What Does Fix The Toaster Mean?
Hola, thanks for looking into the meaning behind my "strange" site's name.
I'm a mom to three that lives in LA. I co-created/produce/direct the hit national play Expressing Motherhood.
I never thought I'd call myself an activist but I suppose that's what I am in regards to car crashes. So here is my schpeel...
If the toaster was killing 30,000 people a year in this country don't you think people would unplug it and say "we've got to fix this?" Obviously this is not a reality but another modern invention is killing that many people.
The car.
Actually, it's the humans behind the wheels, speeds that are too high, distracted driving, drunk driving, driving while angry, tired, mad and really just driving without the acknowledgement that it's a huge responsibility to drive a car and these cars are filled with beautiful, loved lives.
I'm pissed and petrified that this subject is mostly untouched. We seem to take it as a given. I want things to change. I want fewer people to die in cars.
In January 2008 I began writing politicians and news people pleading with them to make this a focus of concern. I ended each letter with the statement that I was lucky enough to never know anyone who died in a car accident. On May 1st, 2008 my great friend died in a car accident on the freeway. She was 33. She backed up traffic in LA for miles. Everyone was stuck in it. The media kept talking about how brutal it was to be stuck in the traffic. Barely anything was mentioned of the beautiful person dead inside the car.
(That's Polly, she died at 33 in a car crash. She was awesome.)
I pitched the fact that so many people were dying in car crashes to an LA news station in '09 and they producer said, but where is the story, there's no story.
I believe there is a story to be told and changed.
We fight cancer why aren't we fighting car crashes?
Ironically we have most of the answers but are unwilling to change.
I want to talk about the people dead in the cars, why there are so many of them. And why we are not focusing on changing this as much as we should.
Fix the Toaster people.
Make sense?
If you want to contact me please email:
fixthetoaster@gmail.com Thank you,
Lindsay
