From Vernal.com:
“I learned that I can’t really text while driving,” said Uintah High school student Staci Zapata. “I can’t lie, I think that I have texted once while driving. I usually have my sister text for me. But I will never do it again.”
Such were the comments from high school students who were able to test their texting skills while driving a golf cart through a marked, coned off corridor outside the high school.
Under the direction of Utah Highway Patrol Trooper Kason Goodrich, students were instructed to text a message into their phone while driving the course set up with stop signs, turns and corners.
“I hit 22 cones and ran two stop signs and a yield sign,” stated Kalab Ford. “I learned that you don’t text and drive. Someone can get hurt.”
Johnathan Vega stated that you shouldn’t text and drive as it is definitely a hazard.
Shae Galley earned the title of hitting the most cones – 33 – during her run at texting and driving the course. “This is something that is super super dangerous,” said Galley. “This is something that effects everyone. I believe that I am going to quit as of now.”
Trooper Goodrich explained that as part of the zero fatality program in Utah, texting and driving awareness is one of the training modules that is being taken to high schools throughout the state.
“Last week’s death in Jensen as well as another on in the Basin during the past year were caused by someone texting,” explained Goodrich. “Texting and driving is more dangerous than driving DUI and we need to get this message out, especially to the young people, even though more and more older people are now texting while driving.”
“We have students hitting as many as 33 cones here and these students are good texters!,” said Goodrich. “Texting while driving is just plain dangerous.”
After a crash that killed two scientists in Logan, plus many others involving distracted driving, Utah passed the nation’s toughest law to crack down on texting behind the wheel. Offenders now face up to 15 years in prison.
The new law took effect in May and penalizes a texting driver who causes a fatality as harshly as a drunken driver who kills someone. The law basically states that a crash caused by a multitasking motorist is no longer considered an “accident.” Instead, such a crash would now be considered inherently reckless driving.
“It’s a willful act,” said Lyle Hillyard, a Republican state senator and a big supporter of the new measure. “If you choose to drink and drive or if you choose to text and drive, you’re assuming the same risk.”
Goodrich stated that studies show that talking on a cellphone while driving is as risky as driving with a .08 blood alcohol level — generally the standard for drunken driving — and that the risk of driving while texting is at least twice that dangerous. Research also shows that many people are aware that the behavior is risky, but they assume others are the problem.
Now, in Utah, the law now assumes people understand the risks.
The law “is very noteworthy,” said Anne Teigen, a policy specialist with the National Conference of State Legislatures, an organization of state legislators. “They have raised the bar and said texting while driving is not just irresponsible, and it’s not just a bad idea — it is negligent.”
Ray LaHood, the transportation secretary, has said drivers should not text behind the wheel, and several United States senators recently introduced legislation to force states to ban texting while driving.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Teens learn dangers of texting
From The Spectrum:
ST. GEORGE - Three years ago, Reggie Shaw was responsible for the deaths of two men as he was sending and receiving text messages while driving in Cache County.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Distracted By A Cell Phone? Some Cell Phone Users Fail To See Unicycling Clown Passing Them
From ScienceDaily.com:
ScienceDaily (Oct. 19, 2009) — Everyone tends to float off into space once in a while and fail to see what is sitting there right in front of them. Recently researchers decided to put the theory of “inattentional blindness” to the test: the unicycling clown test. They documented real-world examples of people who were so distracted by their cell phone use that they failed to see the bizarre occurrence of a unicycling clown passing them on the street.
The study is published in an upcoming issue of Applied Cognitive Psychology.
Compared with individuals walking alone, in pairs, or listening to their ipod, cell phone users were the group most prone to oblivious behavior: only twenty-five percent of them noticed the unicycling clown. The walkers not using a cell phone noticed the clown over fifty-percent of the time.
Furthermore, the cell phone users had difficulties performing even the simple task of walking, an action that should require relatively few cognitive resources. They walked more slowly, changed direction more often, were prone to weaving, and acknowledged other individuals more rarely.
Dr. Ira E. Hyman, Jr. at Western Washington University, head researcher of the study, says: “If people experience so much difficulty performing the task of walking when on a cell phone just think of what this means when put into the context of driving safety. People should not drive while talking on a cell phone.” Furthermore, the research shows that the level of familiarity with the person’s real-world environment does not affect their attentional awareness.
