New way to avoid being in a car accident....
Today's Post: Tuesday, 12-22-2009
You may know that one way to avoid being in a car accident is to make a strong effort to NOT be in your car driving between 10 PM and 3 AM.
The reason for that is the percentage of other drivers on the road who are impaired by alcohol goes up well above the daytime or early evening level. The percentage goes up the later you get in the evening after 10 & peaks between about midnight and 2:30 AM.
So, try to get home before 10 PM. And, be more careful of driving defensively after that time if you drive then. Be aware that instead of coming to a stop at a stop light where you have the green light, someone who is at 2 or 3 times the limit enforced by the police may forget to notice the light or no longer be awake! That means that during those hours, you need to realize that a car that looks like it’s not braking in response to a red light may well have a driver who is too blotto to do any braking & won’t stop!
So, if you don’t drive then and are unusually careful when you do when you must do so, you can avoid many serious accidents.
New Year’s Eve is coming up & is a good time to use this information. Stay home or go to a party at a hotel where you can simply go to your room after the party, etc. These are much safer choices than driving home after midnight on New Year’s Eve.
But what if people drove like that all day and every day? !
That would make driving unusually hazardous. And, when people who you care about are driving when you aren’t there, it would be quite a worry that they would get home uninjured and with their or your car intact.
Unfortunately, that is beginning to happen now.
To be fair, many people who have to drive and use their cell phones often in their work and who are normally safe drivers have learned to be about as safe when doing so as when they aren’t on their phone.
That’s why I wasn’t a fan of laws against using your cell phone while driving.
However, there are two kinds of drivers who are as unsafe to have around as blotto level drunks, people with 0.20 levels of alcohol in their blood or more, the more than 7 drinks at a time crowd.
1. Some people, who likely aren’t that safe a driver without a cell phone, when they are on one, unplug their brains and stop watching the road. They run red lights; they weave in their lanes and sometimes completely out of their lanes. They miss noticing other drivers their car is on a collision course to hit. The San Jose Mercury here in the Silicon Valley has a driving column called Mr Roadshow that once had a column or two with stories featuring the incredibly dangerous driving by such people.
Even drunks drive better than some of those drivers!
2. But there may be even worse to come. And, it’s already beginning to arrive now!
Yesterday, LiveScience.com, LiveScience.com had a story they titled:
“Drivers Who Text Are Six Times More Likely to Crash.”
This was the conclusion of a careful study that had just been released
The research was done on a simulator to get the most accurate measures and to keep the people who were subjects in the research safe.
The texting drivers drove from about as well as the severely drunk and the clueless cell phone users we just described to somewhat worse.
In the simulations, “Drivers' median reaction time increased by 30 percent when they were texting and 9 percent when they talked on the phone, compared with when they were just driving.”
“Drivers who were texting also showed impairment in forward and lateral control than did drivers who talked on a cell phone while driving or drove without texting”
As dangerous as this clearly is, most drivers who text surely would know better than to take their eyes off the road and do it while driving, right?
Very unfortunately not.
The Live Science.com study also had this quote: “A study earlier this year found that 60 percent of teens "drive while texting," or DWT.”
It seems that in most people of whatever age who communicate with text messages, some of them routinely or occasionally do it while driving.
And when the driver is reading return text messages, they are even more clueless, unplugged, & impaired – and dangerous to have on the road.:
This also was in the story:
“Reading text messages affected braking time more than did composing messages.”
We have very expensive to fall into laws and mandatory programs for people who drive while they are that drunk.
But so far, no new laws have been passed to cover these 2 kinds of very dangerous drivers
The good news is that virtually every city and state has laws that DO apply. And the tickets are expensive enough to get people’s attention. More than that, in many states they count as heavily as actual accidents towards a point system that can result in repeat offenders losing their legal right to drive.
Those are the laws against reckless driving.
So, I think that all police in the United States who write traffic tickets at all should be asked – and expected as a normal part of their jobs – to watch for the kind of driving some people do while on their cell phone and for people texting while driving.
Then, if someone has been weaving in their lane or run a stop sign or red light or gone down a one way street the wrong way while on their cell phone – OR is seen to be texting at the wheel, I think the officers should be required to issue a ticket or an additional ticket for reckless driving.
And, once this is set up there should be massive publicity that this will happen if you drive while on your cell phone AND forget to pay attention to your driving or if you drive while texting.
I don’t think driving should get as risky as having lots of drunks around every time you drive.
And, the police already have a law against it.
They just aren’t yet using it for these two situations. I think for the public safety they exist to protect, they should write these reckless driving tickets every time they see either of these two things.
If you agree, contact your local highway patrol and police department and ask that they do so.
Your life or the life of someone you care about may depend on it.
