Welcome to Stop The Damage. Hosted by the Brain Injury Association of NJ.

A brain injury can hap­pen to any­one at any­time. The dam­age can be long lasting…broken bones, cracked skulls, lives torn apart! Often it was from some­thing that could have been pre­vented. Our goal is to stop the damage!

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Archive for Distracted Driving

Mar
16

Nah, it’s Alright. My Cell has Bluetooth.

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And what’s so wrong about that, if you’re dri­ving? You’re not hold­ing the phone, after all…

If you’ve taken a Driver’s Ed class any­time in your life (within the past cou­ple years that hands-free call­ing has actu­ally been around, at least) you’d know by now some­thing that a hor­ri­fy­ing num­ber of peo­ple don’t—hands-free phones are like a frac­tion of a per­cent less risky than hand-held to use while driving.

That makes no sense.

Yeah, that was the first thought that went through a lot of peo­ples’ brains when this rev­o­lu­tion­ary idea was first intro­duced. Why? Isn’t the big prob­lem with cell phones that you have to take your hands off the wheel to use them, and look down at the screen to text?

Well, that’s some of the prob­lem. It’s never good to drive with one hand, no mat­ter how pro you may be at doing so on a bike. How­ever, that’s not all of it. When you’re dri­ving along and talk­ing over the wire to some­one, your atten­tion strays from where it should be—the road—to the per­son that you’re talk­ing to. And unlike the per­son sit­ting next to you, the per­son on the other end of the con­nec­tion won’t know if you’re mak­ing a tricky turn or maneu­ver­ing through cars or any­thing. They won’t quiet down for you when you need to con­cen­trate, and you can’t sud­denly shut up at times to con­cen­trate or you’ll risk offense.

Imag­ine the sce­nario like this: you’re play­ing video games (COD, Black Ops, Poke­mon, what­ever) and you’re all intent on your game, when some­one decides to start talk­ing to you from the side. You’re not tak­ing your eyes or hands off the game—but your mind is, the moment you start talk­ing, and then, unless you’re a real pro gamer—GAME OVER.

Except, real life isn’t a game. So, don’t treat it as one—the cold, harsh, real­ity, is, there is no “back” or “reset” but­ton. So, treat the one life you have carefully—even more care­fully than the last life you’re on two lev­els from beat­ing a game after half a year’s worth of intense work.

Categories : Distracted Driving, Highway, Impaired Driving, New Laws, prevention
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Mar
08

Kyleigh’s Law: Helpful, Annoyance, or… Hazard?

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Well, it seems to be a rather sim­ple law impos­ing even more restric­tions on the already greatly-oppressed (in the opin­ions of the teenagers) teenagers. So, of course it sprung up a huge con­tro­versy that’s pos­si­bly threat­en­ing a ride straight up to the Supreme Court.

In case you’ve been liv­ing under a rock or some­where other than the amaz­ing state of New Jer­sey lately, you may be won­der­ing what this law is all about, so here’s a brief (and yet sur­pris­ingly com­pre­hen­sive) expla­na­tion. Young adult dri­vers, dri­vers under 21, must stick red decal stick­ers onto their license plates while they drive to alert other dri­vers that they are rel­a­tively (or greatly) inex­pe­ri­enced and young.

For typ­i­cal teenagers, I’m sure the first thing that comes to mind is that it’d be such a pain to stick those stick­ers on and off when­ever you’re dri­ving. Oh, and there’s all that annoy­ing sticky stuff that always gets left behind when you peel stick­ers off and that you’re usu­ally too lazy to scrape off (unless you’re an OCD-type per­son like me). Your next thought may very like be the same one that has con­cerned moth­ers Donna Traut­mann and Jayneann Stru­ble into actu­ally suing the state of New Jer­sey and its gov­er­nor for pass­ing this law that it infringes on pri­vacy rights. (If you’re an AP Gov stu­dent or some­thing, you may also be enraged over the pos­si­ble vio­la­tion of the Fed­eral Driver’s Pri­vacy Pro­tec­tion Act as well as the Fourth Amend­ment of the actual Con­sti­tu­tion under the cat­e­gory unrea­son­able searches and seizures’.)

Well, as many peo­ple already know, the law was upheld at the appeal and deemed con­sti­tu­tional. The Appel­late panel declared that while the pri­vacy acts list of restricted per­sonal infor­ma­tion is long and (aptly– termed) exhaus­tive, it never men­tions age or age group, and that rather than dis­clos­ing pri­vate infor­ma­tion about the indi­vid­ual, it sim­ply groups him or her into a gen­eral pop­u­la­tion group.

Yeah, but it’s still annoy­ing, know­ing that other peo­ple will see those decals and auto­mat­i­cally form a bias against you other dri­vers, the police, and… Rapists? Pos­si­bly. Inves­ti­ga­tion is under­way in order to affirm whether or not the rel­a­tively new law is more of a haz­ard than a safety pre­cau­tion for young dri­vers, and in the mean­time, the two moms are not giv­ing up. I won­der if this really will make it to the Supreme Court one day? Whether or not, it’s cer­tainly an inter­est­ing case to follow!

Categories : Distracted Driving, Drive Safe, high school, Highway, New Laws, Teen
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Feb
17

Well, Just at the Stoplight!

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That’s exactly the response a senior friend gave to me when I asked her if she ever texted while dri­ving. It was actu­ally quite amus­ing see­ing the divide that sin­gle answer brought: the nods of agree­ment from the seniors, and the shocked, almost hor­ri­fied, faces of the sopho­mores– the sopho­mores, who had just fin­ished Dri­vers Ed. (Just to clar­ify, Dri­vers Edu­ca­tion is not a class known for teach­ing one how to drive, but rather for teach­ing one to be scared of driving.)

After a few years, or maybe even just a few months, it becomes com­mon to for­get the hor­rors we all dis­cov­ered dur­ing our Dri­vers Ed period or per­haps, as is likely in many cases, we’ve sim­ply pushed it to the back of our minds with the pop­u­lar teenage mind­set of irdc and who really does.

It’s easy to for­get cau­tion espe­cially when encour­aged by even the mere pres­ence of friends. But, truth be told, isn’t it funny how all of those nasty, cars-rolling-over-fires-exploding-people-being-ripped-apart crashes seemed to almost always hap­pen at those few moments in which peo­ple aren’t pay­ing atten­tion? Such as, those few sec­onds when you’re texting?

Let’s employ a cer­tain type of logic here. The amount of time that you’re tex­ting, or the amount of time that you’re twist­ing around to talk to some­one in the back seat, or the amount of that you’re watch­ing with fas­ci­na­tion at the amaz­ing lit­tle tri­an­gle on your wind­shield that the wipers just can’t seem to touch; it’s not very long, is it? Just a few sec­onds. At the same time, the per­cent­age of crashes that hap­pen while peo­ple are dis­tracted and not pay­ing as much atten­tion on the road as they should is scar­ily high. Well over 50%, which basi­cally means, that’s a ton of crashes. So!

That equals a really big chance that you’re going to crash dur­ing those six sec­onds. Sorry.

So, now, please don’t text and drive? Thank you.

Categories : Distracted Driving, Drive Safe, high school, Highway, New Laws, prevention, Teen, texting
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Feb
16

19 yr old is thrown from his car and killed on Garden State Parkway

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Mid­dle­sex County man, 19, is killed in Gar­den State Park­way acci­dent in Woodbridge

It is another tragic story of some­thing that could have so eas­ily been pre­vented if only this young man had been wear­ing his seat­belt. On Tues­day night, Ahmed Faraz of Par­lin lost con­trol of his car on the Gar­den State Park­way. His vehi­cle spun around and col­lided with another vehi­cle, eject­ing Ahmed onto the hood of the other car. The other car then slammed into another vehi­cle while try­ing to avoid another col­li­sion. Some who were injured were wear­ing seat­belts. Faraz was not wear­ing his seat­belt and was killed in the crash.

Some Facts

  • Between 1975 and 2000, over 135,000 lives were saved by seat belt use, and as usage increases, traf­fic fatal­i­ties decrease.
  • Despite advanced restraint sys­tems and tough leg­is­la­tion, the National High­way Traf­fic Safety Admin­is­tra­tion (NHTSA) reports 25 per­cent of Amer­i­cans still fail to buckle up.
  • Seat belt usage reduces the chance of traffic-related fatal­i­ties by 45 per­cent. Accord­ing to NHTSA, in 2006 over 15,000 lives were saved by seat belt use.
  • In most cases, wear­ing a seat belt pre­vents ejec­tion from the vehi­cle. 2006 NHTSA sta­tis­tics show 75 per­cent of dri­vers ejected dur­ing a car acci­dent were killed. Only one per­cent of them were wear­ing a seat belt.
  • Wear­ing a seat belt min­i­mizes the body’s con­tact with the inte­rior of the car result­ing in fewer injuries. Accord­ing to NHTSA, seat belt usage reduces the chance of being injured by up to 50 percent.
  • Seat belts spread the force of impact over larger parts of the body reduc­ing sever­ity of injuries. Injuries sus­tained when not wear­ing a seat belt can be up to five times greater.
  • Aver­age med­ical costs for belted dri­vers are 60 per­cent less than for unbelted drivers.
Categories : Distracted Driving, Drive Safe, Highway, New Laws, prevention
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Jan
31

Giving Credit to the New Law for Decline in Teen Deaths

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On Fri­day, Jan­u­ary 28, Road War­rior Colum­nist John Cichowski wrote a great arti­cle regard­ing the big news that teen dri­ving deaths are down 44% in 2010 and that it could be “attrib­uted to the May 1 teen dri­ving restric­tions that included an 11 p.m. cur­few, pas­sen­ger lim­its, a ban on hands-free cell­phone use, and a tiny, man­dated red bumper decal to iden­tify novice dri­vers under the state’s Grad­u­ated Dri­ver License law.”

You can read the full arti­cle HERE

Categories : Distracted Driving, Highway, New Laws, prevention
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Jan
31

U.S. Department of Transportation Releases Latest Video in “Faces of Distracted Driving” Series

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Fam­ily raises aware­ness of Remem­ber Alex Brown Foun­da­tion and tex­ting risks on ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

by Press Releases for U.S. Depart­ment of Transportation’s (USDOT)

WASHINGTON – U.S. Trans­porta­tion Sec­re­tary Ray LaHood (@RayLaHood) today released the lat­est video in the U.S. Depart­ment of Transportation’s (USDOT) “Faces of Dis­tracted Dri­ving” series. The new video fea­tures the Brown fam­ily, whose 17-year-old daugh­ter, Alex, was killed in a 2009 crash because she was tex­ting while dri­ving on a rural road in Well­man, Texas. The fam­ily recently appeared on ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edi­tion, rais­ing aware­ness of the Remem­ber Alex Brown Foun­da­tion and the dan­gers of dis­tracted driving.

<div align=“center” style=“text-align=“center; padding-top:10px;padding-bottom:10px;”>

WATCH: “Alex Brown, 17”


Watch on YouTube

“Alex Brown wasn’t a sta­tis­tic – she was a beloved daugh­ter and a sis­ter, and her death left a hole in the heart of her fam­ily mem­bers and friends,” said Sec­re­tary LaHood. “I hope that every­one who hears the Brown fam­ily speak about their tragic loss will real­ize that no text mes­sage or phone call is worth the risk. Addi­tional media atten­tion, like ABC’s help­ing share the Browns’ story with the view­ers of Extreme Makeover: Home Edi­tion, is also vital.”

“She’s a huge part of our lives that’s just gone,” said Jeanne Brown. “But maybe we can reach one young per­son or help keep some­one else’s daugh­ter from doing this.”

“Faces of Dis­tracted Dri­ving” is a video series explor­ing the tragic con­se­quences of tex­ting and cell phone use while dri­ving. It fea­tures peo­ple from across the coun­try who have been injured or lost loved ones in dis­tracted dri­ving crashes. In 2009, nearly 5,500 peo­ple died and half a mil­lion were injured in acci­dents involv­ing a dis­tracted dri­ver. The series is part of Sec­re­tary LaHood’s effort to raise greater aware­ness about the dan­gers of dis­tracted driving.

USDOT is also encour­ag­ing oth­ers who would like to share their dis­tracted dri­ving expe­ri­ences to post videos on YouTube and email the links to: faces@distraction.gov.

The department’s cam­paign against dis­tracted dri­ving is a multi-modal effort that includes auto­mo­biles, trains, planes, and com­mer­cial vehicles.

The Fed­eral Rail­road Admin­is­tra­tion (FRA) issued a rule pro­hibit­ing rail employ­ees from using cell phones or other elec­tronic devices on the job fol­low­ing a Sep­tem­ber 2008 Metrolink crash in Chatsworth, Cal­i­for­nia that killed 25 people.

After a North­west flight crew dis­tracted by a lap­top over­shot their des­ti­na­tion by 150 miles, the Fed­eral Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) advised air car­ri­ers to cre­ate and enforce poli­cies that limit dis­trac­tions in the cock­pit and keep pilots focused on trans­port­ing pas­sen­gers safely.

