Articles by Karla Pincott

Brutal footage aims to stun drivers into not speeding, but government department calls it 'sensitive'.The shock-effect commercial shows a car crash through a park and kill a group of children. But officials from the Department of Environment in Northern Ireland, which released the ad, say the footage is 'sensitive'.The footage shows a classroom of young kids playing and then enjoying a field trip to a park, while cutaway scenes show a man grabbing a hurried breakfast before getting into his car.You can guess what happens next. In very blunt footage, the car loses control, smashes through the park wall, spins and rolls over the top of the children, with a voiceover saying speeding has killed 28 children -- a classroom's worth -- since 2000. "Shame on You," it finishes.Northern Ireland minister for road safety minister Mark H Durkan has defended the ad as 'sensitive' and 'thought provoking'. "This campaign is a real wake up call. It is a particularly sensitive and compelling message," he told Irish media. "After all, what could be more thought provoking than the realisation that, since 2000, the equivalent of a classroom of children have been killed as a result of speeding."In Australia we've seen some similarly brutal ads showing people being maimed or disfigured, usually mounted as campaigns against drink-driving, while New Zealand has done the same with a child in the back of car that crashes in slow motion. Perhaps the question is not whether the Irish commercial is more shocking than those, but whether it will work any better -- with no evidence that the campaigns do much to alter behaviour on the roads.

Jeep launches campaign to put 10 buyers into new Cherokee at stunning discount.Fancy being able to tell your friends you 'Bought a Jeep' for just $10,000 drive-away? Ten Australians will be able to do that with a campaign that will put a $39,000 Cherokee Longitude in their driveway with onroad costs of around $5000 also covered.The campaign centres on a virtual 'remote dealership' and will run on an Apple and Android smartphone app, which you have to download and register on by July 10. Registering gives you a countdown on the app, and when it reaches zero, the location and phone number of 'The World' Most Remote Jeep Dealership' - and its distance from you -- will be revealed.The first 10 people who call the dealership, commit to buying and can be there on Saturday July 26 will get the 10 Jeep Cherokees. If you whack down your money, but don't make it to the venue on the day, you'll be fully refunded.There's no clue yet about where the mystery pop-up dealership is located, but the red dirt of the images suggest it's in the Simpson, Great Sandy or one of the other deserts that together cover more than a million square kilometres in Australia's heart and western coast.That's probably the perfect setting for a Jeep, which is still the byword for offroading. "The all-new Jeep Cherokee is at home in the city but, unlike some of its rivals, it's equally at home somewhere far remote – which is where we're opening a dealership for a day," Fiat Chrysler Australia's senior advertising manager Ashlin Moore says.The group's president and CEO Veronica Johns believes the campaign is unique and the first of its kind in any country. "The World's Most Remote Dealership brings the Jeep ‘Don't Hold Back' attitude to life with a unique offer," Johns says. "We believe this is a ‘World-First' and a campaign only Jeep could pull-off."For more information, head to http://life.jeep.com.au/articles/news/jeep-remote-dealership

Jaguar to unveil first car from new Special Operations tuning division.

Research shows fewer enthusiasts, less desire for sexy cars, but a creep from used to new.

Picture yourself in one of these hot designs. They're closer than you think.

Leaving any child in a car is dangerous, and can be fatal. Toddler died after father allegedly forgot about daycare stop for eight hours.A father in the US has been charged with murder over the death of his two-year-old after the child was allegedly left in a car for eight hours.Police in the Georgia's Cobb County on the edge of the state capital Atlanta said Justin Ross Harris, 34, had intended to drop his toddler at a daycare centre on Wednesday but had forgotten and continued onto his workplace.They said it wasn't until after Harris had finished work for the day and started on the trip home that he discovered the child was still strapped into his restraint in the back seat -- and was by then unresponsive.Fox News reports a witness saw Harris pull into a shopping centre carpark, stop his car across two lanes of traffic, leap out and start administering resuscitation to the child, who failed to revive. “He was constantly saying, "What have I done, what have I done" the witness is cited as having said.Temperatures in Atlanta topped 32C on Wednesday afternoon, with estimates that the temperature inside a closed car could go as high as 54-60C in a few hours.The report says Harris has been charged with two felony counts -- murder and cruelty to children -- and is being held without bail the Cobb County Adult Detention Center.Parents are urged to always make sure their children are not left or inadvertently locked in a car.

German prestige brand's tuning arm will concentrate on power-to-weight ratio. The boffins at BMW's motorsport-inspired M Division have turned out some of the best performance cars any keen driver could want, and the M badge has become a byword for great handling and high power.But it seems the power part of the equation may have hit a plateau, with BMW saying that future developments will focus on trimming weight from the cars rather than uprating the engines.“We want to be in a different league for power-to-weight, but we prefer to have a car that weighs 1000kg rather than one with 1000 horsepower,” M-Division’s head of product management, Carsten Pries said.It's true that the M cars could stand to lose a few kilos -- as they've grown in size and increasingly added new cabin technology and safety equipment over the years, they've also stacked on extra weight. And the new strategy will not only produce cars that handle better, but are also more fuel-efficient -- not that many M buyers care about the fuel bill, but efficiency is the latest Holy Grail for the European car industry, with the favoured answers being lighter cars with smaller turbocharged engines.As Carlist points out, the new strategy can already seen in the new 2014 BMW M3 and M4, which are trimmer and carry a smaller turbocharged inline six-cylinder engine compared to the V8-powered E92 it replaced. And who wouldn't applaud a move that could leads to more lightweight, driver-focused and agile cars like the E30 M3.

French people-mover shows it's designed to succeed with Best in Category for automotive.

F1 champion out of coma, interacting with family.

Exhibition celebrates special concept cars that introduced stunning design and amazing innovation.