STORY 14. SAVING LIVES
CHARLES GIBSON: Staying behind the wheel, we're going to turn to the latest ways to prevent car crashes using cutting edge technology. An insurance safety group is out with a report that claims if four specific new safety features were put in every vehicle on the road, 10,000 fatal accidents could be prevented every year. Here's Lisa Stark.
LISA STARK: This is what happens when the past meets the present. A 1959 Chevy Bel Air decimated after smashing into the 2009 Chevy Malibu.
ADRIAN LUND (INSURANCE INSTITUTE FOR HIGHWAY SAFETY): It's life and death, that's the difference.
LISA STARK: There's little doubt that accidents these days are more survivable, but what if you could prevent accidents in the first place? That's the future. We tested a system designed to prevent the most common type of accident, rear end collisions. Driving a 2010 Ford Taurus we sped toward a giant balloon simulating a car. Radar on the Taurus scans the road ahead. I'm coming up on another car and I don't really notice it and then all of a sudden...
An alarm and lights warn us to hit the brakes. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety studied the collision warning system as well as there other emerging technologies. An alert on your side mirror if there's a car in your blind spot, a warning when you begin to drift out of your lane, as well as headlights that move to provide better vision when coming around a bend.
ADRIAN LUND: You know, it's literally thousands and hundreds of thousands of crashes that could be prevented.
LISA STARK: All of these technologies are increasingly available on luxury cars and are starting to move to mainstream vehicles.
STEPHEN KOZAK (GLOBAL SAFETY CHIEF ENGINEER): This is the game changer. Okay. We've now moved from inside the vehicle where seat belts and airbags were doing all the work, to outside the vehicle with sensor technology that allows us to avoid the accident.
LISA STARK: So much a game changer that some believe the government will one day mandate them. Lisa Stark, ABC News, Ruckersville, Virginia.
STORY 15. BURST BALLOON
CHARLES GIBSON: Investigators in Fort Collins, Colorado today said it will likely be next week before any charges are filed against the family involved in that balloon incident. The sheriff now says he has no doubt the whole thing was a hoax concocted by the Heene family to get publicity. And the sheriff says cases don't come any weirder than this one. Ryan Owens is in Fort Collins, Colorado.
RYAN OWENS: Richard Heene finally has the fame he craved, but the wannabe reality star has lost control of this script.
SHERIFF JIM ALDERDEN (LARIMER COUNTY): These people are actors, they met in acting school. They put on a very good show for us and we bought it.
RICHARD HEENE (FATHER): Three, two, one.
RYAN OWENS: The sheriff says as soon as next week, the couple could face felony charges including conspiracy and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, after they, and their three young boys, allegedly spent two weeks concocting what's become known around the world as the "balloon boy hoax." Heene continues to deny it was a stunt and now has an attorney.
DAVID LANE (HEENE ATTORNEY): I have no idea what so-called evidence they have.
RYAN OWENS: Detectives say they have plenty after a weekend search of the Heene home. They say they found e-mails and documents that detailed the plot, all to pretend their 6-year-old boy floated away on this homemade flying saucer. The motive behind their plot? Investigators say they wanted to generate so much publicity television producers would have no choice but to give the family their very own reality show. Sure, they were featured on "Wife Swap" twice, but Heene didn't think their 15 minutes were anywhere near up.
SHERIFF JIM ALDERDEN: On the bizarre meter, this rates a 10.
RYAN OWENS: Heene is hardly the first person willing to exploit his children for fame and money. Think octomom or the eight little ones caught between Jon and Kate.
PROFESSOR ROBERT THOMPSON (TV AND POP CULTURE): Fame is a powerful narcotic. Fame is something that I think a lot of people desire more than anything else.
RYAN OWENS: One study found 30% of us daydream regularly about being famous.
RICHARD HEENE: I'm Richard Heene, science detective.
RYAN OWENS: Richard Heene certainly did and today he's surrounded by more cameras than he could ever imagine, all waiting for one shot, he and his wife in handcuffs. Ryan Owens, ABC News, Fort Collins, Colorado.