| Mar 23 |
Houston school kids fight distracted driving — and are noted by U.S. Transportation SecretaryLongfellow Elementary School students Kaitlynn Sanders, Nautica Winkfield (seated) and Helena Marlowe. How important is it to stop the deaths and devastation caused by distracted driving? Not enough to compel many state governments — including Texas’ — to do the right thing. And not enough for cell phone companies to set their greed aside and quit fighting safety measures. But distracted driving dangers have been important enough to spur action by a group of Houston school kids, who seem more wise than many adults. They’re students at Longfellow Elementary School, and what they’ve done is so noteworthy that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has written about it in his personal blog, which has a photo of the students. In today’s Fast Lane: The Official Blog of the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, LaHood commends the Houston kids for taking “public education into their own hands.” “Budget problems prevented the City of Houston from posting signs near Longfellow alerting drivers to the dangers of texting and cell phone use while driving in a school zone,” LaHood wrote. “So safety-minded students, parents and area residents joined together to create and post their own signs.” LaHood’s blog also links to “Neighbors Taking Charge,” an item by the Bellaire Examiner noting efforts by the Longfellow PTA and neighboring Woodside Civic Club to make a bad situation better. |
| Dec 28 |
Tragic new AT&T video shows dangers of texting while driving
That’s a text message — a fatal text message sent by Mariah West, 18, of Missouri, just before she veered off a road, smashed into a bridge and died. Her story and other sad ones like it are told in The Last Text, a sobering, disturbing and tragic 10-minute documentary produced by AT&T and hosted on its website. The documentary has interviews with a teen driver who killed a bicyclist while he was texting at the wheel; a teen who was devastatingly injured as a passenger in a texting while driving crash; and friends and relatives of teens who perished in such accidents. It’s perhaps fitting that the focus is on teens, since they tend to text more than others — sometimes thousands of times per month. Such obsession even has been called an addiction. |
“WHERE U AT.”| Sep 14 |
Miley Cyrus, like Maria Schwarzenegger, ignores CA law on calling while driving
Yet Maria Schwarzenegger was photographed yakking by phone as she drove in California last fall, despite a law her husband helped pass. And on Monday, Disney Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus was stopped by police in North Hollywood as she chatted by phone while driving to a salon for a massage. |
In California, it’s against the law to hold a cell phone while driving. Hands-free devices are allowed, but sacrificing a hand from the wheel — and a large chunk of one’s attention from the road — is forbidden.| Aug 18 |
Texting while driving kills, including plastic surgeon to the stars Dr. Frank Ryan
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. |
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.| May 06 |
Texas teens texting while driving are dying
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. |
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.| Apr 27 |
Texas fails to ban texting while driving, but its cities attack distractions causing car crash accidents
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? |
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.| Mar 12 |
Car accident deaths down, despite rise in distracted driving fatalities
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. |
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.| Oct 22 |
Austin has a capital idea: new law banning texting while driving
On Thursday Austin City Council unanimously passed a ban on texting while driving. It won’t go into effect until Jan. 2, but in the meantime, the city will wage a campaign to educate the public about it. |
Though Texas has failed to join the 19 states so far which | Jul 10 |
Texting Texas students are fatally distracted drivers to come
As the headline and the article’s content make clear, KHOU’s author considers the problem to be this: “Some schools are cashing in.” She goes on to question how the money collected when students break the rules and text in class is administered. Though there’s no evidence given of impropriety, the author’s conspiracy-theory attitude seems to be, “Those mean ol’ sneaky school districts!” Of course, the real problem here with far broader implications and concerns is this: Too many of today’s students are disengaged from teachers, class, learning and their immediate environment because they are addicted to cell phones, texting and other avenues of needlessly incessant and exceedingly trivial communication. These same students, when they drive a car or do a job for which others depend on them, are far more likely to continue such addictive behavior, thereby failing at their responsibilities and, in worst cases, killing themselves or someone else by being a distracted driver. |
Talk about failing to see the forest for the trees. A news report by Houston’s