Unit 5a Book

1. Introduction

Unit 5 deals with safety, and especially safety on the road. It is a very important topic because you can never be too careful. According to the World Health Organization, every year, the lives of more than 1.25 million people are cut short as a result of a road traffic crash. Therefore, it is not surprising that car companies do their best to make their vehicles as safe as possible. With the current pace of development of electronics, especially sensors, this is not as challenging as you might think. However, what may be challenging is to decide about the right level of assistance while driving. Research shows that too many safety systems installed in a car make people feel too safe and drive more dangerously. They simply don´t seem to understand that intelligent safety systems cannot take over drivers´ responsibility. Unit 5a discusses this issue from the technical point of view.

Contents:

• Talking about car safety systems, explaining their principle
• Taking part in a discussion about safety systems; some expressions typical of discussions:

in other words, by the way, alternatively, anyway, for instance, you have a point

• Some phrases for an informal conversation over a phone:

Good to hear from you. How are things with you? I hear…, What are you looking into? Are you free? That´s OK for me.

2. Warm-up: Sad Statistics and Forum

Are you afraid of flying? Well, some statistics say that flying is much safer than driving. Indeed, if you look at WHO statistics of car accidents, you can find out pretty depressive facts. Read some of these sad statistics in this task and complete all the gaps in the text. Then give your opinion and tips on improving safety on the roads in this forum.

3. Specialist Reading: Lane Keeping Assist

One of the car assistants that have the potential to save human lives is a lane keeping assist system (LKAs). Read about it here and complete the two accompanying tasks. Then listen to the telephone conversation (Recording 14 that comes with your coursebook) and complete this listening task (alternatively, you can read the transcript on pp. 120-121 in your coursebook: Bonamy, D. (2011). Technical English Level 3 Coursebook. Pearson Longman. Finally, listen to the brainstorming meeting in Recording 15 that comes on the same CD attached to your coursebook (again, alternatively you can read the transcript on p. 121 in your coursebook) and complete this listening comprehension task. Then listen again and focus on vocabulary.

4. Speaking: Automatic Safety Devices

In your opinion, what is the most useful automatic safety system that comes with modern cars? And conversely, what is the less useful (and perhaps even dangerous) automatic safety system that comes with modern cars? Do you agree with Tom when he said that these systems encourage drivers to drive more dangerously because they think the car is completely safe?

Now work in pairs. You can either meet one of your fellow students in person or use a type of videoconferencing software. Both of you choose one of the following roles:

A:

Your job is to design automatic safety devices (such as anti-lock braking devices and air bags). Your view is that everything possible should be done to protect drivers, passengers and other road users by developing automatic safety devices in cars.

B:

Your job is to advise car manufacturers on driver behaviour in safety matters (similar to Tom's job in audio 14 and 15). Your view is that too many automatic safety devices in a car take away the driver's responsibility. They make the driver feel too safe and protected, which is dangerous. You prefer feedback systems which warn the driver about dangers.

After choosing your part, role-play a dialogue between Person A and Person B. You should do your best defending your opinion, providing some good evidence. Record yourself (by using a videoconferencing tool or a simple recorder that comes with your mobile phone). Your recording should not be longer than three minutes, so that you can upload it to the Moodle portlet. 

5. Specialist Listening: IPA

The Lane Keeping Assistant is not the only system currently available to make a driver´s life easier and safer. Look at these pictures. What do they illustrate? What is the assistant called? How does it work? You will learn details on this system in this specialist listening task. As you listen, complete all the gaps. In the second part of the recording, you will hear how the system works, namely the individual steps of the parking process. Listen to it and put the steps in the correct order in this task. After you complete this task, leave it open. As a follow-up activity, insert some suitable sequencers and adjust the phrases to produce a nice text containing full sentences. Submit the description as a Word document here.

6. Forum 2: How to Reduce the Driver´s Distraction while Driving

Crashes on roads are hardly ever accidental. Very often, they follow from the driver being easily distracted. Therefore, car manufactures equip cars with systems minimizing this distraction. Before you read about five of them, look at these pictures illustrating four of the systems. Based on the pictures, can you guess the working principle of the systems? If not, don´t worry. Just read about the systems in this document. Then decide which of the intelligent assistants is the best one and why. Give your opinion in this forum. Would you like to have this system in your car? Also, mention a system that you think is the worst one. Again, explain why.                                                

7. Word list

The key terms related to the topic of Unit 5a can be found:

• in the Excel format here.
• in the interactive flash card format here. This format is particularly good for drilling the new vocabulary.
• in a zip file here. This file is downloadable, so that after unpacking it, you can drill the new vocabulary on your desktop, laptop or any other portable device where you have a browser installed. The recommended one is Mozilla Firefox. Important: after unzipping the zip file, make sure to keep all the related files in the same directory at all times. Do not change any file names and do not transfer or delete anything.

Recommendation: Remember that the best way to learn new vocabulary is to see each new word in a context; that is, seeing it in the contexts provided in the tasks you complete in the unit.

8. A printer-friendly version of Unit 5a

A printer-friendly version of Unit 5a exercises and the keys to these exercises can be found here.