| Sep 01 |
Car accident insurer’s study shows 4 in 5 favor ban on texting while driving
Now a new study shows that every other state could fall in line — provided its legislators listen to the voters who elected them, and not cell phone lobbyists. In a national survey held last month by Nationwide Insurance, 80 per cent of adult Americans favored a legal ban on texting while driving. Even more encouraging is that two-thirds of respondents favor laws restricting cell phone calls while driving, with 57 per cent even including hands-free phones in such proposals. A Nationwide official called this a “groundswell of momentum on banning texting” while driving. So far, 17 states and the District of Columbia have such laws. |
The “hang up and drive” movement is gaining momentum. With distracted drivers killing and injuring thousands, the feds are holding a summit on the issue this month, and Illinois has joined the ranks of states which ban texting while driving.
| Jul 23 |
Drivers on cell phones as bad as drunk drivers!
“That’s why we call ourselves safety lawyers,” Adler said. “Remember the Ford Pinto and its exploding gas tank that killed so many in accidents? After Ford got sued by personal injury lawyers who won big settlements for victims, it redesigned that killer car. The same goes for those knobs on dashboards that used to seriously injure people in accidents. We got rid of them too. Now one of the biggest dangers on the road is caused by cell phones.” Here are the disturbing details of the New York Times story: Back in 2003, researchers at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration wanted to do a long-term study to find out how dangerous it is to use a cell phone while driving. They had preliminary studies showing the scary potential of such multi-tasking behind the wheel. But the powers-that-be at NHTSA ruled against an in-depth study because they feared the wrath of Congress. NHTSA’s mission is to gather evidence, according to a former head of the agency, not to lobby the states. In fact, it is strictly forbidden to engage in lobbying. How much did NHTSA know and when did NHTSA know it? The decision not to do the study suppressed hundreds of pages of evidence showing the dangers of talking on a cell phone while driving. In 2002, NHTSA researchers could show that drivers on cell phones caused an estimated 995 highway fatalities and 240,000 accidents that year alone. Still, NHTSA withheld that information and denied the researchers’ request for a long-term study of 10,000 drivers. The agency didn’t want to look as though it were lobbying states to pass tougher laws against talking on cell phones while driving. Ultimately, many states did enact laws mandating the use of hands-free devices for drivers on cell phones. But that didn’t stop accidents. Research shows that talking distracts the brain from driving, with or without a hands-free device. How did the story get out? The Los Angeles Times carried a report last year. That triggered a Freedom of information Act lawsuit by the Center for Auto Safety, a non-profit watchdog group, to get the suppressed documents. Mother Jones, another national publication, then did a story with new details. Two consumer advocacy groups, The Center for Auto Safety and Public Citizen, have now provided the documents to The New York Times where they are available on the newspaper’s website. Was it a government cover-up? That’s what the director of the Center for Auto Safety calls it. Clarence Ditlow says talking on a cell phone while driving is tantamount to driving with a blood alcohol level of .08, making drivers four times as likely to hit another car. |
Who knew?| 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. Fortunately, most readers of KHOU’s website who commented on the article were amazed that the writer took such a slant and dismayed that so many students willfully break the rules that are clearly set forth at the start of the school year. And after three decades as a professional journalist for major daily newspapers, I agree. THAT should have been KHOU’s story, and the station blew it. Meanwhile, schools are trying to do a better job of teaching by forbidding the devices — and are fighting an uphill battle. Keep in mind, too, that besides being a distraction, a cell phone could be a means of cheating on tests or other in-class work which requires students to demonstrate how much they’ve learned, not how much they can dig up by furtively texting under their desk. Bottom line: Texting has no place in classrooms, and the Texas Education Code is correct in allowing school districts to fine students for breaking cell phone rules that are clearly stated up front. So far, only Texas has taken such action. Of course, parents and taxpayers also have a right to know how the collected fines are allocated, and school districts should be forthcoming in this matter. It should be in a responsible manner, naturally, and if it’s not, they should be held accountable for it. But the far greater concern here — for KHOU website readers and surely for the citizenry at large — is the blatant disregard of the rules by so many students, so many times, that school districts do, in fact, amass thousands of dollars in $15 fines. That’s an epidemic of inattentiveness and “the rules don’t apply to me” attitudes — an epidemic which eventually will spread to other aspects of life, as when young people text while driving a car and end up killing themselves or someone else. That said, many such students have one excuse: They learn bad behavior from their own parents, many of whom text or cell-talk themselves while driving, and even try calling or texting sons or daughters while they’re in class. And what’s the excuse? Even if it were an emergency, a school’s administrative office could be called, then quickly contact the student. Yet how many times is parent’s or student’s classtime call or text a true “must know now” emergency? For more bad examples, parents talking and texting while driving in school zones has gotten so bad that some municipalities have had to pass laws to curb such distractions. Too many kids have been hurt — and even killed — due to distracted drivers in school zones. BTW, to use text talk, the Texas Department of Public Safety reports that at least 13,000 car accidents in recent years have been caused by talking or texting distractions via cell phones. And those accidents have killed at least 126 Texas sons and daughters. Now, what are you most concerned about: How quickly school districts allocate fines collected from students breaking rules, or how many students are more interested in texting than textbooks — or their own individual responsibility? |
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 is against school rules.