ScienceDaily (Oct. 19, 2009) — Everyone tends to float off into space once in a while and fail to see what is sitting there right in front of them. Recently researchers decided to put the theory of “inattentional blindness” to the test: the unicycling clown test. They documented real-world examples of people who were so distracted by their cell phone use that they failed to see the bizarre occurrence of a unicycling clown passing them on the street.
The study is published in an upcoming issue of Applied Cognitive Psychology.
Compared with individuals walking alone, in pairs, or listening to their ipod, cell phone users were the group most prone to oblivious behavior: only twenty-five percent of them noticed the unicycling clown. The walkers not using a cell phone noticed the clown over fifty-percent of the time.
Furthermore, the cell phone users had difficulties performing even the simple task of walking, an action that should require relatively few cognitive resources. They walked more slowly, changed direction more often, were prone to weaving, and acknowledged other individuals more rarely.
Dr. Ira E. Hyman, Jr. at Western Washington University, head researcher of the study, says: “If people experience so much difficulty performing the task of walking when on a cell phone just think of what this means when put into the context of driving safety. People should not drive while talking on a cell phone.” Furthermore, the research shows that the level of familiarity with the person’s real-world environment does not affect their attentional awareness.
A close call for girls driving with cell phone
From JournalStar.com:
Rewind eight months to a cold, clear Monday night in February.
Connie Carroll and her neighbor are driving south on 27th Street after a PEO meeting.
Mario Scalora and his 13-year-old son are behind Carroll's car, headed home after soccer practice.
Rahela Vrazalica, 16, and her friend are driving in the opposite direction, toward her cousins' house.
The time hits 9:01, and through her Toyota SUV windshield, Carroll watches as the northbound car drifts, swerves and launches over the median - headed straight at her headlights.
Oh man, this is it.
Scalora watches, too, as the smaller car smashes head on into the larger one and the windshield on the smaller car -- a Toyota Corolla -- dents and pops with the pressure of the teenage passenger's face.
"I had to do a double take, to be honest."
Fast forward to an evening in early October. The teenage driver and passenger, Cheyenne Tontegode, are telling their story, sitting around the dining room table of Cheyenne's grandmother Connie Yost.
They don't remember much about the crash, the hours afterward or the next day when Rahela spent 13 hours in the operating room, and Cheyenne spent nine.
The police report lists texting as the cause.
The teens can't say exactly what started the sequence that led to serious injuries to four people.
But the two have no doubt a cell phone is what caused Rahela to turn her attention from the road.
You've likely seen the statistics.
And many of you probably have answered a ringing phone while behind the wheel, taking your eyes off the road to find it, pick it up, see who's calling, push a button, then divide your attention between the conversation and your driving.
Even talking on a hands-free device is said to have as much effect as driving with a .08 blood alcohol level - legally drunk in Nebraska.
Crashes caused by cell phone distractions are going up in Nebraska, from 117 in 2002 to 121 in 2007 and 141 in 2008. Forty-two of those in 2008 involved teens.
AAA Motor Club would like to see all states ban driver texting by 2013.
Eighteen states and the District of Columbia ban text messaging for all drivers. Nine states prohibit texting by young drivers.
In an August Harris survey, 80 percent of respondents supported legislation that would ban texting and e-mailing while driving. A little more than half said they would ban all cell phone use behind the wheel.
State Sen. John Harms of Scottsbluff says he is working on a bill to introduce in January that would ban texting by Nebraska drivers. He sees a lot of it in his drives between his home and Lincoln, he said.
"I don't think you can text message and drive," he said. "I just think it's time to (ban) it."
Harms succeeded in passing a law in 2007 - despite the governor's veto - that prohibits teenage drivers with a provisional operator's permit from using a cell phone while driving. It's a secondary offense, meaning a driver must first be ticketed for another traffic offense.
Gov. Dave Heineman didn't like the bill because, he said, it substituted the "wisdom, judgment and responsibility of parents with that of state government."
Rahela was ticketed after the wreck - for negligent driving.
As Rahela and Cheyenne tell their story, they pause every few minutes to remember another injury that resulted from the crash.
For Rahela: A concussion; damaged hip; broken leg, ankle, knee, ribs, nose and jaw; collapsed lungs; battered face; knocked-out teeth.
