Car Crashes Are The #1 Cause of Death To Kids Ages 1-12

Car crashes are the singular biggest event claiming the lives of our youth.

Car crashes are the #1 KILLER of American kids ages 1-12. 

We all go out while pregnant and make sure we invest in the best car seat, a lot of us go to the local firehouse and have them properly install it. Then we labor for hours, sometimes days and we finally drive our precious newborn home as safely as possible.

If only we always drove home like we do on that drive.

As a mother I of course am trying to encourage other mothers and fathers to help spread the word. Our children are dying in mostly preventable crashes. 

We need to slow down, get off our phones, not tailgate and drive with more care. 

Keeping our kids safe goes beyond the car seat. It frustrates me that the media focuses on freak accidents and we all start to live in fear of events we truly can not predict. But these car crashes, a lot, can be avoided.

Talk about tailgating and using your phone at the dinner table. It is important. 

Keep it Merry

I hope you and yours have a Merry Christmas.

There is a lot to drive safe for!

How 9/11 Affected our Roads

An interesting article from The Guardian UK says that after 9/11 a lot of people were afraid to fly and therefore took to the roads. But according to Professor Gerd Gigerenzer, a German academic specialising in risk, has estimated that an extra 1,595 Americans died in car accidents in the year after the attacks – indirect victims of the tragedy.(Guardian UK)

He goes on to say something really insightful about how we humans operate:

"We have an evolutionary tendency to fear situations in which many people die at one time. This is likely a hold-over from when we lived in small groups, where the death of a small part of the group could place the lives of everyone else in jeopardy.

"That's no longer the case, but it is very difficult to elicit the same fear for the same number of deaths spaced over a year."

So maybe our evolution is to look at in regards to the fact that so many of us just glaze over the high number of car crashes annually. Around 40,000.

I love this part "But decision-making is defensive. Politicians would be held responsible if a plane had crashed when flying through the ash cloud. If people are killed because they are forced to take their car instead, they are not blamed."

I feel there is a culture of blame in the USA. Yet, we don't hold personal responsibility as closely when it is actually something we could change. We could prevent a lot of our car crashes. We might be slightly inconvenienced, slowing down or just letting someone who makes a bad move in their car have more space, realize they are just driving unsafely.

Explaining Fix The Toaster to My Mom

I let my mom know about Fix The Toaster.

She looked at me like, oh no, what are you doing now.

In trying to explain Fix The Toaster I explain I want to do what MADD has done for drunk driving but for basically just for all people driving cars. It literally sounds ridiculous to explain because it is so simple and basic, yet so many people are not doing it.

My mom laughed and said, "Sounds like you want to say, Just try to pay the hell attention when you drive!" We both laughed and she said that could be my new slogan.

Compromising Safety for Seconds

A few days ago a woman passed me on the right, got in front of me and then got to the exit on the freeway 10 seconds before I did. She looked to be in her early 60's. I'm guessing she's a mother or a grandma.

As she sat at the light in front of me all I could think about was how she had just compromised my life, my babies and her life. For seconds.

Why are we rushing to get to the red light? Why do we rush to get somewhere, perhaps 15 minutes faster then we would if we just drove carefully and slowly.

BTW I was driving 65 MPH.

She was angry at me. Angry I wasn't going faster and she wanted to show me. The highway was quite clear, I could have been going faster. But like I have stated before I do not go above 65, I don't want to crash at high speeds. Do you?

Are we, as a society, just incredibly angry and so we get in our cars and put our aggression out here? Obviously living in LA I am in some pretty intense traffic and dealing with people who commute up to 3 hours. A day.

Perhaps, we are not meant to live this way.

Each post seems to go off onto another post but back to the title. It is not worth it, in my mind, to compromise the safety of others just so you can get somewhere faster. Like I tell people who are in my show. It's LA. There will be traffic, please do not call me and tell me you are stuck in traffic. There will probably be traffic.

A young woman visiting America was killed at the corner of Sunset Blvd. and La Brea a few years back. A man saw the light turning from yellow to red and instead of slowing down he sped ahead, ran the light and hit and killed the girl.

Every time I would head south on La Brea and see that light turning from yellow to red I could feel the manic "go, go" from the other cars but I made myself slow down. It's not worth it.

Automated Cars will Save Lives, Not Before We Lose A Lot More Will This Happen

Automated cars were first introduced to me by my brainy husband. Cars that you can get in and will essentially drive us to where we need to go, no steering or foot on the pedal required.

Sound scary or weird?

Well how is this for both as David Strickland, the head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, points out: human error was a factor in about 90 percent of the more than 33,000 traffic deaths in 2010.

90 percent!!!!! We have nothing to lose.

Strickland says, “We have the chance of … saving thousands and thousands of lives as” cars in use today are replaced with automated vehicles, he said.