The Fed­eral Motor Car­rier Safety Admin­is­tra­tion (FMCSA) issued a rule pro­hibit­ing text mes­sag­ing while oper­at­ing a com­mer­cial motor vehi­cle in Sep­tem­ber 2010. In Decem­ber 2010, FMCSA issued a pro­posal to restrict the use of cell phones by com­mer­cial dri­vers while oper­at­ing. A rule­mak­ing pro­posed by the a href=“http://www.phmsa.dot.gov/” target=“blank”>Pipeline and Haz­ardous Mate­ri­als Safety Admin­is­tra­tion (PHMSA) in Sep­tem­ber 2010 to work in con­junc­tion with the FMCSA ban would restrict the use of elec­tronic devices by dri­vers dur­ing the oper­a­tion of a motor vehi­cle con­tain­ing haz­ardous mate­ri­als. The pub­lic is invited to com­ment on the pro­posed rulemaking.

To learn more about USDOT’s efforts to stop dis­tracted dri­ving, please visit www.distraction.gov.

PLEASE WATCH & SHARE: the entire “Faces of Dis­tracted Dri­ving” series @ www.distraction.gov/faces.
“Dis­tracted Dri­ving Kills. Safe Dri­ving Starts With YOU.”

The Remem­ber Alex Brown Foun­da­tion (RAB) hon­ors Alex’s mem­ory by edu­cat­ing oth­ers about the dan­gers of tex­ting while dri­ving. Their web­site encour­ages oth­ers to share their dis­tracted dri­ving sto­ries and pledge online not to text while oper­at­ing a vehicle.

You can learn more about The Remem­ber Alex Brown Foun­da­tion at www.rememberalexbrownfoundation.org.

Remember Alex Brown - CLICK TO take the pledge to NOT text and drive

Remem­ber Alex Brown — CLICK TO take the pledge to NOT text and drive

Categories : Distracted Driving, Drive Safe, high school, Highway, New Laws, prevention, Teen, texting
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Jan
28

U.S. Transportation Secretary LaHood Views Demonstration of New In-Vehicle Technology Targeted Toward Habitual Drunk Drivers

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by Press Releases for National High­way Traf­fic Safety Admin­is­tra­tion (NHTSA)

WALTHAM, MA – U.S. Trans­porta­tion Sec­re­tary Ray LaHood (@RayLaHood) and National High­way Traf­fic Safety Admin­is­tra­tor David Strick­land (@NHTSAgov) today took a first look at new Dri­ver Alco­hol Detec­tion Sys­tem for Safety (DADSS) tech­nol­ogy being devel­oped to pre­vent alcohol-impaired dri­vers from oper­at­ing their vehi­cles while under the influence.

Sec­re­tary LaHood and Admin­is­tra­tor Strick­land were joined by Shane Karr, vice pres­i­dent for Fed­eral Gov­ern­ment Affairs at the Alliance of Auto­mo­bile Man­u­fac­tur­ers, and Laura Dean Mooney (@maddnatlpres), national pres­i­dent of Moth­ers Against Drunk Dri­ving (MADD) (@maddonline), and JD Crouch, pres­i­dent of Qine­tiQ North America’s Tech­nol­ogy Solu­tions Group (@QinetiQNorthAm) for a demon­stra­tion of DADSS tech­nol­ogy at the Qine­tiQ lab where it is under devel­op­ment in Waltham, Massachusetts.

While still in the devel­op­men­tal stages, DADSS is seen as a poten­tial tool for keep­ing drunk dri­vers from being able oper­ate their car if their blood alco­hol con­cen­tra­tion is at or above the legal intox­i­ca­tion limit (.08 BAC or higher). The tech­nol­ogy could be vol­un­tar­ily installed as an option for new cars. One sys­tem under eval­u­a­tion deter­mines the blood alco­hol con­cen­tra­tion through a touch-based approach and another sys­tem uses a breath-based approach.

NHTSA research shows that dri­vers involved in fatal acci­dents with blood alco­hol lev­els above the .08 legal limit are eight times more likely to have had a prior con­vic­tion for impaired dri­ving than dri­vers who had no alco­hol in their bod­ies at the time of a wreck.

“Drunk dri­ving con­tin­ues to be a national tragedy that need­lessly claims the lives of thou­sands of peo­ple on our high­ways each year,” said Sec­re­tary LaHood. “We need to put an end to it.”

