In today’s world of searing rhetoric and bombastic bumper stickers, you might hear or see two conflicting slogans: “Hang up and drive” and “You’ll take my cell phone when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.” Yet when the dust has cleared from a horrendous car accident, both messages just might serve the same end.

That end is safe driving without using a cell phone or PDA to text, dial, redial, read texts, send texts, talk endlessly or otherwise take your mind and eyes away from the road while you act like a doctor who’s on call 24/7. Would you try passing a driver’s license test while diverted this way? No, and for good reason. You could kill yourself or someone else. Haven’t done so yet? As they say, always a first time.

Starting Sept. 1, a new Texas law drives that message home, making it illegal to use a cell phone — except for a hands-free device — while driving in school zones where such signs are posted. Those signs, sadly, are the rub — more on that later.

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Time magazine reports that a cultural shift toward bemused tolerance of moms’ drinking so they can cope with busy days is circling the drain along with discarded martinis. Indeed, as advanced by books and commercials, the thought of a happily drinking mom has become less liberating than sobering — especially since a big-news tragedy this summer.

That tragedy, of course, was the horrific drunk driving accident near Hawthorne, N.Y. which claimed eight lives, including that of Diane Schuler, a mother who’d reportedly had 10 drinks before hitting the highway with five kids in her car. Her wrong-way collision killed four of them and herself, along with three men in another car.

Time says this sensational story has had a wrenching effect on women whose routines and responsibilities include ferrying kids from place to place. Drinking isn’t as funny or fun now that Schuler’s catastrophe has served as a wakeup call, especially for women who relate to her life.

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Guest blog courtesy of Dolan Law Offices, Chicago, IL.

As Chicago civil rights attorneys and citizens, we’ve been closely following the allegations of corruption and discrimination that have plagued the Chicago Police and Fire Departments for years. Recently, similar allegations have been made against the Houston Fire Department.

Veteran firefighters are concerned about the culture of sexism and racism that currently exists in the Houston Fire Department. ABC News reports that victims have dealt not only with harassment and discrimination, but also with life threatening tampering. Veteran firefighters describe being made to go into unsafe building fires in violation of department protocol and having other firefighters sabotage their safety equipment so that it was impossible to get oxygen during a fire.

The firefighters also report a culture of harassment and discrimination among the superiors in the Houston Fire Department. They claim that they often had to make their reports to the very people who were the harassers and discriminators
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Ads for a certain slim cigarette aimed at women once crowed, “You’ve come a long way, baby.” In short, smoking was seen as twisted liberation for women. Sadly, the same is now true for drinking alcohol.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that the percent of women arrested for DUI is increasing, while the percent of male DUI arrests drops. Men are still far more prone to DUI or DWI arrest — by almost a four-to-one ratio –  but in a changing world where women face increased pressures on economic fronts as their husbands lose jobs, and sometimes a tendency to behave like “the boys,” more and more women are stressed, driving cars and doing so while drunk.

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Why is it so hard to collect  a car accident insurance claim, even when you weren’t at fault? Because insurance companies are stingy–and are getting even stingier due to uninsured motorists on the road. When an uninsured driver is at fault in a car accident, then the claim goes to the innocent driver’s insurer, who doesn’t want to pay. And that’s a huge problem.

Some Texas cities are doing something about it — but Houston isn’t one of them. According to a report on KHOU Channel 11 News, more than 15,000 drivers annually for the past two years were ticketed in Houston for driving without car insurance — a legal offense. And some uninsured drivers were ticketed repeatedly. In fact, more than 100 people got ticketed five times for the same offense.

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Kids and play — an unbeatable combo. But not always. Sometimes, playground safety hazards can turn a carefree day into a traumatic trip to an emergency room.

Safe Kids USA, an organization supported by Jim Adler, founder of Jim S. Adler & Associates, knows the numbers. Safe Kids finds that 200,000 children yearly wind up in an ER after a playground mishap. Of those, about 90,000 suffer serious injuries, such as a broken bone — and 15 kids die.

Vigilant parents can keep such harm from happening, starting at home and extending to the proper maintenance of playground facilities.

As USA Today warned in a recent report, parents should ensure their kids aren’t wearing necklaces or clothing with drawstrings near the neck. Such things can get snagged on playground equipment and, with a fall, can choke a child — perhaps strangle him or her. So don’t even leave home when such a hazard dangles from a child’s neck.

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