mobile’s folks at Deutsche Telekom are in the process of doing their due diligence, with the apparent goal of finalizing a merger agreement this month.
That would allow both companies to announce the merger when they reveal their latest quarterly earnings. Neither has set a definite date for when they will discuss these financial results, but in recent years T-Mobile has been announcing its third quarter earnings during the last week of October. Last year, Sprint also released its quarterlies during that same week, but the company has more frequently waited until the first week of November.
Bloomberg notes there are still some issues to be ironed out, like where the merged company would be headquartered and who would make up the executive team.
Deutsche Telekom has been trying to unload its T-Mobile U.S. business for years, coming close in 2011. That’s when it reached a deal to sell T-Mobile to AT&T. However, that sale fell apart when both the FCC and Justice Department antitrust reviewers moved to block the merger over concerns that it would result in too much consolidation in the wireless market.
Softbank also tried to engineer a Sprint marriage to T-Mobile in 2014, but without ever reaching an agreement after realizing it too faced likely doom at the hands of federal regulators.
My how things have changed since then. While a SprinT-Mobile will certainly draw a lot of fire from consumer advocates and opponents of industry consolidation, it is hard to imagine the current administration attempting to block this merger. FCC Chair Ajit Pai, a former Verizon attorney and a pro-industry stalwart, has previously indicated his reluctance to use the commission’s authority to consider a the public interest merit of a merger.
Pai’s FCC also recently broke with the commission’s previous findings and determined that there is robust competition in the U.S. wireless market, even though there are only four national networks and two of those — AT&T and Verizon — control the large majority of the market.
The Chair was heavily criticized by his fellow Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, who took Pai and his fellow GOP commissioners to task for what she saw as a “truncated analysis” with a “myopic view” of wireless competition.
“This is like a doctor looking at one organ and pronouncing a patient fit as a fiddle,” said Clyburn about the report.
Like Marcel Proust nipping on a tea-soaked petite madeleine and finding himself awash in the memories of his youth, some of us of a certain age may be immediately transported to 1999 by the distinctive “Boo-da-loop… Ba-loop” call and response of AOL Instant Messenger. While you may have moved on from your early love affair with AIM, moving on to dalliances with texting, Facebook, WhatsApp, and so, so many others, AIM remained, patiently hoping you’d come back. Yet all the nostalgia in the world couldn’t save AIM, and so it will soon bid its final fare thee well..
AOL — pardon me, Oath — announced today that the AIM yellow running man is ready to retire, and thus, AIM will be discontinued effective Dec. 15, 2017.
“AIM tapped into new digital technologies and ignited a cultural shift, but the way in which we communicate with each other has profoundly changed,” writes Michael Albers, VP of Communications Product at Oath.
RELATED: Yahoo, AOL Brands To Be Part Of Verizon’s New ‘Oath’ Thing
America Online first introduced the service as part of its AOL desktop, and then started offering it in 1997 as a stand-alone Windows program.
The writing has been on the wall for AIM for years, first, when SMS texting became popular, and then as companies like Google, Facebook, WhatsApp, and others crowded into the messaging field. In 2012, AOL gutted its AIM staff, signaling inevitable doom for the once beloved service. That doom, it seems, has now come.
Here’s to all those carefully crafted away messages — “You’re so vain, you probably think this away message is about you” and perfectly organized buddy lists. You served us well.
It hasn’t even been a year since Sears, the mall anchor store where there’s always plenty of parking, borrowed half a billion dollars from its own Chairman and CEO Eddie Lampert. Now the once-great retailer that’s living in a converted storage space above its parents’ garage while it sorts things out is borrowing another $100 million from Lampert, with a second $100 million loan possibly coming in just a matter of weeks.
Sears Holdings — parent company of both Sears and Kmart — disclosed the new loan in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, noting that the company had borrowed $100 million from ESL Investments, the hedge fund where Lampert is the sole shareholder. If Sears can somehow put up additional collateral, it could borrow an additional $100 million from ESL between now and Dec. 1.
Lampert provided his flagging retailer with the $500 million line of credit in January, but the company has since exhausted the full amount. However, as the Chicago Tribune points out, SHC has managed to pay back a hair more than $100 million to ESL, thanks in large part to the company’s continued sale of its real estate holdings.
These new loans come at a higher price to Sears than the original $500 million line of credit; they must also be repaid earlier. That January deal attached an 8% interest rate with a maturity date of July 2020, while the $100 million and any subsequent loans will carry an 11% interest rate and an April 2018 maturity date.
Lampert has been regularly extending lines of credit and injecting his company — of which he’s the largest single investor — for years, backing those loans on real estate held by the company. Selling off old stores, land, and office buildings has helped to keep the company afloat.
Sears has also brought in much-needed cash off of its long-held house brands. It unloaded the Craftsman tools brand on Black & Decker for $900 million earlier this year. It’s now selling Kenmore appliances through Amazon, and expanded the Kenmore and Die-Hard brands to cover TVs and car tires, respectively.
But there’s only so much real estate and so many brands you can sell off. At some point, Sears needs to get people into its stores and spending lots of cash. SHC’s Kmart stores have reportedly been buying up loads of bottom-dollar inventory from other failing retailers in an attempt to compete with off-price stores like Marshalls and TJ Maxx, which are currently doing better than many other companies during this retail apocalypse.
Speaking of retail doom, Sears Canada is being pushed by its creditors to liquidate its assets ASAP, in spite of a recent court ruling that would have extended its credit protection. ESL Investments is a major shareholder in Sears Canada, which was spun off from SHC in 2012. The Canadian retailer filed for bankruptcy protection over the summer.
