H. Luiz Presents...

Previous Post: HOPE FOR HAITI NOW…   Next Post: Super Bowl Sunday!!

Oprah’s No Texting Campaign

I just watched the Big O (a DVR’d episode) where 71% of people between the ages of 18-49 admitted that they text on the phone when they drive – WHAT????

Is this true?? Please tell me it’s not! If it is true, please knock it off…it can save lives (even your own.)  Nearly 500,000 people are injured and 6,000 are killed each year because drivers are talking, texting and e-mailing behind the wheel…each year!

Sometimes, (not often, but sometimes) I do have conversations on my mobile phone while driving. This is also known as “distracted driving” and it leads to accidents and deaths and I WILL stop! I use to think, “I’m a great multi-tasker, I can handle driving a 2,945-pound car plus carry a conversation on my phone, right?” – DEAD WRONG!

In 2008, two days before Thanksgiving, a little 9-year-old girl named Erica was 15 bike pedals away from her home (about 30 seconds) when a 5,000-pound SUV hit little Erica – head on!! Police say that the driver had recently finished a phone call at the time of the accident. The driver stated that she was sorry and that she didn’t see the young child on her bike because she was on the phone. Little Erica died.

Now, I’m hearing that people TEXT while driving? I’m so naive! I have never seen anyone do that before (maybe it was one of those times that I was talking on the phone and never noticed.) I gather if I think/thought that I could “talk and drive” why wouldn’t people think they could “text and drive,” especially when there’s texting all around our everyday lives.

Do you remember back in September 2008, a Los Angeles commuter train conductor missed a red light while sending and receiving more than 40 text messages? Well, he and 24 others were killed (135 seriously injured) when the packed passenger train collided head-on with a freight train. It was the second worst commuter train crash in U.S. history.

Weeks later, a school bus carrying 21 students was rear-ended by an 18-wheel semi truck. The bus was pushed more than 200 feet before bursting into flames. Twenty students escaped, but 13-year-old Margay Schee was killed. The truck driver admitted he had been texting and hadn’t seen that the bus was stopped.

We think we can do this, but we cannot. We are not perceptually programmed to take-in information that we “see” when driving while carrying conversations on the phone (even with a blue tooth or other hands free device.) Our perceptions are twice as deluded when we text and drive (I mean, you’re reading a small screen instead of watching the road…what the hell is that?)

Here are some facts: Driving while talking on a mobile phone makes you 4 times as likely to be in an accident. Driving while “texting” makes you 8 times as likely to be in an auto accident (the equivalent of having FOUR drinks of alcohol.)

Oprah is asking you to please make a pledge http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/End-Distracted-Driving

I am asking you to just make a promise…Please: DO NOT USE YOUR MOBILE PHONES WHILE DRIVING – EVER! (I promise too!)

 

 

Please retweet this…I have a retweet button on the upper right of this post (and every post.)

Tags: Deaths, Driving, H. Luiz, Oprah, Texting