#SafeDriving

With a new year fast approaching, it’s that time of year to kick those nasty habits, however temporarily, in an attempt at self-improvement.

Like many of you, I wasn’t always a believer in the magic of winter tires.

Roundabout, traffic circle, rotary, gyratory, whatever you call these curving intersections they can be quite confusing to drivers that have never experienced one before. With yield signs, bike lanes and pedestrian crossings there’s a lot going on in a small area and plenty of opportunity to screw things up. But here are a few helpful hints on how to navigate these labyrinthine road junctions.

According to a recent study conducted by Penn Schoen Berland and commissioned by Ford, the summer months are the most dangerous for teen drivers.

According to the American Automobile Association (AAA), New Year’s Day is the year’s deadliest day for alcohol-related fatalities.

Potential customers are no good to an automaker if they’re dead so Mercedes-Benz is taking steps to help improve the chances that teens practice safe driving in the spirit of National Distracted Driving Awareness Month.

Men and women disagree on a lot of things, but when it comes to which gender is the better driver, there’s one thing most of us can all agree on – women are. But the two sexes do have something to learn from each other when it comes to driving.

How safe is your city to drive in? You can find out how your city fared in Allstate Insurance Company’s seventh annual “Allstate America’s Best Drivers Report.”  This report uses Allstate’s claim data to rank America’s 200 largest cities in terms of car collision frequency to see which ones have the safest drivers.

For the second year in a row, Fort Collins, Colorado comes out in first place. If you’re a driver in Fort Collins, you can expect to get into a car accident every 14 years – that’s 28.6 percent less likely than the national average of 10 years.

“We want to recognize the city of Fort Collins for again being the safest driving city in America, and we salute all of America’s safe drivers, who help make our communities better places to live, work and raise families,” said Mike Roche, executive vice president, Allstate’s Claim Organization.

Taking the last place spot for a third year in a row is Washington, D.C. Other cities that placed near the bottom of the list include Baltimore, Maryland, Los Angeles, California and Newark, New Jersey.

Did your city make it into the top 10? Find out after the jump.

The countdown to the first day of school is on. Just as important as it is to get everything ready for the big day, it’s also a good idea to go over a few school bus safety tips.

You’ve fought that urge, admit it. You know what we’re talking about – the one where you instinctively want to check your mobile phone when it goes off, even while you’re driving. You’re dying to see who it is, but you can’t: it’s against the law, it’s not safe.

Before you get too excited, the Taser app isn’t what you think it is. But what it will do is protect your family while they are driving.

We bet that you wish you could be in the car whenever your teenager takes it out for a spin. Sure, you trust them, but you would feel better if you could make sure they weren’t going too fast or you could turn the radio dial when Howard Stern comes on. Thanks to Ford’s enhanced MyKey system, you’ll feel a lot better the next time your teen asks for the keys.

You look at the survey headline: “86 Percent Of Teen Drivers Are Distracted.” Of course, you go right to the evils of the cell phone – talking, texting, sending and reading email – or using advanced in-car features. Results from a survey conducted by AAA and Seventeen magazine found that 86 percent of those polled drove distracted – but they consider adjusting the radio and eating in the car as distractions.

What scares the bejesus out of you? Spiders? Clowns? Garden gnomes? If you’re a man, chances are you’re afraid of your wife’s or girlfriend’s driving.

So it’s a bit of a stereotype, but a recent poll taken by OnePoll.com, an online market research firm, asked 3,000 men a series of questions about how they felt being a passenger riding along with a female driver. The results found that a third of men are afraid in the passenger seat. Around one-fifth of those polled often grip the seat cushion in fear and one in ten said they had been forced to grab the steering wheel as their partner took her eyes off the road.

OnePoll.com spokesperson said that most men “feel they are better drivers than the women in their lives,” as well as “believe they concentrate a lot better, read road situations more quickly and clearly and have better reactions.” Some of the respondents even went on to say they could never relax when their other half was driving.

Hit the jump for a list of the top 10 complaints made about women’s driving: