http://www.themotherhood.com/circle/show/id/57997 en-US
By John Crawley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. safety investigators called on Tuesday for a nationwide ban on texting and cell phone use while driving, a prohibition that would include certain applications of hands-free technology becoming more common in new cars.

The National Transportation Safety Board recommendation covers portable devices only but still goes beyond measures proposed or imposed to date by regulators and states, most of which already ban texting while behind the wheel.

"When it comes to using electronic devices, it may seem like it's a quick call or a quick text or a tweet, but accidents happen in the blink of an eye," said NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman. "No emails, no texts, no calls. It's worth a human life."

To read the rest of the article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/13/cellphone-ban-national-transportation-safety-board_n_1146723.html?ref=technology"]]> webmaster@themotherhood.com (Deborah) Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:37:22 -0500 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/497587 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/497587


WASHINGTON (AP) ? A 19-year-old pickup truck driver involved in a deadly highway pileup in Missouri last year sent or received 11 texts in the 11 minutes immediately before the accident, federal investigators said Tuesday.



The driver sent six texts and received five texts, with the last text just before his pickup traveling at 55 mph crashed into the back of a tractor truck, beginning a chain collision. The pickup was rear-ended by a school bus, which in turn was rammed by a second school bus.



The pickup driver and a 15-year-old student on one of the school buses were killed. Thirty-eight other people were injured in the Aug. 5, 2010, accident near Gray Summit, Mo.



To read the rest: http://news.yahoo.com/driver-sent-got-11-texts-11-min-crash-151619850.html]]> webmaster@themotherhood.com (Deborah) Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:15:34 -0500 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/497586 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/497586
We know that texting and driving is bad. Lawmakers have made it illegal. Software platforms like Ford?s MyTouch try to make it easier to have hands-free conversations and leave our cell phones alone. Cell phone operators like Sprint and T-Mobile have developed apps that limit our ability to use our phones behind the wheel, but these technologies often affect passengers - both in cars and using public transportation - rather than drivers. Yet despite these efforts, more than one-third of U.S. drivers still admit to texting behind the wheel.



So researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology and Rutgers University have developed technology that can tell if the phone user is behind the wheel, and disable the relevant distracting features on his or her phone.



Read the rest, here:http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/transportation/no-more-texting-and-driving-thanks-to-new-technology/1242?tag=nl.e660]]> webmaster@themotherhood.com (Deborah) Tue, 06 Dec 2011 12:25:36 -0500 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/497478 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/497478
So researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology and Rutgers University have developed technology that can tell if the phone user is behind the wheel, and disable the relevant distracting features on his or her phone.]]> webmaster@themotherhood.com (Deborah) Tue, 06 Dec 2011 12:25:27 -0500 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/497477 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/497477 http://www.usatoday.com/news/snapshot.htm?section=N]]> webmaster@themotherhood.com (Deborah) Wed, 11 May 2011 14:22:14 -0400 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/491488 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/491488
I?m barreling along a rural Michigan highway at 75 miles per hour in a gray Ford Taurus X when I glance down to check a number on a screen.



It can?t be more than two seconds, but when I look back up, I?m inches from plowing into a huge green truck. Panicked, I slam on the brakes.



Even though I?m in Virttex, the Ford simulator that uses virtual reality to give you the eerily real sensation that you?re flying down the highway past cars and barns, I still feel shaken.



I made the mistake of taking my eyes off the road for more than 1.5 seconds, which is the danger zone, according to technology experts at Ford headquarters.



Ford, Chrysler, Chevy and other car companies are betting on the proposition that, as long as your eyes don?t stray from the road for more than a moment, your other senses can enjoy a cornucopia of diversions on your dashboard.



read the rest here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/opinion/27dowd.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/opinion/27dowd.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general



Dowd hits the nail on the head. I was furious about these new toys in the car when they began marketing them last year. Do they really believe people won't buy cars if they cannot tweet about it while driving? Seriously. The automakers infuriate me. AND I live in Michigan, for crying out loud!!!!!!]]> webmaster@themotherhood.com (Deborah) Mon, 28 Feb 2011 13:19:47 -0500 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/489193 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/489193
[This article in USA Today is perfectly timed - the Distracted Driving Summit happens tomorrow in DC. Cooper and I attended the Summit last year and kicked off a campaign to spread the word immediately following.]

