safety
Car accident deaths down, despite rise in distracted driving fatalities
Driving deaths overall are down in America, but could be much lower without one thing: distracted drivers who call or text at the wheel. A new report by the U.S. Department of Transportation reveals the United States had 33,963 traffic fatalities in 2009, a drop of 8.9 per cent from 2008. With driving deaths declining [...]
Toyota stuck accelerator followed by Prius bad brakes defect
Will Toyota’s defective product failures ever stop? First it was SUV rollover calamities. Then it was stuck accelerator pedal catastrophes. Now it’s bad brakes on Toyota’s Prius, the world’s top-selling gas-electric hybrid vehicle.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has begun investigating flaws in the 2010 Prius’ brakes, after its safety arm, the National Highway Traffic Safety [...]
Hammer TV offers safety tips as ‘reality TV’ with meaning, message
Each day, Americans are “hammered” with visual messages on TV and the Internet. But how many are trite, and how many are truly useful? Do we really need to know whose kitty can play the piano? Or do we need to know which defective drugs or injury accidents threaten our loved ones?
At Jim S. Adler [...]
San Antonio car crash law would protect cyclists, pedestrians, ‘vulnerable road users’
In increasingly urban Texas, bicyclists and pedestrians are increasingly endangered. Yet Gov. Rick Perry last year vetoed a bill — passed overwhelmingly by the Senate and House — which would have offered more protection to cyclists and walkers on or near our roads.
Now some cities, such as Austin, are enacting the same law on a [...]
Talking, texting, distracted driving in Texas school zones is illegal — sometimes
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 [...]
CellControl could curb distracted driving, cell phone accidents
The world is dangerous enough beyond our control, yet many of us also need protection from ourselves. That includes the millions of Americans who blithely chat on cell phones, send and receive texts and otherwise disengage from their primary — and life-protecting — task of driving a car.
With thousands dead and hundreds of thousands injured [...]
Parents can help teens tackle driving distractions, reduce car accidents
With a national summit on distracted drivers set for this week, studies due today from the journal Pediatrics show that parents can have a huge effect on how effective — or distracted — their teen drivers become.
Conducted by Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, PA and given funding by State Farm Insurance Co., the studies show that [...]
New Texas law banning school zone cell phones still has car accident hangups
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 [...]
Don’t let playground child safety slide; tips to guard against hazards
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 [...]
Texting Texas students are fatally distracted drivers to come
Talk about failing to see the forest for the trees. A news report by Houston’s KHOU TV Channel 11 on its website today has the headline “Cell phone fines mean big bucks for some Texas school districts.” The story concerns fines students must pay when they text or otherwise use cell phones in class, which [...]
