Tag Archives: safe driving

Safe Driving Tips, Teens

Just In Case: Don’t Forget ICE

No one plans to be in a car crash, but they happen.  On average, more than 8,000 people are injured in car accidents every day.

If you’re hurt in a car crash, you may not be conscious, or you may not be coherent.  Emergency personnel and first responders need to know how to contact your family if something has happened to you.  The easiest way for them to do this is with your own cell phone.

You can make it easy for police and EMTs to contact your family by adding ICE contacts to your cell phone.  ICE stands for “In Case of Emergency” – they’re trained to look for these alphabetically in your address book.

Create a new contact that looks like this:

ICE Mom 215-555-1212

Begin the entry with “ICE” and follow it with some descriptive context for who the person is to you – mom, dad, uncle, husband, wife, etc.  Add more than one ICE contact if needed.

Autism, Autism And Driving, Highway Safety, Teens

Autistic Teens Want To Drive

A study released by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) Center For Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP) looks at teens with high-functioning autism spectrum disorders and driving.  They found that, among their sample of 300 teens, two-thirds are already driving or expect to drive.

“As a clinician who specializes in children with disabilities, I was interested to find that so many teens with high functioning autism spectrum disorders want to drive and do,” says Patty Huang, MD, a developmental and behavioral pediatrician at CHOP and the lead author of the study. “We need to help them. Establishing a few indicators for these teens that will likely have an interest in driving is the first step in developing targeted strategies and interventions to support them and their families.”

The findings suggest that parents of teens with HFASDs would benefit from guidance in deciding if driving is the right choice for their individual family. Readiness to drive can be difficult to assess, and parents should be encouraged to seek the help of their child’s physician, an occupational therapist or driving instructor.

Modern Driver Institute is the only driver education provider in Pennsylvania that specializes in working with individuals with autism.   We recommend that driving goals be incorporated into your student’s Individual Education Plan (IEP).

Safe Driving Tips

Feds Want End To Texting While Driving

Today, federal Transportation Secretary Ray La Hood proposed voluntary steps to establish new safety criteria for hands-free calling, navigation and entertainment systems in cars.

“Distracted driving is a dangerous and deadly habit on America’s roadways — that’s why I’ve made it a priority to encourage people to stay focused behind the wheel,” LaHood said.

Distracted driving deaths totaled 3,092 in 2010, the latest available figures show. But LaHood’s agency believes the total could be higher due to the unwillingness of drivers to always admit behavior, lack of witnesses to a crash in some cases, or the death of the driver.

Most U.S. motorists surveyed last year acknowledged few situations in which they would not use a cellphone or text while behind the wheel. However, they supported measures to curb both practices, the Transportation Department said.

La Hood’s proposal recommends disabling in-vehicle electronic devices that the driver could use when a car is moving. This would cover text messaging, Internet browsing, and access to social media.  The National Transportation Safety Board also recommended in December that certain hands-free and communication devices be banned in cars.

Bicycle And Pedestrian Safety, Highway Safety, Safe Driving Tips

PA Bicycle Rules Change

PA Gets A Safe Passing Law

On February 2, 2012, Governor Corbett signed House Bill 170 into law, making a few changes to the rules of the road concerning bicycles.  PA’s new “Safe Passing” law is intended to protect bicyclists on the roads, and takes effect in 60 days.  Here’s what you need to know about the new law.

  • If you’re passing a bicyclist, you MUST leave at least 4 feet between your car and the bicycle, and you MUST pass at a reasonably reduced speed.  In other words, slow down and leave plenty of room when passing a bike.
  • As a car driver, you CANNOT interfere with the path of a bicyclist.  This means you CANNOT pass a bicyclist and then immediately turn right in front of them.  If you need to turn right, slow down and do so after the bike clears the intersection.
  • As a bicyclist, you MUST keep your bike as close to the right edge of the road as possible to allow faster traffic to safely move around you.
Community Outreach, Highway Safety, Safe Driving Tips

Super Bowl Safe

This Sunday, February 5, the Giants take on the Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI.  The game starts at 6:30PM and will air live on NBC.  For those of you planning to have a few drinks during the game, or know someone who will, please make sure you’ve got a designated driver you can trust before the game starts.

In 2010, fatalities in alcohol-impaired-driving crashes accounted for 31 percent of all motor vehicle traffic fatalities.

Fans Don't Let Fans Drive DrunkIf football fans plan to drink during the Super Bowl, designating a sober driver can help increase the chance of avoiding an alcohol-impaired-driving crash.

Let’s be clear – drunk or buzzed driving is not an accident, and it certainly isn’t a victimless crime.  10,228 people died in motor vehicle crashes in 2010 in which a driver had a B.A.C. over the legal limit.

