As the reality of deaths and injuries caused by cell phone and PDA distractions sinks in for America, the nation slowly adjusts to what’s long been a very real and very serious threat. That adjustment includes a new ordinance in the Houston-area community of West University. There, drivers on the first day of school began getting tickets (at first, just warnings) for driving while using a cell phone or other electronic device in a school zone.

The new ordinance takes effect from 7-8 a.m. and from 2:30-3:30 p.m. on school days. Drivers can be fined $200 for a first offense and $500 for a second offense.

At the same time, San Antonio is experimenting with a pilot program in which it’s illegal to use a cell phone without a headset in 18 school zones, all being areas with a high level of speeding violations. You shouldn’t send or read text messages, either, or the fine will be up to $200 after a two-month grace period starting Sept. 1. (more…)

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Beyond fantasy characters such as the Fantastic Four’s Human Torch, no American is impervious to flame, and all face burn injury threats from fires. But only a small percentage of Americans face such threats with one crucial added concern: a handicap that makes them mobility-impaired.

Such was the case for a Houston woman last week when her high-rise apartment building had a fire alarm. The woman, who’s partly paralyzed, was told via alarm that she had to evacuate the building while using stairs, not an elevator. But she knew she couldn’t do that in a motorized wheelchair from her 25th floor residence in Greenway Condominiums.

Fortunately, she entered a hallway where she found a valiant neighbor who carried her down the stairs all the way to the building’s lobby. And fortunately, the fire was confined to a clothes dryer and was quickly extinguished. (more…)

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Burn injuries can be among the most cruel and debilitating of any harm a human can suffer. From emotional scars to disfigurement to excruciating pain to lengthy and arduous rehabilitation, burn injuries not only are severe, but can be severely damaging even to a person’s will to live.

In Houston, fortunately, one woman has made it her crusade to fight back against burn injuries not only with a fierce will to live, but by providing special care and treatment of burn victims. That woman is Justina Page, who responded to a family tragedy in a fire nine years ago to create the Amos House of Faith, which offers support groups and other resources to families who have endured a burn injury. (more…)

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From their state’s bigness to its boldness, Texans can take pride in many things. But with size also come large statistical numbers — and often unpleasant ones. That’s certainly the case for job fatalities, for which Texas now clearly leads the nation.

Figures released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveal that Texas had more on-the-job deaths in 2007 than any other state: 527. And those can’t just be blamed on Texas’ enormous size.

Indeed, while America as a whole was having a 6 per cent drop in job deaths from the previous year of 2006, Texas was having an 8 per cent increase in job deaths. And Texas’ job deaths represent 10 per cent of those nationwide, even though Texas has less than 8 per cent of the nation’s population. (more…)

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It sounded like such a good idea: Get 50 or more miles per $4 gallon, rather than a car’s 15 or 20 miles at best. That may mean riding a motorcycle, which gives you more gas bang for your buck than almost any other vehicle.

But with motorcycle riding on the rise, so are motorcycle accident deaths. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says traffic deaths overall declined in 2007, yet motorcycle deaths rose. In fact, they’ve jumped from 5 per cent of the traffic death total in 1997 to 13 per cent of the death total last year, with an increase in each year.

In that decade, the feds say, 75 per cent more motorcycles have been registered. With bikers almost doubling, that certainly accounts for an increase in deaths. (more…)

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It’s official — or at least painfully obvious: America is enduring a plague of construction crane collapse accidents. And anyone who’s near any of these towering cranes — often the height of a skyscraper — should be wary, be alert and be quick to leave the vicinity as soon as possible.

It shouldn’t be that way. Ordinary citizens shouldn’t have to fear for their lives whenever remotely near a construction site on which a construction crane is being used. But facts are facts, and the fact is, after construction crane collapses in New York City (with two), Houston, Miami, Las Vegas and Oklahoma City recently, yet another construction crane collapse now tragically arises in Quincy, MA. Sadly, they’re becoming almost routine, though their toll in lives is anything but that. Rather, it’s devastating. (more…)

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In a move that came too late for too many bus accident victims, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has halted approval of any new bus carriers until the feds get a fix on a problem that’s claimed 20 lives in two crashes in just the past week.

The government was responding to a problem created by a loophole in regulations which allowed bus lines with poor safety records to keep operating after supposedly being shut down. This was the case in the North Texas bus accident Aug. 8 in which 17 Houstonians were killed, after chartering a bus line which had been shut down for being unsafe but was simply operating under a new name.

The FMCSA “is concerned about these rogue operators, the chameleon carriers, who get put out of business and then come right back under a new name,” said the agency’s Kristin Schrader in Washington. (more…)

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With summer winding down, chances are high that most parents aren’t thinking about swimming lessons for their kids. But any time is a good time to help your child protect himself or herself in the water — especially in view of Houston’s recent rash of child drownings.

After a 15-month-old boy drowned when he climbed into a bathtub Aug. 3, already this year Houston has had more child drownings — 25 — than in all of 2007 combined — 22.

Children drown for many reasons, including improperly maintained, supervised and illuminating swimming pools. But as a reader who wrote to this blog has stressed, many such drownings could have been prevented if the child simply knew how to swim properly. (more…)

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Do you feel lucky? Well, do you?

If so, you might want to try your luck in multiple ways. One would be planning a trip to a casino resort in order to gamble. Another would be to take such a trip via a chartered casino tour bus.

Such buses are operated in order to ferry large groups of people across a significant distance to a casino, where they are expected to gamble. Often the passengers pay very little, since the casino figures it will make even more money via the passengers’ gambling losses.

This strategy proved tragically unlucky for a group of South Carolina people who recently visited Harrah’s Tunica casino in northwest Mississippi. For their trip back home on Sunday, 43 people rode a casino bus from the casino toward an airport. Along the way, the bus flipped over onto a median, killing three people and injuring several others. (more…)

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Again, a fatal bus crash has taken innocent lives, in this case three tourists aboard a casino bus in Mississippi. No other vehicles were involved when the bus, taking 43 visitors to an airport, flipped over in a median. Twenty-seven people were injured and taken to a hospital, where one was in critical condition.

The Associated Press reports that the bus’s roof partially caved in during the rollover accident Sunday, and its windows were knocked out.

The passengers had been guests of Harrah’s Tunica casino in northwest Mississippi as part of a promotional trip. Most were returning to their homes in South Carolina. Hararah’s Entertainment, owner of the bus, set up a telephone hotline to provide relatives of victims with information on the fatal bus crash. (more…)

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