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Humans Are Mostly Good, Tailgating is Really Bad, So Why Are People Doing It?

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Do you tailgate?

You shouldn't.

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It's dangerous. Really, really dangerous. If the person in front of you isn't going fast enough pass them but better yet relax. 

Especially on the freeway when you are driving at high speed where injuries are a lot greater, due to speed. Can you imagine crashing at 65MPH or 80MPH? The thought horrifies me.

Women, on average, labor 18-24 HOURS with their first child. Your arriving 10 minutes faster to a destination or even 60 minutes faster is not worth compromising your life or someone else's.

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If a true accident were to occur and the person in front of you had to quickly stop and you did not leave enough room and you hit them that would be a crash. 

You would seriously injure, perhaps kill someone and you could have avoided it.

Fix The Toaster News

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Today was a big week for Fix The Toaster.

Judd Apatow re-tweeted one of our tweets.

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But seriously, it made me smile and it got some re-tweets. More then anything I loved that he helped spread the point that we need to be more responsible and drive more safely.

The other big FTT News was that I held a meeting at my house. Albeit only one person showed up. But we formed a group and I did it. I did something kind of weird.

But as my hair dresser said yesterday.

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"At first what you say is weird but really it's not weird, we should be talking about this and changing things"

BAM.

 

Look Around You

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I have seen so many acts of disrespect for human life on the road.

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I am sure you are seeing it too.

Don't join the masses. Refuse to answer or look at your phone while driving.

Texting and driving is so cliche I'm really surprised people still do it honestly. Do you want your legacy to possibly that of someone who killed someone because you were texting? Eh. Really?

Even hands free is dangerous.

April is Distracted Awareness month and I am making a change. No more talking on my phone AT ALL when driving.

I hope you can join me and convince others to do the same.

I will be putting this No Text on Board by ATT on my car for April.

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You can download it if you click here and look under "Spread The Word" "Download Kit." Your kids can color it.

I'm becoming convinced that we will see a major change in the way we look at driving and our role in the deaths that come from it in the next 20 years. Be a part of the revolution baby. I'm actually holding a get together tomorrow at my house for locals who are interested in making our community safer.

The more I talk about this with people the more they agree and I feel less like a worry wart. People are tired of feeling unsafe on the streets.

 

 

This Young Woman Speaks Up When Friends Text While Driving

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Do you speak up when you are a passenger in the car and the driver begins to text or talk on their phone?

You should.

Even if the person mocks you.

Read and hear about Cady Reynolds, a 16 year-old who was killed by a fellow distracted texting, teen who ran a red light, while texting.

"Distracted driving kills. Safe driving starts with you," says the sister of Cady Reynolds.

 

 

On May 30, 2007, 16-year-old Cady Reynolds was driving her best friend home from a movie near Omaha, NE when another teen driver--who was texting behind the wheel--ran a red light and slammed into her car at 50MPH. Cady was rushed to the hospital with critical injuries and died the next day. (Distraction.Gov)

 

Are you a teen? Do you ask drivers to stop texting and talking while driving? Are you an adult who feels comfortable, doesn't feel comfortable? I'd love to hear.

 

 

 

 

 

Confession Time: Sometimes I Talk on The Phone While Driving

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I do NOT text and drive.

I rarely ever talk on my phone while driving.

BUT that is going to change because that is not good enough.

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I will not be talking on my phone at all anymore while driving. Here is the even bigger step for me. I am going to ask my loved ones to please NOT call me while they are driving.

Now that is a tricky one.

My mom works long hours often we talk while she commutes home on her 45 minute drive, in a crappy tin car on a crowded California freeway.

Sometimes I call my husband, just to check in, even though I know he's on a freeway with my child and it makes me feel nervous knowing he'll have to answer it. I will ask him not to anymore.

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I am going to send an email out to my friends telling that I will be doing this in the name of Fix The Toaster and to take it a step further honoring Distracted Driving awareness month.

They will roll their eyes and laugh at me.

But then I will tell them:

**The average text takes your eyes off the road for 5 seconds, so a texting driver is 23 times more likely to crash then a non-texting driver.

**Talking on your phone while driving is as dangerous as drunk driving. (Watch the MythBuster Confirm it) That should be enough right there!!!!!

**They will argue and say, well I use hands free, I will say: Hands free has been proven to be just as dangerous.

Today I did not talk on my phone at all. I drove nearly an hour to meet up with a friend for a hike.

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I listened to music, I fidgeted but I know it's the right thing to do.

I hope you too can make this change. 

I get it, I really do.

 

 

Kids Drowning in Pools vs. Kids Dying in Car Crashes

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With the weather warming up more kids will be swimming.

Pools and kids scare me to my core. Just this week I had a conversation with a woman about Fix The Toaster, I asked her if she knew that car crashes are the number one cause of death to kids. She said, no, she thought pool drowning would be. No, I said, car crashes.

But I wanted to know the statistics, so here you go.

Every day, about ten people die from unintentional drowning. Of these, two are children aged 14 or younger. Drowning ranks fifth among the leading causes of unintentional injury death in the United States.1 CDC

 

So according to the Centers for Disease, 2 kids, under the age of 14 die daily in drownings.

5 kids die daily in car crashes.

As the weather warms you will no doubt hear about kids drowning in pools. It is a sick fact and it frightens me of course.

But you will not hear of the kids dying in car crashes nearly as much.

Car Crashes, Looking the Facts in The Eye

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When I start to talk about Fix The Toaster with people, they almost always laugh, initially.

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Then I start talking about numbers.

Like that fact that about 115 Americans die daily in car crashes. Most of which are avoidable

The fact that about 40,000 Americans die annually in car crashes.

The fact that almost 1/2 million Americans die in car crashes every 10 years.

Bring this up as topic. See what kind of response you get. Let's get the wheels spinning.

Also, do you tell your kids how dangerous driving in a car is? We frighten them about pool safety, walking with scissors, wrapping things around their necks, guns but do you let them know how dangerous it is to be in a car? It is the number one killer of people under 25 in the USA. You probably don't, because you don't want to scare them.

Because we have to drive.

I think we need to really look this issue in the eye, it is scary and it needs to be fixed.

Taking Action to Bring Attention to All These People Dying By Car Crashes

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OK. So, I don't have all the answers about what to do. I'm trying to bring about discussion and awareness to the fact over 1/2 million fellow Americans have died in car crashes since 9/11.

What color ribbon do I wear for that cause? Oh wait. Nothing. We are currently accepting this statistic as a given because our roadways have become a place of battle. Literally we are killing ourselves and each other.

I did indeed put pen to paper though and wrote a letter to a local paper.

Here is it.

Chances are maybe one person will begin to think differently about the importance of driving their 5,000 vehicle close to 40 next to my 26 pound toddler next time we pass on the street.

Certainly the man who tailed me down our loverly quiet street yesterday didn't read it or doesn't really give a....

Well anyways, it's a start.

I encourage you to write your local paper. I'd love to hear about it!! Let's get this movement going.

 

This Person Checked Email While Driving

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A good article from NPR on the distracted driving hell we are now putting ourselves in. The author admits to checking email while driving.

Look around you at stop signs and look at everyone looking down. You know what they are doing. I mean certainly they all aren't getting road, OK I won't get ahead of myself there.

The author mentions some ideas. As my great friend who emailed me this story this morning said, keeping the dialogue going is important.