For Cheyenne: A leg bone split and crushed in 14 places; a face carved by windshield glass; glass in one eye; a broken nose; broken ribs; collapsed lung.
Cheyenne bit through her tongue, bending her tongue ring in half.
A relative spent four hours combing out her hair, matted with blood and glass, so she wouldn't have to cut it.
Cheyenne remembers asking a paramedic through a haze of sleepiness: Am I going to die?
She remembers his answer: I don't know.
She spent 10 days in the hospital. Rahela stayed two weeks, and then spent three months in a wheelchair.
Eight months later, Rahela's face is still numb on the left side. Her emotions are just now leveling off: A kid who reports she rarely cried before found herself crying for almost any reason. She can't walk too far without getting tired, and her hip grinds and hurts when she climbs stairs.
She's had three surgeries since getting out of the hospital.
Cheyenne's face is scarred, and her leg has a long red scar down the outside, and her bone is growing sideways.
"I have a lot of bad dreams about the car accident," she says. "I don't feel like the same person."
They missed three and a half months of school.
Cheyenne's medical bills totaled around $90,000. Rahela's were much more, with added hospital time and more surgeries.
Now, they say, they appreciate life, school and family more.
But their friends, who swore off texting while driving after the crash, have resumed it.
They forget.
As the teens continue their story, Cheyenne's grandmother joins in. She would like to see a law banning cell phone distractions while driving, and stiff penalties for violations.
Truthfully, she would welcome a minimum age of 18 to drive.
Rahela's mother, Mirsada, picks up an eight-month-old photo of her daughter's post-crash face.
One look still brings tears.
Witness Mario Scalora, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln psychology professor, was behind Connie Carroll's car when Rahela's car crashed into it. Across the lane, he saw the car drift toward the right, then dramatically overcorrect, going out of control and across the median.
"The people in the SUV had no time to react," he said.
From her 2008 Toyota Highlander, Carroll wondered: What's that driver doing? What's going on?
Then Rahela's car hit, pushing Carroll's engine under her car.
"I thought we were dying, that nobody could live through this," she said last week.
Carroll couldn't breathe at first, and her chest hurt. She heard her passenger, Jodene Pfeiffer, moaning.
"I was so scared for her," she said.
Carroll ended up with deep purple bruises on her chest where the airbag hit. The bags hit them both with such force the seat belts burned into their microfiber coats.
Pfeiffer had pins put in her left hand. Two small fingers were shattered.
Both are still getting physical therapy for broken hands.
"It's still scary at night to drive," Carroll says. "I see those headlights coming at me."
Many people have told Carroll they text and drive.
"I say, 'Don't do it.'"
The experience was a horrible way for the teens to learn the lesson, she says.
"A lot of prayers have been said for those girls on our end."
Rewind eight months to a cold, clear Monday night in February.
Connie Carroll and her neighbor are driving south on 27th Street after a PEO meeting.
Mario Scalora and his 13-year-old son are behind Carroll's car, headed home after soccer practice.
Rahela Vrazalica, 16, and her friend are driving in the opposite direction, toward her cousins' house.
The time hits 9:01, and through her Toyota SUV windshield, Carroll watches as the northbound car drifts, swerves and launches over the median - headed straight at her headlights.
Oh man, this is it.
Scalora watches, too, as the smaller car smashes head on into the larger one and the windshield on the smaller car -- a Toyota Corolla -- dents and pops with the pressure of the teenage passenger's face.
"I had to do a double take, to be honest."
Fast forward to an evening in early October. The teenage driver and passenger, Cheyenne Tontegode, are telling their story, sitting around the dining room table of Cheyenne's grandmother Connie Yost.
They don't remember much about the crash, the hours afterward or the next day when Rahela spent 13 hours in the operating room, and Cheyenne spent nine.
The police report lists texting as the cause.
The teens can't say exactly what started the sequence that led to serious injuries to four people.
But the two have no doubt a cell phone is what caused Rahela to turn her attention from the road.
You've likely seen the statistics.
And many of you probably have answered a ringing phone while behind the wheel, taking your eyes off the road to find it, pick it up, see who's calling, push a button, then divide your attention between the conversation and your driving.
Even talking on a hands-free device is said to have as much effect as driving with a .08 blood alcohol level - legally drunk in Nebraska.