MADD Pres­i­dent Laura Dean-Mooney, who was left a widow and sin­gle mother when a drunk dri­ver killed her hus­band, Mike Dean, wel­comed the progress of the DADSS research effort, say­ing, “Auto mak­ers have stepped up to help turn cars into the cure. This project has made sub­stan­tial progress and this tech­nol­ogy could one day be an impor­tant step in our efforts to elim­i­nate drunk dri­ving.”

DADSS is being devel­oped under a five-year, $10 mil­lion coop­er­a­tive ini­tia­tive between NHTSA and the Auto­mo­tive Coali­tion for Traf­fic Safety (ACTS), an indus­try group rep­re­sent­ing most of the world’s auto makers.

“What we’re doing is devel­op­ing tech­nol­ogy that won’t inter­fere with sober dri­vers, will require vir­tu­ally no main­te­nance or upkeep and will have such pre­ci­sion that it only stops a dri­ver when their blood alco­hol con­tent is .08 BAC or higher, which is the ille­gal limit for drunk dri­ving in every state,” said Shane Karr. “Now that we have actual pro­to­types, a tremen­dous feat in itself, we’ll be work­ing to iden­tify the gaps in per­for­mance between these pro­to­types and the pre­cise stan­dards we’ve iden­ti­fied as true tech­nol­ogy require­ments. This will point the way for­ward for the next phase of research.”

“The tech­nol­ogy we are see­ing here today could quite sim­ply sig­nal a new fron­tier in the fight against drunk dri­ving,” said NHTSA Admin­is­tra­tor Strickland.

The next stage of devel­op­ment, which would include prac­ti­cal demon­stra­tions of one or more of the alco­hol detec­tion tech­nolo­gies, could begin later this year.

“What­ever the future holds for these advanced drunk dri­ving pre­ven­tion tech­nolo­gies, one thing remains clear; no tech­nol­ogy can, or should, ever replace a driver’s per­sonal respon­si­bil­ity not to drive drunk,” the Admin­is­tra­tor said.

In 2009, 10,839 peo­ple died nation­wide in crashes involv­ing a drunk dri­ver.
These deaths make up 32 per­cent of all fatal crashes.

• Click here for addi­tional infor­ma­tion about DADDs

• Click here for statistics:

Categories : Distracted Driving, Drive Safe, DUI, DWI, Highway, New Laws, Other, prevention
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Jan
26

N.J. driver safety laws are second-best in country, report says

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By Megan DeMarco/Statehouse Bureau

Jerry McCrea/The Star-Ledger

New Jersey’s dri­ver safety laws make the Gar­den State one of the safest in the nation for motorists, a report released today finds.

The state ranks sec­ond only to the Dis­trict of Colum­bia, accord­ing to the high­way safety report released by Advo­cates for Auto and High­way Safety.

New Jer­sey had 583 fatal­i­ties related to auto acci­dents in 2009, and crashes cost the state $9.3 billion.

The states were ranked on laws address­ing seat belts and other pro­tec­tion for adults, dis­tracted driving/text mes­sag­ing, impaired dri­ving, teen dri­ving, and child pro­tec­tion laws.

New Jer­sey met almost every require­ment, except a law requir­ing 30–50 hours of super­vised
dri­ving for teenagers.

The state got half credit for the require­ment that teenage dri­vers be pro­hib­ited from dri­ving from at least 10 p.m to 5 a.m., and half credit for not requir­ing an igni­tion inter­lock for all drunken dri­ving offenders.

New Jer­sey is one of the highest-spending states when it comes to the finan­cial bur­den of car crashes, the report found. In New Jer­sey, $9.3 bil­lion goes toward the eco­nomic cost of vehi­cle crashes. Only Florida, Cal­i­for­nia, New York and Texas spend more.

Nation­wide, more than 33,800 peo­ple were killed in motor vehi­cle crashes in 2009, the report found, and more than 2.2 mil­lion peo­ple were injured.

Eleven per­cent of dri­vers involved in fatal crashes dur­ing the same time were teen dri­vers
between 15 and 20.

The report also found auto acci­dents sig­nif­i­cantly decrease dur­ing eco­nomic recessions.

Categories : Distracted Driving, Drive Safe, high school, Highway, New Laws, prevention, Teen, texting
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Jan
26

OH DEER: While you’re driving, a deer has just jumped out of nowhere. What now!?

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Dur­ing driver’s ed defen­sive dri­ving, the police offi­cer talked to us about how to deal with deer in the road– and every­one I know was shocked by the answer. So, I thought this would be inter­est­ing to write a post about!