By Larry Copeland, USA TODAY
Many teens view texting while driving as less risky than drunken driving despite a sustained campaign against texting behind the wheel and research indicating it's as dangerous as drinking and driving, a new survey for State Farm insurance company finds.

A much higher percentage of teens ages 14 to 17 strongly agree that drunken driving could cause a fatal crash than texting could, the survey by Harris Interactive found. More teens also believe that drunken driving is likelier than texting to cause a crash and lead to a ticket and arrest.

"We're doing everything possible to get the message out to teens that driving while talking or texting on a cellphone is not worth the risk," says Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who convenes a second summit on distracted driving Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

"Teen drivers are some of the must vulnerable drivers on the road due to inexperience, and adding cellphones to the mix only compounds the dangers," LaHood says.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-09-20-texting20_ST_N.htm

Here's the link to the Distracted Driving Summit: http://www.distraction.gov/]]> webmaster@themotherhood.com (Emily) Mon, 20 Sep 2010 07:32:27 -0400 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/481473 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/481473
http://networkedblogs.com/5Zj3K]]> webmaster@themotherhood.com (Deborah) Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:08:15 -0400 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/480046 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/480046 By THE EDITORS

This holiday weekend marks the beginning of the summer road-trip season, and with it the attention to accident death tolls and pileups. While traffic-related deaths in the United States have decreased in recent years ? even though more people are on the road driving more miles ? the number still hovers around 37,000 fatalities a year.

Should the nation work harder to reduce that number? What?s the one thing that could be done to reduce highway deaths?

Very interesting discussion by a number of experts:

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/do-we-tolerate-too-many-traffic-deaths/]]> webmaster@themotherhood.com (JillSimpson) Tue, 01 Jun 2010 10:55:47 -0400 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/478038 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/478038
]]> webmaster@themotherhood.com (Deborah) Sun, 23 May 2010 09:23:46 -0400 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/477723 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/477723
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/pets-and-distracted-driving/

Although driving while text messaging or talking on the phone is getting a lot of attention, pets can also be a common source of driver distraction. Exact statistics on pet distraction are difficult to come by ? most surveys list unrestrained cats and dogs inside the car as one of many ?internal distractions? along with grabbing loose items on the seat or swatting an insect. But nearly 90 percent of pet owners say they travel with their pets. And one survey from Nationwide Mutual Insurance found that 8 percent of drivers admit to driving with a pet on their lap.]]> webmaster@themotherhood.com (Cooper) Wed, 19 May 2010 22:44:41 -0400 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/477674 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/477674
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100516/ap_on_bi_ge/us_no_text_while_driving]]> webmaster@themotherhood.com (Deborah) Sun, 16 May 2010 20:58:07 -0400 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/477471 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/477471 Emily and Cooper - you are definitely pioneers!

Here's the video that's spreading the "reality" of why NOT to text and drive.
(Hopefully, a lot of people will learn..)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QggEvJAlV1s]]> webmaster@themotherhood.com (gottalovemom) Wed, 12 May 2010 22:37:35 -0400 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/477387 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/477387
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/opinion/25winfrey.html?src=me&ref=general

Here's the start:

WHEN I started out as a TV reporter in Nashville in 1973, a death from drunken driving was big news. One person killed by a drunken driver would lead our local broadcast. Then, as the number of drunken driving deaths across the country continued to rise, the stakes for coverage got even higher. One death wasn?t good enough anymore. Two deaths ? that would warrant a report. Then a whole family had to die before the news would merit mention at the top of the broadcast. The country, all of us, had gotten used to the idea of drunken driving. I just kept thinking: How many people have to die before we ?get it??

Fortunately, we did get it, and since 1980, the number of annual traffic fatalities due to drunken driving has decreased to under 15,500 from more than 30,000. But in recent years, another kind of tragic story has begun to emerge with ever greater frequency. This time, we are mourning the deaths of those killed by people talking or sending text messages on their cellphones while they drive.

