Watching People Drive is Frightening

Have you watched people drive lately?

(Photo from Digital Trends)

It's scary.

Last night as I sat in a restaurant I watched a young man driving, albeit very slowly through a parking lot, while reading his phone.

I thought about how he could easy run over a child and do irreparable damage.

After the restaurant we walked over to our child's school fundraiser. While waiting for the light to turn I saw a young woman reading her phone while waiting for the light. When the light changed as she turned I stared her down and mouthed put your phone down.

Yesterday, I also saw a grown woman in a big suburban (probably the most lethal combo in America) driving with one hand and the other hand wrapped tightly around her phone.

I don't write too much about people using their phones because AT&T has done a great job at launching an anti-texting PSA and I'm just like duh, stop using your phones  assholes, I mean people.

But clearly something is not connecting.

Observe people the next time you are out walking or a passenger in a car.

It's frightening.

Do we really have such disdain for life that we risk it daily? Where is our empathy? Do we only care about people who die from cancer? Not from car crashes?

Stop touching your phone while you drive.

Stroke yourself if you really want to touch something while driving. It might be safer. I don't know. There probably aren't stats on that. Hold on I have to Google that now.

No, no data on that.

Sick statistics I came across say that 1 out of 4 people fucking surf the internet while driving.

Come on.

A plane crashed yesterday, yes it's awful. It's scary and I feel terrible for all on board. But every day around 110 Americans die in car crashes. Why aren't we horrified?

Car Crashes are Like Cancer

Yesterday a far too peppy women on the radio said, 

"There was a crash there an hour ago but should be cleared out of the way really soon!"

Then she was on to the next segment.

As if it were not big thing that some humans probably collided at who knows what speed and possibly might be dead. I hear it every single day living in LA.

Very little thought about the bodies always phrases like, "Should get the traffic moving soon once we get the wreckage out of the way."

Is that how we talk about people who die from cancer.

Well, got that all out of the way. No. We walk, run and wear ribbons for cancer.

Car crashes are the same thing as cancer as far as I'm concerned. Both are horrible but the horrible thing about car crashes is we know how to help prevent up to 80% of them, yet we don't.

We raise money to find a cure, we race for it. We are desperate for it for our love ones watching them suffer from fear and pain from cancer. It's awful.

Also, if you were diagnosed with cancer, would you just sit there and do nothing? I understand a slim select do that, but the majority choose treatment to try and battle it.

Where is the battle for safer roads?

It is awful and dangerous, the way the newscasters callously talk about car crashes and no one seems to shed much light on this subject.

Wake up.

Speak up. 

Just speak up at your dinner table tonight.

Our minds need to shift, sooner rather then later.

On a Date With an UnSafe Driver?

Having had some experience myself with being a passenger in a car when I was younger with other young people trying to impress me I often found myself very, very scared.

Like the time in Iowa a young 17 year-old was going way too fast and he couldn't stop in time as someone pulling a trailer pulled out in front of us.

I was in the back seat and he and his friend in the front, all of us got very, very quiet as he knew he couldn't break in time and we had to go to the right on a slick gravel road and hope we would stop and not careen out of control.

I was afraid before the car pulled out but to cowardly to ask him to slow down afterwards I had to pick my heart up as it had jumped out of my body.

He then drove slower after the incident as we all were scared.

Knowing there was nothing cool about the threat of an actual crash.

I urge you to speak up to to an unsafe driver. 

Tell them you like it slow.

It will at least make someone laugh.

I think we ladies need to let guys know we are not amused by careless driving. 

As well as moms out there. If a fellow mom is driving your child make sure she isn't on her phone.

Hello no.

Speak up!!!

We need to start speaking up.

People laugh at my passion but I don't totally get it. People don't laugh at cancer and yet we take great measures to avoid it, treat it and race for a cure for it.

We are simply not avoiding car crashes enough. And 80% of them are indeed avoidable.

I Forgot to Buckle My 2 Year-Old Into His Car Seat

My husband and friend will often tease me, "Oh no. Fix The Toaster" is at it again. I joke that I'll look like a real ass if I die in a car accident.

Joking aside, chances are pretty high I might die in a car accident.

Sorry to be a Debby Downer, but so are yours.

Your odds of dying in a motor vehicle accident are 1 in 83, that's over your lifetime (if that's of comfort)

Your odds of dying while flying are 1 in 5,000, to offer some comparison.

Anyways, I know car accidents will always happen, I get it. I drive safely or rather I try my best. But those odds need to change.

Yesterday, after taking my two kids who are 17 months apart out and having them cry off and on for the entire outing I finally got them both in the car and was happy to get out of the garage.

I was at a light when my 2 1/2 year-old said, "Mom, I'm not buckled in!"

I threw the car into park, got out and buckled him in, not before kissing him and telling him thank you for telling me. I make mistakes.

I have accidents. (not car related, knock on wood)

I try very hard to drive defensively and I hope that I never cause a car accident.

But things happen, this I get. My point here is that:

1. Accidents happen but most that are happening are preventable.

2. I'm not saying that I'm impervious to car accidents or a fantastic driver.

I know that my heightened awareness for this topic is partly driven by the beautiful souls that are covered in fragile bones and flesh, that I drive around daily.  What Lori Coble has had to go through blows my mind. She lost all three of her children in a car accident.

Remembering-Kyle-Emma-and-Katie-Coble-Video

Even though car accidents will always happen so much can and should be done right now to change this.

Infrastructure should be looked at, merging when given only a few hundred feet is absurd and dangerous.

Speed should be reconsidered.

Driving distracted heavily examined.

Driving thoughtfully. As our contributor Scott Marshall said, driving is a team sport, I love that thought.