There are just too many drivers out there who believe that having just a few drinks and getting behind the wheel of a vehicle is harmless. But numbers don’t lie.  Drinking and driving can result in loss of life or serious injury.  These not only affect the lives of the impaired driver but can affect other families as well.

When you choose to drink, drink responsibly, and pass your keys to a sober driver.  Driving impaired or riding with someone who is impaired is not worth the risk. If you know of someone who has been drinking and is planning to drive, please remember Fans Don’t Let Fans Drive Drunk.

Automotive Technology

Cars That Drive Themselves

The February 2012 issue of Wired Magazine features a cover story about cars that drive themselves.  No longer a technology of the future, these cars are actually here already, navigating themselves through busy rush hour freeway traffic at 70 miles per hour.  And they’re doing it more safely than the human beings around them.

Google's Self-Driving Car

These cars utilize everything from radar to laser arrays to identify and track targets around them, and they can make 20 threat assessments every second.  Recently, I had a high school class take a hazard perception challenge in which I showed them a slide for four seconds and then asked them three questions about what they saw.  Whines and grumbles flared up with the first question, as students complained that that wasn’t enough time.  I then showed them several video clips in which unrecognized threats turned into crashes in less than two seconds – the idea being to reinforce how every second counts when driving for survival.

But, 20 threat assessments each second?  If there’s a human mind capable of matching that, I’ve never been in its company.

I’m one of those people who loves to drive.  I prefer a standard transmission to an automatic and would rather be on a curvy mountain road alone than on a crowded freeway.  But I’m keenly aware most people don’t share my passion for it.  Most people use their car simply to get them from one place to another as quickly as possible.  For them, automatic transmissions, power steering, ABS, electronic stability control and even automated parallel parking are welcome conveniences, elements of the driving task they are happy to hand over to computer control.

Nevada has become the first state to pass laws concerning self-driving cars – they’re exempt from anti-texting laws, for one.  As the Wired author puts it, “Maybe the problem is not that texting and Facebook are distracting us from driving. Maybe the problem is that driving distracts us from our digital lives.”

Read the full WIRED article online here.

What would you prefer?

Would you rather sign off from your digital world for an hour at a time and tackle the physical and cognitive tasks required to drive safely, or would you prefer to select your destination and let the car handle getting you there while you multitask through your commute?

 

 

Highway Safety, Safe Driving Tips, Teens

Female Drunk Drivers On The Rise

According to a new study by the Traffic Injury Research Foundation, the number of female drivers arrested for drunk driving has more than doubled in the last twenty years.

In 1980, females accounted for just 9 percent of alcohol-related arrests.  By 2004, that number increased to 20 percent.

The report recommends ways to make it easier for females to participate in treatment programs, including providing child care and single-gender programs.

From the report: “Since the increase in female drunk driving behavior first garnered
attention in the late 1980s6, there have been three main hypotheses regarding factors associated with this phenomenon. These explanations center on changes in female roles in society, changes in social norms, and changes in social control mechanisms.”  You can read the full report here.

What do you think?  Why is drunk driving among females on the rise?

Highway Safety, PennDOT News, Teens

It’s Official: Texting Is Illegal

We’ve all seen that person in traffic texting away while driving, eyes down to their lap, working the wheel with their forearms or knees, blissfully unaware of their surroundings and the danger they themselves have become to everyone around them.

Effective March 8, 2012, it is illegal to send, read or write a text message while driving in PA.  Here are the details:

  • PRIMARY OFFENSE: Police can pull you over if they suspect you of texting while driving.
  • ALL IWCDs: The law includes smart phones, cell phones, tablets…anything wireless that can send/receive text messages.
  • INCLUDES EMAIL: So don’t read those while moving either.
  • APPLIES TO ALL DRIVERS: not just commercial operators.

It’s a $50 fine each time you get caught texting, which is a lesser penalty than living with the guilt if your distraction kills someone.  If you know someone who texts regularly while driving, pass this on to them.

Highway Safety, PennDOT News

PA Driving Laws Get Graded

The Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, an alliance between consumer, health and safety groups and insurance companies, recently released their 2012 Roadmap to State Highway Safety Laws.  This report grades each state on its performance in adopting critical highway safety laws.  How did Pennsylvania fare?

Each state earns a ranking based upon their commitment to improving laws in critical areas, as follows:

  • GREEN: Good
  • YELLOW: Caution (Needs Improvement)
  • RED: state falls dangerously behind

In 2011, Pennsylvania advanced from RED to YELLOW status because of the passenger restriction element of its new teen driver law and its new text message restriction on all drivers.

By comparison, most of our neighboring states perform much better – New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and the District of Columbia all have the highest rating, while Ohio and Virginia still rank in the red.  Check out the full report here.