Earlier this month, I visited Shelley and Daren Forney, a couple in Fort Collins, Colo., whose 9-year-old daughter, Erica, was on her bicycle, just 15 pedals from her front door, when she was struck and killed by a driver who was distracted by a cellphone. I think about Erica?s death and how senseless and stupid it was ? caused by a driver distracted by a phone call that just couldn?t wait.

Sadly, there are far too many stories like hers. At least 6,000 people were killed by distracted drivers in 2008, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the number is rising. A lot of good work already is happening to try to change this. President Obama signed an executive order banning texting while driving on federal business. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is pushing for tougher laws and more enforcement. States are passing laws, too. Local groups are gaining strength, spurred by too many deaths close to home.

But we are hesitant to change. I saw this firsthand when I instituted a policy at my company that forbids employees from using their phones for company business while driving. (click the link above to read the rest.)]]> webmaster@themotherhood.com (Emily) Sun, 25 Apr 2010 23:22:37 -0400 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/476807 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/476807
This piece from Time Magazine caught my eye. Here's the start of it.

Multitasking has become a way of life. Most of us think nothing of juggling a couple of chores at once, whether at home or in the office or, most dangerously, on the road. And despite some states' bans on talking while driving, as well as a raft of studies showing the potential deadliness of distracted driving, chances are good that you still have cell-phone conversations behind the wheel.

Chances are also good that you think it's O.K. because you're a truly capable multitasker. Maybe you even consider yourself one of the few supertaskers who, unlike the rest of us, are so mentally agile that they can safely talk or text ? or pen a novel ? while driving.

A new University of Utah study on distraction in the driver's seat finds that such virtuosos do exist: the paper, which has been accepted for publication this year in the journal Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, found that a very small percentage of participants ? 2.5% to be exact ? were able to do other things successfully while driving (in the study, it was solving math problems and memorizing words) without a drop in performance on any task.

In fact, some of these supertaskers performed better while multitasking than they did while completing the tasks alone. The authors of the study suggest that there may be a set of biological, genetic and perhaps behavioral factors that contribute to efficient multitasking, and that maybe some of these factors can even be learned to make the rest of us better at doing two things at once.

Here's the link to the rest of the story: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1977523,00.html

]]> webmaster@themotherhood.com (Emily) Tue, 06 Apr 2010 09:46:15 -0400 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/475921 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/475921

















OLYMPIA, Wash. ? Texting while driving could get you pulled over under a bill approved by the state House.
The bill also says drivers under 18 can be pulled over for texting
or using a cell phone of any kind, even if they're using a headset.
There's an exception for emergencies.
Using a handheld cell phone would remain a secondary offense for
adult drivers. That means police could only write the $124 ticket if
you're pulled over for something else.Continue reading http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011249343_apwaxgrdrivingwhilephoning1stld.html ]]> webmaster@themotherhood.com (Brandie) Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:08:36 -0500 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/470626 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/470626 The Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI), an affiliate of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), examined insurance claims for crash damage in New York, Connecticut, California and Washington, D.C., before and after handheld bans took effect and found no reduction in crashes.

"Absolutely, we were surprised by these results," says Adrian Lund, president of IIHS and HLDI. An Insurance Institute study in 2000 found that drivers talking on cellphones were four times as likely to crash as drivers not using phones. "The key finding is that crashes aren't going down where handheld phone use has been banned," Lund says. "This finding doesn't augur well for any safety payoff from all the new laws that ban phone use and texting while driving."


http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/2010-01-29-cell-phone_N.htm]]> webmaster@themotherhood.com (Becki) Fri, 29 Jan 2010 06:45:03 -0500 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/464005 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/464005
http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Victims-of-Distracted-Driving-Accidents-Videos]]> webmaster@themotherhood.com (Cooper) Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:29:27 -0500 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/461520 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/461520
http://www.oprah.com/questionaire/ipledge.html?id=4]]> webmaster@themotherhood.com (Cooper) Mon, 18 Jan 2010 11:19:59 -0500 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/461479 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/461479 Set your DVRs - Oprah's show on distracted driving airs today! She
calls it "America's New Deadly Obsession" - which it is. Please spread
the word - the more people who see it the better! (Look for Cooper and
me in the audience.)

]]> webmaster@themotherhood.com (Emily) Mon, 18 Jan 2010 06:30:56 -0500 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/461416 http://www.themotherhood.com/post/show/id/461416