Emmy-nominated actress Jane Lynch, who plays fiery cheerleader coach Sue Sylvester on hit Fox TV show Glee, has joined LG Text Ed, a new campaign to coach parents how to teach teens to use mobile phones responsibly and avoid distracted driving.

Lynch will appear in webisodes for the campaign on driving while distracted, and she also will be a member of its council. The effort is sponsored by LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company, a division of South Korea’s LG Electronics.

In some ways it’s ironic yet fitting that a star of Glee would lead such efforts to curb distracted driving, which kills 6,000 and injures half a million Americans each year. On Glee, unlike in the real world, while high school students use cell phones, they do so sparingly. Rather, they’re more engaged with their immediate environment involving performing, competing and romancing, with scant texting or calling to add degrees of separation.

In today’s world, such behavior is more of an exception than a rule. A recent study by MTV showed that teens are fixated on their mobile devices and, when denied them, suffer “unplugged meltdown.” That’s why many teens admit to texting while driving, even though they’ve been told how dangerous it is.

The five webisodes featuring Lynch will be presented in the style of community service classes, in which she plays a rehabilitated “text offender” now urging others not to do what she did: text while driving. Notably, Lynch will offer advice to parents on how to teach their children that distracted driving can be dangerous, if not fatal.

Jim S. Adler & Associates strongly supports efforts to reduce driving distractions and save lives. A personal injury attorney or personal injury lawyer with the firm also can help those harmed by distracted drivers.

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Beverly Hills, CA plastic surgeon Dr. Frank Ryan loved to send and receive messages via texts. But apparently he didn’t get one message until too late: Texting while driving kills.

Body reshaper of reality TV’s Heidi Montag, rock music’s Gene Simmons and Vince Neil and modeling’s Janice Dickinson, Ryan, 50, died Monday. It seems the Jeep he was driving veered off the Pacific Coast Highway and crashed upside-down at the bottom of a 200-foot embankment.

Police say he was texting at the time of the crash. He’d just taken a photo of his dog at a stop and sent it via Twitter. But instead of putting his communications device away, he kept using it while driving — and paid the ultimate price.

Such catastrophic accidents have become common in this age of putting unnecessary texts and phone calls above the life-or-death necessities of driving a vehicle. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates 6,000 Americans per year die in traffic accidents due to texting or cell phone distractions, and another half a million Americans are injured, many of them seriously.

That’s why 30 states and counting (but not yet Texas) have adopted laws banning texting while driving. California has such a law, but Dr. Ryan, like many people, either didn’t get the message or chose to disregard the texting law.

An irony is that Ryan was wearing his seatbelt at the time of the crash. Thus, he was obeying a law which, when first written, was decried by many as unenforceable. How can you make people wear seatbelts, and how can police know that they’re not?

But over the years the message has gotten through to millions of Americans that wearing seatbelts saves lives — and not wearing them contributes to tragedies. Now these same Americans need to get another message: Texting while driving leads to deaths and catastrophic injuries. Just look at the sad case of Dr. Frank Ryan.

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America’s teens seem to have a disconnect between what they’ve been told and what they do. They’ve been told and given fair warning that distracted driving is deadly, killing 6,000 Americans yearly and injuring hundreds of thousands. Yet 86 per cent of teen drivers indulge in distracted driving anyway, often in the form of texting or making cell phone calls while at the wheel.

This finding came via a study conducted by Seventeen magazine and AAA auto club and reported by USA Today. It reported other common forms of distracted driving among teens as eating, adjusting a music device, applying makeup and driving with four or more other teens in the vehicle.

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Death. Taxes. Curbs on drivers texting.

Add the last to life’s inevitabilities, because the times they are a-changing. Thirty states now ban texting while driving, and more technology is arising to take that foolish distracted driving habit out of drivers’ hands.

The latest, reported by USA Today, is software designed to stop texting, emailing or web-browsing via wireless devices while a car is in motion. It’s being developed by an Irving, TX company called . and a Georgia company called Manage Mobility.

Their technology is being offered to government agencies and corporations, which are trying to  squelch the texting tide that’s causing thousands of traffic accident fatalities and injuries and billions of dollars in losses.