That is hopeful.

I don't see it happening for a long time due to government sticky tape and red blooded Americans saying, I'm an American, it's my right to drive my car, dang gummit.

So let's say it passes in 10 years, we will only lose about 1/2 million more people to car crashes, because that's how many we have lost roughly in the last 10 years.

If it passes in 40 years, we will lose a mere 2 million more people to car crashes.

My anger aside, it is hopeful and you should click on the link to the article. As the article notes it will be great for the elderly, which we will probably all be by the time this passes. Sounds great to me!

I'm learning as I go and it turns out one of the inventors of the driverless cars is fueled by his passion to save lives. Google's Sebastian Thrun speaks about it here.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bp9KBrH8H04]

What Do a 1964 Rambler and a Minivan Have in Common? Me.

Let me explain my history with cars. A friends grandpa let me drive his car while sitting on his lap when I was probably 10. It was somewhere in rural Texas.

At 14 I lived in South Dakota and that is the age when you can start driving by yourself. None of my girlfriends were allowed to but some of the boys were.

The 3 times I've had very close calls were with young guys.

I learned how to drive. On a stick shift. My dad taught me in our Isuzu Trooper. I loved it and felt like a pretty cool girl to be driving a stick shift.

My parents bought me a used 1964 Rambler, its was green.

I was 16. Not only was it a stick shift, it was a "3 on a tree." I think I gave every man over 60 an instant boner driving that thing.

My parents were crazy fun nuts that way.

After the Rambler died, I got their old Isuzu Trooper.

After the Trooper, I bought my conservative uncles used Ford Taurus. It was automatic.

I loved that car. It was pretty boring and ugly but a smooth ride none the less.

After that, I got a used Volvo for my graduation from college present.

I drove it to LA with Iowa license plates.  A lot of people honked at me. If you want to get honked at drive around LA with Iowa plates in a Volvo and have blonde hair.

You might as well have a sign that signs, "I'm a jerk, please honk at me" on your car.

I drove that for a long time. For so long I began to think, I really am a jerk. Or at least I must be driving like one.

Until finally I could afford to buy my own car.

I bought a used Jetta.

I bargained with the dealer, offering him a seat at a showing of the show I worked at if they'd lower the rate of the car. I was working for Playboy at the time. The guy didn't take me up on the offer. *crazy

My husband and I loved that little car. Zippy. (not in a speeding way, I've never been much of a speeder)

After the birth of my first we could no longer pick up my parents from the airport with all of us in the Jetta. We sold it and got a used Lexus. This was the beginning of my love of white cars.

I was a fancy lady for awhile.

Then I had another child.....

Then I had another child.

And here I am, driving a minivan. A Toyota Sienna. White. Because white is the safest color car you can drive. (that's why my love of white cars)

So see, I'm not just a mom behind a minivan. I've got a long relationship with cars.

I've always been more comfortable in the slow lane. I've always respected the power of the car, well accept for a few times, I'll write about that later.

I like cars. They all have their own personality. I like the smell of new car. And new car with leather seats. I like getting in a "hot" car.

I just don't like driving fast or dangerously.

Media Frenzy

Right now a lot of people are glued to their TVs. It's on the tip of their tongues. Sandy.

The bi-line on the front page of Yahoo.com said, "1 person confirmed dead."

As we know, on average 115 Americans die daily due to car accidents. So what about the headline about all of those people who died today? It doesn't make it in the headlines because we have chosen to just accept it? Why?

This pulls back to my question as to whether or not we are a bunch of fatalists. We can not control the weather. But we can control car accidents, up to a large percentage of them anyways are preventable.

Wake up America.

As always, Fix The Toaster does not aim to diminish other problems but rather hold a magnifying glass to a huge problem that flies so far under the radar it isn't even thought about.

Reasons to Drive Safely

Reasons to drive safely vary. For some of you it's your kids, others it's a moral code of feeling bad if you we're to hurt someone else. For a lot of people I think they are not connecting driving safe = life.

And I think life can be pretty good. So whether it is your kids you love, beer or girls drinking beer in bikinis please try to think of these things or people. You hold so much power when behind the wheel.

Here are a few reasons I drive safely. Things I enjoy:

A Post By Our Contributor Scott Marshall

This is the first post from one of our contributors, Scott Marshall of Safe Driver. Scott is father to 4, he lives in Canada. We are please to have him sharing his insight here with us. Raising my kids has taught me many things.

I always try to get them to realize that they should think of how their actions could affect anyone else. My parents raised me the same way. So far it’s worked out quite well. There’s often remorse when they do something they know is wrong.

That remorse usually means they make the proper decision before they do the action. That should keep them on the up and up as they go through life, don’t you think? Have you been raised to think about how your actions may affect someone else?

