Posts Tagged ‘ Accidents ’

Join Oprah’s No Phone Zone Day on Friday

April 27th, 2010. By AbiK

Safe to say Oprah’s probably got more folks watching her every day than ants glomming onto a sticky lollipop, but still, I daresay there are some of you out there that are not aware of No Phone Zone Day.

And you should be.

Oprah’s channeling the Doobie Brothers and takin’ it to the streets this Friday, April 30th, to drive home the message that distracted driving—ie, driving while chatting on a cell phone or texting your BFF—causes accidents. Deadly ones.

So she’s asking all of us—you included—to take the No Phone Zone Pledge. You can fill out on online pledge at Oprah.com and join the close to 200,000 others who’ve done so as of when I’m writing this. The No Phone Zone Pledge is a pledge to make your car a No Phone Zone (intuitive, no?) and you’re given three options to choose from in order to make your pledge (there’s also a print out version—see pic at left):

• I will not text while I am driving
• I will not text while driving and will use only handsfree calling if I need to speak on the phone while I am driving.
• I will not text or use my phone while I am driving. If I need to use my phone, I will pull over to a secure location.

For the record, I went with number 2. My heart and conscience wanted to go with number 3, but I know how things’ll most likely play out in reality. So 2 it is.

While you’re at Oprah.com, you can also take the “Your Brain on Texting Quiz“—I did, and scored a 4 out of 5. (Got question #4 wrong).

No Phone Zone Day is supported by the US Department of Transportation (DOT), National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), National Organization of Youth Safety (NOYS), FocusDriven, Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD), RADD: the Entertainment Industry’s Voice for Road Safety, and the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA).

Tags: Accidents, Cell Phones, Distracted Driving, No Phone Zone Day, Oprah, Texting
Posted in Emerging Issues | No Comments »

Congratulations Lawyers–you may get in accidents, but you don’t speed!

March 16th, 2010. By AbiK

Or is it that you just don’t get caught?

Yes, believe it or not, according to the top 10 list of crash-prone professions that was put out by Quality Planning Corp. and Insure.com at the end of last year, lawyers rank only above social workers for getting speeding tickets. However…

When you look at accidents, well, that’s a bit of a different story.

Here’s the break down on the top 10 crash-prone professions (journalists, pat your backs—you’re not on it). The accidents and speeding tickets are per 1,000 professionals in each category:

1. Doctors: 109 accidents and 44 speeding tickets

2. Lawyers: 106 accidents and 37 speeding tickets

3. Architects: 105 accidents and 72 speeding tickets

4. Real Estate Brokers: 102 accidents and 39 speeding tickets

5. Enlisted Military Personnel: 99 accidents and 78 speeding tickets

6. Social Workers: 98 accidents and 33 speeding tickets

7. Manual Laborers: 96 accidents and 77 speeding tickets

8. Analysts: 95 accidents and 40 speeding tickets

9. Engineers: 94 accidents and 51 speeding tickets

10. Consultants: 94 accidents and 50 speeding tickets

If you’re thinking this was an outlier kind of year, not so. Five years ago, in 2004, the same report listed these groups as the top 5 for being accident-prone:

1. Students

2. Doctors

3. Lawyers

4. Architects

5. Real Estate Brokers

Tags: Accidents, Automotive, Highway Safety, Speeding
Posted in Accidents, Automotive | No Comments »

Texas Car Accident Sparks Jury of Commenters

December 14th, 2009. By AbiK

KWTX.com reported it. The article about the car accident in Texas was only about 130 words. That’s it. And while a car accident is never something to be viewed with nonchalance, this one, as car accidents go, was pretty much your standard head-on collision–and thankfully, only one person of seven involved sustained injury (reportedly non-life threatening) of any sort. 

So why am I even talking about it? Because it highlights a new age of “discovery” in the world of everyday car accidents. This accident, which happened on FM 2484 in Harker Heights, TX—sort of midway between Dallas and San Antonio—sparked 18 comments within approximately 24 hours.

Some of those comments were, of course, from well-wishers who were just thankful that all involved were generally “ok”. Some were from wannabe grammarians—always a few ’em out there… But the comments that caught my eye were these:

• I travel 2484 daily and have wittnessed this lady and her Saturn exceeding the speed limit many times. This was bound to happen.
• Thankyou to all the fire safety and police on the scene for working the accident,I was in the Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Accidents, Texas Car Accident
Posted in Accidents | 1 Comment »