Over the course of the past few months, there has been much attention directed towards the auto industry. Specifically towards the Detroit’s Big-Three, and whether or not there should be an extensive amount of money given to them to bail them out of the massive debt they were in, which was crippling the automotive industry. The common consensus seemed to be that they didn’t deserve the bail-out money due to a lack of quality production. People felt as if the vehicles being produced out of Detroit just weren’t up to par with other foreign auto makers.
While these Giants may have had their ups and downs, they have apparently picked up the slack in recent years, as they have topped the charts in terms of customer satisfaction according to one article which was posted on Forbes.com. According to a report released by University of Michigan, Detroit had some of the largest gains in customer satisfaction, with Ford at a 5 % increase from last year, Chrysler at a 4 %, and GM at 2%. GM’s Cadillac continues to top the charts for the second year straight, producing a 7.2 % increase in customer satisfaction. The American Consumer Satisfaction Index attributes this rise in consumer satisfaction to three primary factors:
1)Consumers more readily recognizing improvements in quality and service
2)Car prices have evened out, and even decreased with rebates and other incentives
3)The Automakers’ consumer base has shrunk
While it takes a long period of time for a consumer to change their perception from negative to positive regarding a company, the time in which it takes to lose that positive support is much less. It is for this reason that a smaller consumer base and increasing customer satisfaction can be seen as a good thing. With the consumer base decreasing, those who remain are becoming more and more satisfied, helping the percentage increase.
“For Detroit, serving a smaller, more satisfied customer base should be easier to manage and to build from compared to what they had before, which was a large diversified mass of customers that almost always had lower satisfaction than those who bought cars from foreign competitors.” says ACSI spokesperson Claes Fornell. These are only some of the improvements being made in Detroit since the bail-out.
This article has been brought to you by Attorney Joseph Awad, premier Michigan DUI attorney.
October 28, 2010
The police officer who arrested you must justify why he did so in court. For this reason, the police will do everything they can to make observations about you that demonstrate your intoxication. When they observe symptoms they believe show your drunkenness, they will record those observations in the police report. A good attorney will immediately request a copy of the police report and carefully examine any claim that you appeared drunk. While there are many commons signs of intoxication, there are also many legitimate explanations for those very signs that have nothing to do with drinking alcohol. The officer, however, will usually pay no attention to the alternate explanations for your appearance and immediately conclude that drinking was the basis for what you look. Your lawyer must aggressively challenge the officer’s presumptions about your appearance and provide other explanations for the way you appeared when you were arrested. Providing other reasons for your appearance will downplay any claim that you committed a DUI. The following examples are some of the things an officer will routinely list in a police report as signs of your intoxication; the observations are then followed by other non-alcohol related reasons for the very same symptoms – reasons the officer arresting you conveniently fails to consider.
Bloodshot eyes: The officer will almost always claim that a driver arrested for DUI had red or “bloodshot eyes.” If the officer notices redness in your eyes, the observation will certainly find its way into the police report. Make sure your lawyer is familiar with various legitimate justifications for your alleged “red” eyes. While excessive drinking would produce red eyes, there are many other explanations to account for such redness.
Your bloodshot eyes may have nothing to do with drinking: Perhaps your eyes are always slightly red, to begin with. After all, if the officer is claiming that drinking caused your eyes to redden, he or she should also be able to determine what condition your eyes are normally, too. Since the officer is unable to tell the court what your eyes ordinarily look like, you may be able to play down the significance of his observation. Prolonged exposure to smoky areas, like restaurants and pool halls will create redness in the eyes and may have nothing to do with alcohol. Fatigue may also explain your red and bloodshot eyes. It is not uncommon for most folks to have red and tired eyes after a long day of work and/or play. Since most arrests for drunk driving occur in the evening or early morning, it is possible that the redness in your eyes just represents a long and hard day of honest work, or an early rise to the day. Allergies, colds, air pollution, and other airborne substances to which you were exposed are other good examples of alternate reasons for red and bloodshot eyes. It is highly unlikely that the officer even considered these other explanations before prematurely concluding that your red eyes were caused by consuming alcohol. Make sure your Michigan DUI lawyer exploits this bias in the police report and thoroughly investigates whether or not the officer’s observations of your eyes caused him to draw improper conclusions when arresting you for DUI.
October 28, 2010
Too many people are pulled over for the silliest reasons, very few of which can be attributed to drunk driving. For example, if you are reaching for your cell phone or fiddling with the radio, you may have caused your vehicle to veer to one side. This does not mean that you are drunk. It certainly does not mean that your driving was affected by your drinking. If the officer is going to claim that your driving showed signs of your intoxication, an alternate explanation for your driving will come in very handy in demonstrating that the officer’s presumptions about your driving are wrong. A good Michigan OWI lawyer knows it’s important to aggressively defend the basis for stopping you, since an illegal stop of your vehicle often times means a dismissal of your case. After all, no evidence obtained against you on the basis of an illegal stop can be used against you in court. Your attorney must look for any and all reasons to challenge the reason the officer stopped you, since doing so will reveal many legal opportunities for your DUI defense in court.
October 28, 2010
Many of the officer’s initial impressions of you will be made before he even pulls you over. If you are driving in what he believes to be an unsafe manner, his attitude of who he will encounter will be skewed. A good Michigan OWI attorney can use this bias to show that the officer was predisposed to arrest you.
Read more about getting your DUI case dismissed at Dui Charges in Michigan.
October 28, 2010
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