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Our New Contributor: Shannon Noel Webb

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Fix The Toaster is very excited to now have LA based mom, Shannon Noel Webb, contributing to our site. Shannon is naturally funny but she's serious about the impact of car safety. Well the people behind the cars, the whole sha-bang. Here is her first post.

Here is a list of the things I did this morning while driving in my car to work.  I cannot even believe it.  After talking last night and being uber aware I was still doing these things!  Habits run deep.  I like Fix The Toaster.  It is time to break our habits.  Jesus - look at this list!  I'm embarrassed, horrified and feeling fucking luck all in one!  I'm a good driver, a good mom, more responsible and ocd than I like to admit, I know people who have lost loved ones in car accidents, I bit my own tongue off in a car accident when I was 16,  I have been in a car accident where the car was flipped and totaled, and yet I STILL did the following WHILE driving myself to work this morning:

  1. Read the liner notes on a 1987 Tom Waits cassette tape
  2. Cleaned my cell phone headphones with a blanket that I dug out from under the seat and then sprayed with hand sanitizer
  3. Loved on my dog who had found his way from the back of the mini van to the front seat
  4. Fixed my twisted seat belt that was stuck in the contraption that is meant to make it tight should I be distracted and wreck
  5. Searched for, found and turned on the seat warmer
  6. Dug through my work bag for my cell phone charger and then searched for the outlet in 5 different compartments
  7. Reached behind me to the back seat window and detached the built in sun shade so that my dog could stick his head out of the open window
  8. Typed a note into my iPhone calendar and then set the alarm to remind me of this note later
  9. Googled, on my iPhone, the address of my dog's groomer, google mapped it and then programmed it to guide me there from my current location
  10. Ate and apple
  11. Fought with the sports bottled top of my Sigg
  12. Changed the radio station at least 3 times
  13. Searched for and found the button on the radio that adjusts the bass.  Adjusted the bass.  Then the fade. Then the treble.
  14. De tangled my new, gorgeous and very long necklace from my seatbelt
  15. Dug through my wallet to find my hidden nail file/cleaner and then cleaned out my thumb nail
  16. Checked to make sure that neither of my kids was hiding in the back of the car. They were not.  THANK GOD!

My only excuse is that I am not used to driving my min-van to work so it was somewhat new for me.  This would never suffice if, God forbid, I had hurt someone this morning.  And my children would certainly not have accepted this excuse if I had hurt myself, their Mommy.

Malibu Mom

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A very funny comedic, Susanna Brisk, who lives in Malibu recently blogged about her un-funny car accident. 

Susanna is a mother to two and she is a very crass, funny mom, so to her hear her write very sincerely about the scare made me feel for her.

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Thanks for sharing Susanna! I too will try to focus more while driving like you say here:

So I am never, ever changing the station/calling on the phone/turning on iPod/putting on mascara/changing my underwear while driving again (what? Shit happens.) No more. I got a pretty cheap wake-up call considering… If you had seen the car you would be shocked that anyone had walked out of it almost without a scratch.

It’s incredible the lengths G-d will go to, to make me feel lucky to be alive.

Introducing Scott Marshall

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Since I have become determined to try and make some difference in the amount of people dying in cars I've come across very few sites that have garnered a big following. Of course there is MADD, which has done amazing things. But what I was aiming for was a bit broader, as my mom would say "weirder." Just a general thought process that this is truly crazy that so many people die in car accidents and that we seem to have accepted this as, acceptable.

I have found one person whom I have really enjoyed reading. I recently emailed him and asked him if he'd be interested in becoming a contributor to Fix The Toaster and he has said yes.

So, Fix The Toaster is happy to introduce Scott Marshall.

He is a father to 4! He is a Canadian and his site Safe Driving offers up a lot of observation coming from a very good place. He is passionate about making the roads safer just as I am. He'll be posting in a couple of weeks.

Fix The Toaster is looking for more contributors, if you know someone who is passionate or knowledgeable about this subject please pass on our info to them.