Steering Idler Arm Valucraft By Autozone Vfa5039 on 2040-parts.com

2012 Ford Focus ST gets 297bhp

Those clever chaps at SuperChips have given the 2012 Ford Focus ST a bit of an ECU tweak to deliver 297bhp and an extra 85lb/ft of torque. When we reported last week that WTC outfit Arena had in roped Ford’s tuner of choice, Mountune, to give the new Ford Focus a makeover, we were a tad disappointed to discover that they were tweaking the rather journeyman Focus Zetec S. That meant the Zetec S got 200bhp – a handy jump – but we bemoaned the fact that they hadn’t fiddled with the Focus ST to give us a car to fill the void left by the absence of a Focus RS in the current iteration of the Focus.

New technology combats drowsy driving

Auto supplier Takata is introducing a new driver-alertness warning system to the commercial trucking industry to keep drivers awake. The SafeTrak electronic vision system sounds an alert if a trucker is driving erratically or unintentionally drifting from a lane. A recent AAA study for traffic safety found that drowsy driving is a contributing factor in 16.5 percent of fatal car crashes in the United States.

London's GPS-based speed-limit trial puts Big Brother's foot on the gas pedal

A fleet of 12 Toyota Priuses in London have been fitted with GPS-linked speed limiters to measure how drivers respond to having their speed controlled by a computer rather than their own feet. For now, the trial is local to London, run by Transport for London, the agency that manages the city's roads, buses, subways and trains. The agency is using its own fleet of Priuses for the test and will add a bus and a taxi later this year.