Crashes caused by cell phone distractions are going up in Nebraska, from 117 in 2002 to 121 in 2007 and 141 in 2008. Forty-two of those in 2008 involved teens.
AAA Motor Club would like to see all states ban driver texting by 2013.
Eighteen states and the District of Columbia ban text messaging for all drivers. Nine states prohibit texting by young drivers.
In an August Harris survey, 80 percent of respondents supported legislation that would ban texting and e-mailing while driving. A little more than half said they would ban all cell phone use behind the wheel.
State Sen. John Harms of Scottsbluff says he is working on a bill to introduce in January that would ban texting by Nebraska drivers. He sees a lot of it in his drives between his home and Lincoln, he said.
"I don't think you can text message and drive," he said. "I just think it's time to (ban) it."
Harms succeeded in passing a law in 2007 - despite the governor's veto - that prohibits teenage drivers with a provisional operator's permit from using a cell phone while driving. It's a secondary offense, meaning a driver must first be ticketed for another traffic offense.
Gov. Dave Heineman didn't like the bill because, he said, it substituted the "wisdom, judgment and responsibility of parents with that of state government."
Rahela was ticketed after the wreck - for negligent driving.
As Rahela and Cheyenne tell their story, they pause every few minutes to remember another injury that resulted from the crash.
For Rahela: A concussion; damaged hip; broken leg, ankle, knee, ribs, nose and jaw; collapsed lungs; battered face; knocked-out teeth.
For Cheyenne: A leg bone split and crushed in 14 places; a face carved by windshield glass; glass in one eye; a broken nose; broken ribs; collapsed lung.
Cheyenne bit through her tongue, bending her tongue ring in half.
A relative spent four hours combing out her hair, matted with blood and glass, so she wouldn't have to cut it.
Cheyenne remembers asking a paramedic through a haze of sleepiness: Am I going to die?
She remembers his answer: I don't know.
She spent 10 days in the hospital. Rahela stayed two weeks, and then spent three months in a wheelchair.
Eight months later, Rahela's face is still numb on the left side. Her emotions are just now leveling off: A kid who reports she rarely cried before found herself crying for almost any reason. She can't walk too far without getting tired, and her hip grinds and hurts when she climbs stairs.
She's had three surgeries since getting out of the hospital.
Cheyenne's face is scarred, and her leg has a long red scar down the outside, and her bone is growing sideways.
"I have a lot of bad dreams about the car accident," she says. "I don't feel like the same person."
They missed three and a half months of school.
Cheyenne's medical bills totaled around $90,000. Rahela's were much more, with added hospital time and more surgeries.
Now, they say, they appreciate life, school and family more.
But their friends, who swore off texting while driving after the crash, have resumed it.
They forget.
As the teens continue their story, Cheyenne's grandmother joins in. She would like to see a law banning cell phone distractions while driving, and stiff penalties for violations.
Truthfully, she would welcome a minimum age of 18 to drive.
Rahela's mother, Mirsada, picks up an eight-month-old photo of her daughter's post-crash face.
One look still brings tears.
Witness Mario Scalora, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln psychology professor, was behind Connie Carroll's car when Rahela's car crashed into it. Across the lane, he saw the car drift toward the right, then dramatically overcorrect, going out of control and across the median.
"The people in the SUV had no time to react," he said.
From her 2008 Toyota Highlander, Carroll wondered: What's that driver doing? What's going on?
Then Rahela's car hit, pushing Carroll's engine under her car.
"I thought we were dying, that nobody could live through this," she said last week.
Carroll couldn't breathe at first, and her chest hurt. She heard her passenger, Jodene Pfeiffer, moaning.
"I was so scared for her," she said.
Carroll ended up with deep purple bruises on her chest where the airbag hit. The bags hit them both with such force the seat belts burned into their microfiber coats.
Pfeiffer had pins put in her left hand. Two small fingers were shattered.
Both are still getting physical therapy for broken hands.
"It's still scary at night to drive," Carroll says. "I see those headlights coming at me."
Many people have told Carroll they text and drive.
"I say, 'Don't do it.'"
The experience was a horrible way for the teens to learn the lesson, she says.
"A lot of prayers have been said for those girls on our end."