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The long Memorial Day weekend ahead is sure to bring car accident misery to Texas roads. But it’s also sure to bring more enforcement of our roadway laws. That’s because Texas Department of Public Safety officers will be out in force. While you play, they will work.

Last year, DPS officers issued more than 8,500 speeding tickets on Memorial Day weekend. They also wrote out 1,937 tickets for failing to wear seat belts and 521 for failing to provide proper child restraints. They also arrested 622 people for drunk driving.

Those kinds of violations again will be targeted for this long weekend, the DPS promises.

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“How many deaths will it take till he knows that too many people have died?” — Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan’s humanistic sentiments when he wrote 1962’s Blowin’ in the Wind could be reworded to fit Americans’ driving-while-texting tragedies today. How many such distracted driving deaths will it take till we know that too many people have died, and embrace our responsibility behind the wheel? And how many deaths will it take till Texas bans texting while driving — as 23 states already have?

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If your teen sons or daughters have a texting habit, and that extends to when they’re driving, they have a significantly higher chance of drying in a car crash. That’s the report of the Texas Transportation Institute, via data provided by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The report reveals a study showing that nighttime fatal crashes are increasing at a faster rate for young age groups. That spike is being attributed not just to more night trips by teen drivers, but to teens texting while driving at night.

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Kentucky and Nebraska recently became the 22nd and 23rd states to ban texting while driving, and such laws are pending in most other states. But they don’t include Texas. So soon Texas will be in a minority, with no driving safety law making it illegal to send and read text messages at the wheel of a vehicle.

Such laws are vital because too many Americans aren’t using common sense while operating a motor vehicle. Their distracted driving car crash accidents are slaughtering Americans, with 6,000 traffic fatalities yearly and more than half a million injuries, many of them serious.

Were those texts or calls worth such a price?

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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 for 15 consecutive quarters, this also was the lowest level since 1954.

But imagine how much better it could be without the onslaught of cell phone addiction. Millions of Americans drive with one hand on the wheel — at best — while calling and texting with the other. And when only a moment’s inattention can cause a lifetime of misery, these driving distractions are among the biggest threats on our roads today.

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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 & Associates, we’re trying to close the information gap not only in our website’s written content, but in its videos. That’s why we’ve created “Hammer TV,” a video-only Web service filled with helpful safety tips and information for keeping your family whole and healthy.

Named after longtime Texas personal injury attorney Jim “the Texas Hammer” Adler, Hammer TV hosts a variety of “Top Stories” videos on the dangers and costs of SUVs, ATVs, distracted drivers, salmonella food poisoning, uninsured motorists, defective drugs such as Paxil and — one of our biggest threats, literally — the risks posed by big rig, tractor trailer, semi truck and 18 wheeler vehicles.

But don’t worry: There’s also a human touch. Among Hammer TV’s “Top Stories” and “News on JSA Charities,” it offers looks at small children in need getting free “snow parties” or holiday clothes, and even an “up close and personal” look at the Texas Hammer himself, Jim Adler.

Hammer TV also has a touching tribute to Kevin Hills, a Texan who was killed by an 18 wheeler, and a heartwarming dedication to the staff and volunteers of Safe Kids Greater Houston, whose mission is to keep our kids safe.

Or check out Hammer TV’s “PSAs” tab for tips on road rage, water safety, kid safety and the dangers of texting while driving. Heck, you even can watch Jim Adler’s famed “TV Commercials” all in one place — and with no interruptions by annoying TV shows.

It’s all there for you — and for free — on Hammer TV. Tune in, and learn more.

Beyond that, the Texas Hammer has hard-hitting videos for you on YouTube and on Facebook.

On Facebook, check out Jim Adler’s latest flipcam interviews about Toyota’s massive stuck accelerator recall and why the Japanese automaker can’t be trusted, as well as his take on the computer screens coming to car dashboards this fall. Crazy, right?

Also on YouTube as well as on Facebook, watch the emotional video Jim Adler’s firm created for Mothers Against Drunk Driving and MADD Victim Services. Drunk drivers take a terrible toll in human life and in the anguish of victims’ survivors. This video puts a powerful face on them and is a moving reminder that we all have a responsibility to protect each other.

Call it reality TV with meaning and a message. Or call it Hammer TV. Either way, it’s here for you.

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