Oh Deer… Did I just make a really bad pun?
Yes, I did, but it was a rele­phant one. :)

Quick Quiz: (Kind of like the ones you’d get in school, but with answers that may actu­ally prove directly use­ful in life one day, as opposed to expo­nen­tial– log­a­rith­mic con­ver­sions). While you’re dri­ving, a deer has just jumped out of nowhere (or at least, out of the trees on the side of the road) and is now right in the mid­dle of your lane and approach­ing fast.

What do you do?

  1. swerve to the side to try and avoid it
  2. slam on the breaks
  3. ease off the gas and coast right through

If you chose choice a, you’ve now put your­self at risk of crash­ing into the trees or any other obsta­cles to the right, or into oncom­ing cars in the next lane. Not pretty.

If you chose choice b, you’re prob­a­bly going off of what would be your instinc­tive reac­tion. While you may try to brake as quickly as pos­si­ble so as to avoid a col­li­sion, if the deer’s within your stop­ping dis­tance (usu­ally around 100 feet, depend­ing on the rate of travel and the weight of the car), you’re still going to slam into it.

Accord­ing to a cou­ple laws of physics and some­thing called momen­tum, such sud­den force on the breaks will cause your car to tilt for­ward slightly, hit­ting the deer in its legs. In real– life sit­u­a­tions, the deer will not mirac­u­lously stay still or fling clear of the car; rather, it will then pro­ceed to crash straight through your wind­shield and may pos­si­bly, as in one true story, land in the back seat still some­what alive after hav­ing taken out the dri­ver and the pas­sen­ger rid­ing shot­gun. Not fun.

So, as heart­less as it might sound, choice c is in fact the best choice to make if you see a deer within the length of your stop­ping dis­tance. If you ease off the gas, the car will slow down to min­i­mize the force of impact and you’ll hit the deer in its torso, fling­ing it back onto the road rather than through the wind­shield. Since you’ll be hit­ting the deer at such a dis­tance whether you hit the brakes or cruise through, it’s bet­ter to make sure that you’re not hurt as well as the poor deer.
:(

–
Jenni K.

Categories : Distracted Driving, Drive Safe, Highway, prevention
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Jan
13

Just a moment.

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Sec­onds before impact…

Yep. Just a moment, that’s all you need to slip out that quick reply on your phone. By now, there’s even a good chance that you feel your­self so adept at tex­ting that you can punch out all your words within the space of a cou­ple sec­onds; lit­tle enough time that you can type, fin­ish, and look back up at the road while you’re dri­ving and keep your­self on course. If you’re dri­ving steadily and all you’re doing is press­ing out a quick mes­sage, your elbows or even maybe one hand still on the wheel while you con­cen­trate on your phone and per­haps look­ing up every so often to scan the road, you should be fine, right? It’s just a moment.

Unfor­tu­nately, that’s also just about enough time for your car to travel about 50, 100, 200, feet. Just those few sec­onds that your con­cen­tra­tions away from the road, and you could swerve across the cen­ter line, into the side of the road, or straight across a turn.

But some peo­ple will protest at that. Yes, there is the chance of swerv­ing but if you’re good enough at dri­ving, how much chance is there of los­ing con­trol? Maybe you’re not a teenager, you’ve been dri­ving for a while, and you can mostly keep con­trol of the wheel while you text. Or, per­haps you are still 16, 17, 18, 19, but you’re good enough to keep con­trol. Well, keep con­trol? Not all the time, but, there is the chance. Be pre­pared for any sud­den obsta­cles in the road like cars run­ning the stop sign or red light, con­fused ani­mals, or pedes­tri­ans? Not likely, at all. But that’s just how long it takes.

Sure, you need to reply to a text. Or you’re in a rush and you need to notify some­one out there about some­thing. Or, maybe, your phone is as much a part of you as your hand, and you just can’t keep off of it. Well then please, stop off the road. It’s just not worth the dras­tic and likely con­se­quences tak­ing your con­cen­tra­tion off the road can eas­ily result in. It’s actu­ally a true fact that thou­sands die every year from phone-related car crashes. And they’re not very pretty deaths at all.

Want proof? Check out www.ugotbrains.com/too-true-texting.htm for actual pic­tures of a texting-related acci­dent. If you don’t have a strong stom­ach, I wouldn’t look at the graphic labeled pic­tures, though. Look­ing at pic­tures of two pieces of a guy and his entrails spilled out onto the road can def­i­nitely unset­tle plenty of people.

~Jenni K.

Categories : Distracted Driving, Drive Safe, Highway, Other, Teen, texting
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