Until recently, Costco didn’t have to worry too much about Amazon, but then the online retail giant began to figure out how to sell and ship the fresh groceries and pantry items that make up Costco’s core business. In an attempt to keep itself from going the way of so many other bricks-and-mortar stores, the warehouse club is grabbing a jumbo-size battle hammer and jumping into the grocery delivery fray.
Costco has been able to rely on the fact that its members couldn’t easily buy pallets of paper towels, bulk packs of steak, and a satchel of onions from Amazon — or if they could, these things would be eventually delivered after a several day wait, and often at a higher price than what the customer would pay at Costco.
But as Amazon has expanded both its Prime Pantry and Amazon Fresh services, its prices have improved, and the recent acquisition of Whole Foods is only likely to aid in the growth of Amazon’s food delivery operations — not only catering to those of us who like to grocery shop from home, but possibly luring away some Costco customers.
That’s why Costco is rolling out two new grocery delivery services: A two-day offering and a same-day option.
In both situations, members will earn the same rewards they can get shopping in stores. However, what you can buy and the fees you pay vary.
CostcoGrocery Two-day: Items are limited to dry goods and non-perishable items. Delivery is free for orders of at least $75, but there are no weekend deliveries (and no deliveries in Alaska, Hawaii or Puerto Rico).
Costco Wholesale Same-day: In addition to non-perishables, members can currently get fresh food like fruits and vegetables from 376 of Costco’s U.S. stores, with plans for the company to add more locations to that list next year.
There’s a 10% service fee on these orders, however, to compensate Instacart shoppers who go to the warehouse to buy the items. Price are also generally 15% to 17% higher than warehouse walk-in prices, Costco says. Additional fees will be added to orders under $35.
For either option, Costco notes on its FAQ page that shopping in the warehouse is still cheaper, as added delivery and other fulfillment costs, as well as service fees, add up to a more expensive shopping experience.
Costco sounds like it’s confident it can take on its competitors with these new options.
“We feel good that we’ve got a few delivery options for our members that frankly are better than the ones they were doing the day before with us or with Instacart or with anybody else,” Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti said during the company’s earnings call.
And while recent reports have indicated that Amazon has been poaching new customers from its competitors with its price cuts at Whole Foods, Galanti says it’s not a problem for Costco, despite the fact that the companies “essentially overlap everywhere.”
“I read yesterday that there are some specialties brick and mortar retail stores that are impacted more than others,” Galanti told analysts. “We don’t believe we’ve seen an impact from it.”
Previously, Costco dipped its toes into the delivery waters with a Shipt partnership in the Tampa Bay, FL, area.
High-tech infotainment systems—the ones that allow drivers access to navigation, audio, and phone features—are distracting drivers for dangerously long periods of time, a new study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has found.
In research conducted by the University of Utah, drivers were visually and mentally distracted for more than 40 seconds when completing tasks like entering navigation destinations or sending a text message while driving.
Every second lost in concentration adds to a driver’s potential danger: According to AAA research, drivers who look away from the road for just two seconds double their chances of being in an accident.
The study, released Thursday, monitored 120 drivers age 21 to 36 as they drove in 30 different models along a 2-mile stretch of road at 25 mph. It aimed to answer key questions:
• Which task is the most demanding to complete while driving: calling/dialing, sending a text message, tuning the radio, or programming navigation?
• What level of cognitive demand is associated with completing these tasks using voice commands, touch screens, or technologies such as buttons, rotary dial, or writing pad?
The researchers found that entering a destination into the navigation system was the most demanding of drivers’ attention, followed by texting. Using the radio and making a call were judged the least demanding. Radio use and entering a destination, however, caused drivers to take their eyes off the road for the longest periods of time, researchers found.
Researchers said that most infotainment systems tested could be made safer by following federal recommendations such as locking out text, social media, and navigation inputs while the car is in motion.
In 2012, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released a set of voluntary guidelines advising automakers to block access to tasks when vehicles are not parked.
The problem is those guidelines have not kept pace with technology, says Jake Fisher, director of auto testing at Consumer Reports.
“Far more drivers now carry smartphones, and those are much faster and more capable than before,” he says. “Now, when an in-car navigation system locks them out because the vehicle’s in motion, many drivers simply pick up their phone to plug in a destination, which is inherently less safe.”
The University of Utah researchers did not evaluate Android Auto or Apple CarPlay systems, which mimic the smartphone interfaces in a growing number of models.
For systems that are built into the vehicle, owners have said they generally like them — 44 percent of Consumer Reports subscribers said they were “very satisfied” in a survey published earlier this year — but it’s clear those systems have plenty of room to improve.
In Consumer Reports testing of these systems over the past several years, Fisher says that CR has found that the systems that score worst for distraction are often found in luxury models. Those systems are loaded with lots of features and distracting user interfaces.
He notes that base model systems are often the least distracting, because they offer fewer features and more traditional interfaces, such as buttons and knobs. However, there are well-designed systems such as Chrysler’s Uconnect and General Motors’ MyLink that prove it’s possible to offer a full range of features while being much less distracting.
“Drivers want technology that is safe and easy to use, but many of the features added to infotainment systems today have resulted in overly complex and sometimes frustrating user experiences for drivers,” says Marshall Doney, AAA’s president and CEO.
“Some of the latest systems on the market now include functions unrelated to the core task of driving like sending text messages, checking social media, or surfing the web—tasks we have no business doing behind the wheel,” Doney says. “Automakers should aim to reduce distractions by designing systems that are no more visually or mentally demanding than listening to the radio or an audiobook. And drivers should avoid the temptation to engage with these technologies, especially for non-driving tasks.”
Shoppers who are looking to understand which systems work best should read the “Controls” section in the CR Road Tests of any model they’re considering.
