With 19 states and the District of Columbia now making it illegal to text while driving, you wonder when Texas will wise up. So far, only municipalities have passed such laws, the biggest being Austin. And the only state law on the books protects only school children by making it illegal to text or use a cell phone while driving through a school zone.

But does this law truly protect kids? Not exactly. That’s because individual school districts still must pay for signs to be posted in school zones to warn drivers that such behavior is illegal. And if they don’t, the law doesn’t apply.

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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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July 4th weekend is a time to celebrate America’s liberty. Yet our liberties don’t include driving while impaired, a misjudgment which claims almost one third of all traffic deaths yearly, and an even higher 40 per cent of all traffic deaths on the mid-summer holiday.

Alcohol abuse by drivers crosses all geographic and socioeconomic lines. But motorcyclists have the highest proportion of alcohol abuse of any drivers on the road, and thus more motorcyclists die in traffic accidents on Independence Day than on any other day of the year.

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In June, Texas lost an average of one child a day to drowning. That’s 30 of the state’s 60 child drownings for the entire first half of the year, and all in one month — a month when pool activity escalates, and so do kids’ chances of losing their young lives.

The Houston Chronicle reports that this June, in fact, was the state’s deadliest month for child drownings since such tallies were taken starting in 2005. A majority of child drowning victims were toddlers 1 to 4 years old who succumbed in private home swimming pools.

Harris County, the state’s largest, has had 13 of Texas’ 60 child drownings so far this year, or almost one in four.

All sources of water must be considered potentially hazardous for infants and small children — from buckets, bathtubs and toilets to lakes, rivers and seashores. But clearly, given the statistics, homes with private pools need stricter safety measures to protect little ones from wandering into water.

One of the best pool safety features is a completely enclosed fence with a self-shutting and child-proof gate. Pools also should be fully illuminated at night and have ample ladders and other means for emerging from the water.

Most adults can’t watch children every minute of every day, and it only takes a few brief minutes for a curious child to roam away, drop into a pool — and die. That option must be taken from them via proper precautions.

Another thing parents can do is to teach children how to swim at as young of an age as possible. Even adults often drown because they don’t know how to swim. If a child learns the ropes, he or she possibly could handle themselves in water even if improperly unsupervised.

Yet all children, including those with swimming ability, must be watched in or around water at all times. Let’s repeat that: All children, at all times.

How vital is this? Recently a girl on a trip in Winston-Salem, NC drowned in a pool surrounded by eight lifeguards and two chaperones. Clearly, she wasn’t being watched continuously. And if a child isn’t watched, the child may not be saved in time if he or she sinks to a pool’s bottom.

With summer not even halfway over, Texas is on course this year to top its worst child drowning totals on record. The state had 66 child drownings in 2005, 70 in 2006, 63 in 2007 and 82 in 2008. At the current rate, there will be 120 in 2009.

Houston personal injury lawyer Jim Adler, founder of Jim S. Adler & Associates, believes that protecting kids deserves the highest of priorities.

As a child safety advocate, Adler has become a member of the Joint City/County Commission on Children for Houston and Harris County, as appointed by Houston Mayor Bill White. Adler also is a strong supporter of the Safe Kids organization.

Keeping kids safe is a cherished value and goal of Jim S. Adler & Associates. Feel free to explore links on this blog for more tips on safeguarding children, and let’s dedicate ourselves to a far safer summer than Texas has had so far.

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