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Parents of Joseph Teater, killed in 2004 crash with cell-phone using driver, to speak at U.S. Distracted Driving Summit
From mlive.com:
GRAND RAPIDS — The parents of 12-year-old Joseph Teater, killed in a 2004 crash blamed on a driver talking on a cell phone, will speak today at the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Distracted Driving Summit in Washington, D.C.
David and Judy Teater will speak at a noon press conference on the first day of the summit.
Since the death of their son, a seventh-grader at Forest Hills Northern Middle School, the Spring Lake couple have worked to improve road safety. David Teater closed his automotive consulting business, and is now a spokesman for the National Safety Council and senior director of Transportation Initiatives, advocating for improvements in education, legislation and technology regarding cell-phone use while driving.
The aftermath of the 2004 crash that killed Joseph Teater, 12.
Judy Teater has testified before the state House Transportation Committee earlier this year in favor of measures to ban cell-phone use and text messaging while driving.
She was driving when her Chevrolet Suburban was struck by a Hummer H-2. The other driver, Holly Smeckert, 26, who pleaded guilty to negligent homicide, was distracted by a cell-phone conversation when she drove through a red light at Knapp Street NE and East Beltline Avenue.
Studies have shown cell-phone users are four times as likely to wind up on a crash as drivers not on the phone, and have found motorists on the phone as impaired as drunken drivers.
GRAND RAPIDS — The parents of 12-year-old Joseph Teater, killed in a 2004 crash blamed on a driver talking on a cell phone, will speak today at the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Distracted Driving Summit in Washington, D.C.
David and Judy Teater will speak at a noon press conference on the first day of the summit.
Since the death of their son, a seventh-grader at Forest Hills Northern Middle School, the Spring Lake couple have worked to improve road safety. David Teater closed his automotive consulting business, and is now a spokesman for the National Safety Council and senior director of Transportation Initiatives, advocating for improvements in education, legislation and technology regarding cell-phone use while driving.
The aftermath of the 2004 crash that killed Joseph Teater, 12.
Judy Teater has testified before the state House Transportation Committee earlier this year in favor of measures to ban cell-phone use and text messaging while driving.
She was driving when her Chevrolet Suburban was struck by a Hummer H-2. The other driver, Holly Smeckert, 26, who pleaded guilty to negligent homicide, was distracted by a cell-phone conversation when she drove through a red light at Knapp Street NE and East Beltline Avenue.
Studies have shown cell-phone users are four times as likely to wind up on a crash as drivers not on the phone, and have found motorists on the phone as impaired as drunken drivers.
Child killed in rollover crash, driver was reaching for cell phone
From khq.com:
GRANT COUNTY, Wash. - Two children were injured and another killed after their mother became distracted while reaching for her cell phone while driving.
Alma Rosa Avila-Juarez, 25, was driving with three of her children on Dodson Road when, according to Avila-Juarez, she became distracted while reaching for her phone.
The car she was driving drifted to the west side of Dodson Road and into the shoulder. Avila-Juarez attempted to correct the action and over-corrected losing control of her vehicle.
The car went off the road and rolled coming to rest at the bottom of a steep but short embankment.
Two of her children were properly restrained in booster seats, however 6-year-old Carla Morales was not properly seated in the appropriate child restraint and was partially ejected during the rollover.
All four of the victims in the crash were attended to by passing motorists and CPR was attempted on 6-year old Carla but she died at the scene.
The other children suffered injuries but none were life threatening along with their mother and they were transported to Samaritan Hospital in Moses Lake for treatment.
GRANT COUNTY, Wash. - Two children were injured and another killed after their mother became distracted while reaching for her cell phone while driving.
Alma Rosa Avila-Juarez, 25, was driving with three of her children on Dodson Road when, according to Avila-Juarez, she became distracted while reaching for her phone.
The car she was driving drifted to the west side of Dodson Road and into the shoulder. Avila-Juarez attempted to correct the action and over-corrected losing control of her vehicle.
The car went off the road and rolled coming to rest at the bottom of a steep but short embankment.
Two of her children were properly restrained in booster seats, however 6-year-old Carla Morales was not properly seated in the appropriate child restraint and was partially ejected during the rollover.
All four of the victims in the crash were attended to by passing motorists and CPR was attempted on 6-year old Carla but she died at the scene.
The other children suffered injuries but none were life threatening along with their mother and they were transported to Samaritan Hospital in Moses Lake for treatment.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
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