Today's Post: Tuesday, 12-22-2009
You may know that one way to avoid being in a car accident is to make a strong effort to NOT be in your car driving between 10 PM and 3 AM.
The reason for that is the percentage of other drivers on the road who are impaired by alcohol goes up well above the daytime or early evening level. The percentage goes up the later you get in the evening after 10 & peaks between about midnight and 2:30 AM.
So, try to get home before 10 PM. And, be more careful of driving defensively after that time if you drive then. Be aware that instead of coming to a stop at a stop light where you have the green light, someone who is at 2 or 3 times the limit enforced by the police may forget to notice the light or no longer be awake! That means that during those hours, you need to realize that a car that looks like it’s not braking in response to a red light may well have a driver who is too blotto to do any braking & won’t stop!
So, if you don’t drive then and are unusually careful when you do when you must do so, you can avoid many serious accidents.
New Year’s Eve is coming up & is a good time to use this information. Stay home or go to a party at a hotel where you can simply go to your room after the party, etc. These are much safer choices than driving home after midnight on New Year’s Eve.
But what if people drove like that all day and every day? !
That would make driving unusually hazardous. And, when people who you care about are driving when you aren’t there, it would be quite a worry that they would get home uninjured and with their or your car intact.
Unfortunately, that is beginning to happen now.
To be fair, many people who have to drive and use their cell phones often in their work and who are normally safe drivers have learned to be about as safe when doing so as when they aren’t on their phone.
That’s why I wasn’t a fan of laws against using your cell phone while driving.
However, there are two kinds of drivers who are as unsafe to have around as blotto level drunks, people with 0.20 levels of alcohol in their blood or more, the more than 7 drinks at a time crowd.
1. Some people, who likely aren’t that safe a driver without a cell phone, when they are on one, unplug their brains and stop watching the road. They run red lights; they weave in their lanes and sometimes completely out of their lanes. They miss noticing other drivers their car is on a collision course to hit. The San Jose Mercury here in the Silicon Valley has a driving column called Mr Roadshow that once had a column or two with stories featuring the incredibly dangerous driving by such people.
Even drunks drive better than some of those drivers!
2. But there may be even worse to come. And, it’s already beginning to arrive now!
Yesterday, LiveScience.com, LiveScience.com had a story they titled:
“Drivers Who Text Are Six Times More Likely to Crash.”
This was the conclusion of a careful study that had just been released
The research was done on a simulator to get the most accurate measures and to keep the people who were subjects in the research safe.
The texting drivers drove from about as well as the severely drunk and the clueless cell phone users we just described to somewhat worse.
In the simulations, “Drivers' median reaction time increased by 30 percent when they were texting and 9 percent when they talked on the phone, compared with when they were just driving.”
“Drivers who were texting also showed impairment in forward and lateral control than did drivers who talked on a cell phone while driving or drove without texting”
As dangerous as this clearly is, most drivers who text surely would know better than to take their eyes off the road and do it while driving, right?
Very unfortunately not.
The Live Science.com study also had this quote: “A study earlier this year found that 60 percent of teens "drive while texting," or DWT.”
It seems that in most people of whatever age who communicate with text messages, some of them routinely or occasionally do it while driving.
And when the driver is reading return text messages, they are even more clueless, unplugged, & impaired – and dangerous to have on the road.:
This also was in the story:
“Reading text messages affected braking time more than did composing messages.”
We have very expensive to fall into laws and mandatory programs for people who drive while they are that drunk.
But so far, no new laws have been passed to cover these 2 kinds of very dangerous drivers
The good news is that virtually every city and state has laws that DO apply. And the tickets are expensive enough to get people’s attention. More than that, in many states they count as heavily as actual accidents towards a point system that can result in repeat offenders losing their legal right to drive.
Those are the laws against reckless driving.
So, I think that all police in the United States who write traffic tickets at all should be asked – and expected as a normal part of their jobs – to watch for the kind of driving some people do while on their cell phone and for people texting while driving.
Then, if someone has been weaving in their lane or run a stop sign or red light or gone down a one way street the wrong way while on their cell phone – OR is seen to be texting at the wheel, I think the officers should be required to issue a ticket or an additional ticket for reckless driving.
And, once this is set up there should be massive publicity that this will happen if you drive while on your cell phone AND forget to pay attention to your driving or if you drive while texting.
I don’t think driving should get as risky as having lots of drunks around every time you drive.
And, the police already have a law against it.
They just aren’t yet using it for these two situations. I think for the public safety they exist to protect, they should write these reckless driving tickets every time they see either of these two things.
If you agree, contact your local highway patrol and police department and ask that they do so.
Your life or the life of someone you care about may depend on it.
Labels: avoiding serious car accidents, getting home in one piece, making our roads safe to drive on, new kinds of reckless driving that deserve reckless driving tickets, Your safety while driving
posted by David at 1:42 PM
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