Recently while I was out driving with my son on the freeway, we came across a situation that affected my son emotionally.

While passing a slower vehicle on my left, that said driver decided to change lanes toward my vehicle. Since I teach my students at Young Drivers of Canada a technique that will allow them to notice slight movement of vehicles in a variety of directions, I was able to notice their movement quite early. Once I noticed their vehicle’s movement toward my lane markings I tapped my horn quite a few times with the hope of getting the driver’s attention and getting them to stay in their lane. It didn’t work so I ended up having to reduce speed and move partially onto the shoulder to my left to avoid the collision.

The driver who attempted to change lanes did absolutely nothing while I continued to tap my horn except continue into my lane; the space that my vehicle was occupying. A few moments later, they changed back into their original lane.

As we continued past them, my son and I glanced over to see what a driver might look like who seemed to care less about our safety.

The driver was someone probably in their mid-twenties and they were smiling as my son and I glanced at them.

Were they smiling because they were successful at cutting us off?

Were they smiling because they didn’t crash at freeway speeds?

Only they will know.

I tend to shrug those things off as I see them happen each week when I drive, but my son couldn’t do it. He started to cry. Yes, he was upset that the driver almost hit us and would have done so if I didn’t respond as I did.

He was more upset that the driver didn’t seem to have any remorse for their actions. He actually said to me, “I could have died and they didn’t care!”

Have you ever thought of how your actions could really affect other people when you drive? This careless and thoughtless driver didn’t seem to care about us and anyone else on the road, including themselves. Why not? Were they not taught these values as a child? It’s never too late to change.

The next time you’re driving, ask yourself before you make a driving choice how it could affect someone else; even the 12 year old passenger of the vehicle near them. Remember, you can mentally scar someone with your actions; not just physically injure them. It’s time to think before you act.

This article is for my friend; Lindsay Kavet. She has the passion that more people need to help make changes with road safety. – Scott Marshall The Safe Driver 

**Thanks Scott!

Driving Safer Advocacy Groups

Over the last 5 years I have, from time to time, looked for safe driving advocacies. Of course I knew about MADD, but what I was looking for didn't seem to be out there. I was just looking for an organization that promoted safer driving in all forms. Now that I'm behind Fix The Toaster and I have all 9 of my likers on Facebook ;) I am finding more groups that are advocacies for distracted driving.

Groups that have been launched out of senseless tragedy like Kate's Krew. Kate was a toddler killed by a distracted driver. Her father has launched the group.

There is Distraction.gov dedicated to making our roads safer by ending distracted driving. They have a beautiful site and highlight people who have died due to distracted driving. Erik Okerblom was a beautiful soul who was struck by a speeding teenager while bike riding at the age of 19. There is also a foundation in his name.

And of course our new contributor Scott Marshall up in Canada, a father driven by his passion for making the roads safer.

So why Fix The Toaster? Well, I'm trying to act as an advocate for driving safer, looking at changing the speed limits, looking at our infrastructure, trying to switch people's brains from accepting these ridiculous statistics to questioning why do we think that's OK. I am not a Harvard grad. My husband is, he will be weighing in on some amazing statistics I've had him come up with on nights I am angrily pacing saying it's ridiculous. I was doing keg stands at the University of Iowa. But I am a mom. I'm passionate about the subject. And I have always driven in the slow lane.

And by the way, I will post on the way I drive in the near future because I know that driving too slow is dangerous as well.

Anyways, I'm hearing of people out there who want change. We just need the masses to hear us. And we need someone to help us implement the change.

Have a safe commute tomorrow. Drive with care for yourself and the people around you. Even if your first thought is "asshole" let's try to slow down and be aware.

Our New Contributor: Shannon Noel Webb

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.

6,484 People Die in LA Every Year in Car Crashes

Living in Los Angeles I am faced with driving around millions of people daily. I have seen far more accidents then I ever did living anywhere else. It is a part of our daily lives here.

After driving by the accident on the 134 West last night I couldn't help but think of the people in those cars, their soft flesh possibly hurt. Their spirits possibly gone.

Because their fragile bodies could not handle the impact of going, say 70MPH to 0 in a second.

I just looked up how many people die in LA  each year.  6,484 people die in Los Angeles every year in due to car crashes. That is a lot of people.

You argue, yes but there are a lot of people living in Los Angeles. True, but should we just sit back and take it that, that's a given? Car crashes are not cancer. We don't need to do a ton of research going after then unknown. Sometimes I feel like we are just a bunch of fatalists regarding car crashes.

There are some answers.

There are ways to help lower the amount of deaths. But are we willing to sacrifice 15 minutes here or there? Will the car companies let new advances that are available now happen?

Check out how many people die in your city here.