Two disturbing reports out this week point out the dangers faced by children
while riding in cars.
The National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration said that more than a third of
children under age 13 who died in passenger vehicle crashes in 2011 were not in
car seats or wearing seat belts.
Mothers Against Drunk
Driving said that during that same year, 20% of fatalities (226 deaths) of children under age 15 -- were a result of drunk driving
crashes. It’s probably a good guess that in many of these accidents, the
adult driver was too inebriated to remember to buckle up young children safely.
“Drunk driving with a child passenger is a form of child abuse and no child
should ever be put in that kind of danger, especially by those entrusted to
keep them safe,” said Jan Withers, MADD national president.
Car crashes remain a leading cause of death for children.
"Regardless of the size of the vehicle, the age of the child or the
length of the trip, children should always be properly restrained in a car
seat, booster or seat belt," said NHTSA Administrator David Strickland.
"Car seats, when correctly installed and used, provide proven life-saving
and injury-reducing benefits for child passengers."
The agency said that on average, almost two children under age 13 were
killed and 338 were injured daily while riding in cars.
Drivers don’t seem to understand the importance of child restraints in big
vehicles. For example, 24% of the fatalities were of children riding in
passenger cars. That rose to 40% for vans, 43% for pickup trucks and 55% for
sport utility vehicles.
ARIZONA
LAW:
Do you know that Arizona requires that all front seat
passengers be seat belted?
Do you know that Arizona law requires that children 16 and
under be seat belted, no matter whether they are in the front or rear seat, and
that the law puts the responsibility on the driver of the vehicle they are
riding in?
Be responsible. Your kids are too young to know the
importance of wearing seat belts. It is YOUR responsibility as a driver,
and a parent, to look out for their safety. If they are unbelted, and
injured by another driver’s fault, could you be held partially liable?
Under Arizona law, you bet. Don’t take that chance.
Insurance companies say you need to watch out because the next time you get
in a wreck, it may all be a part of a scam. According to insurance
companies, it's all a part of a new rising trend of staged auto
accidents.
Supposedly, these kinds of accidents are when the car in
front of you unexpectedly slams on their brakes, just to the point where you
can't stop without hitting them. The scammer then claims fake injuries and car
damage against your insurance company.
Is this real? Likely, no.
I am not suggesting that is does not happen, however, the
chances of this being the causes of any accident you see or hear of? Less
than 1%. In fact, far less than 1%.
Why then do insurance companies tell us otherwise? Answer: Pure
profit.
In order to make the public question claims, even valid, true claims, the
insurance companies need to get people thinking skeptically. They need
you to believe thus is a big problem. In fact, it is not. Not even
close. But people believe it. They are conditioned, and with your
mind on it, the next accident you see or hear about ready has you thinking
"fraud". The end result? The true victims cannot get
fair trials because of the adverse conditioning. The awards at trial are
less--sometimes not even enough to pay medical bills.
Who wins? You guessed it: The insurance companies. Period.
Suggestion: If you are ever called upon to serve on a jury, leave any
preconceived notions at home, and give BOTH sides a fair assessment. No
one asks for any more than that--except for insurance companies. They try
to stack the deck. Don't let this happen.
Remember, the next person it could happen to is you.
For state officials it’s House Bill 2170, but to Butch Bates it’s
Elizabeth’s Law.
That’s because five years ago he lost his granddaughter and he proposed this
new law in the hopes that what happened to Elizabeth will never happen again.
“She was vibrant. She would walk in a room and the lights would come on,
that’s just how she was.” said Bates.
Elizabeth was hit by a truck and killed while she was getting off a bus. The
truck driver didn’t stop and didn’t have to at the time because Arizona law
didn’t require drivers to wait for stopped buses on private roads.
A loophole Bates says he was determined to close.
“That’s a promise that we made Elizabeth when she passed away,” said Bates.
Working together with attorney Marc Lamber, Craig Bates and his family
drafted a new law.
It took nearly five years but HB 2170 went into effect Friday morning. HB
2170 requires all vehicles to stop for school buses on every road. The law
before didn't require vehicles to stop on rural roads.
“We did this because we don’t want your family or anybody else’s family to
go through what we had to go through. We lost Elizabeth,” said Bates.
Every parent wants to ensure
their child is safely secured when traveling in a car, but a recent study by
The National Safe Kids Campaign estimates only 15 percent of car seats are
installed correctly.
Child
Passenger Safety Week continues through Saturday, Sept. 21, and Scottsdale Fire
Department is offering tips for parents on proper child car-seat installation:
Parents
should test the store‘s floor sample of car seats in their vehicle before
purchasing one. Some car seat models simply do not fit in certain cars. They
should also understand where the vehicle manufacturer has approved car seats to
be placed.
When
installing the seat, less than an inch of movement from side-to-side should be
maintained. The harness strap should be snug, and the harness clip at armpit
level.
Although
Arizona law requires children under 8 to remain in a booster seat, a child’s
height is a better reference than their age. A minimum height of 4 feet, 9
inches is ideal for fitting in a regular seatbelt.
The U.S. Department of Transportation reported that nearly 33,000 people
died in car crashes in the U.S. in 2010. While this number represents the
fewest people killed in crashes in a single year since 1950, it also represents
an average of 90 lives needlessly lost daily on roads across the country.
Locally, more than 760 people died in car crashes in Arizona in 2010. This
marks a decrease of more than five percent over the year prior, but also
represents an average of two lives lost daily on our state’s roads.
“We’re moving in the right direction when it comes to safety on our roads but
we need to do much more. That’s why AAA is urging motorists to take the first
step and make a personal goal to be a safe driver in 2012,” said Linda Gorman,
director of communications and public affairs for AAA Arizona.
A recent survey by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety confirms that
Americans desire a greater level of safety than they now experience on our
roads. Yet, many admit that they are part of the problem.
Below are tips to help you drive safer and smarter.
Slow
down.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA),
speed is a factor in one in three fatal crashes.
Startling
statistic:
74 percent of drivers consider it unacceptable for a driver to drive more
than 15 mph over the speed limit on a freeway, yet 52 percent admit to
having done so in the past month.
Ditch
distractions.
Any behavior that causes a driver to take their eyes off the road, hands
off the wheel and mind off the task at hand is considered a distraction.
Texting requires all three of these things, making it the most dangerous
distraction of all.Startling statistic:
The majority of drivers—94 percent—agree that texting is a serious threat
to their safety, yet more than 35 percent admit to reading a text or email,
and 26 percent admit to sending a message while driving in the past
month.
Stop
on red.
According to the Red Means Stop Coalition, there are about 8,000 red-light
and stop sign-related crashes each year across the state. Startling statistic: 94
percent of drivers view red light running as unacceptable, yet more than
one in three drivers admit doing just that in the past month.
Buckle
up.
NHTSA reports that seatbelts save more than 13,000 lives each year.
However, in order to be effective, this life saving device must be used
each and every time a person drives or rides in a motor vehicle. In
Arizona, 35 percent of those killed in crashes in 2010 were unrestrained,
according to the Arizona Department of Transportation.
Startling
statistic:
Nearly 1 in 4 drivers said they had driven without wearing their seatbelt
in the last month.
As a phoenix car accident lawyer, the statistics are alarming in regards to car accidents and distracted driving. There is no excuse for it. Please always drive safe and smart when out on the roads.
Even with many safety
measures in place, experts say there’s no way to foolproof a ballpark or arena
against falls like the one that killed a Braves fan at a game in Atlanta, or
recently, a 49ers fan in San Francisco.
In August, Ronald Homer fell 85 feet to his death after tumbling over a
fourth-level railing at Turner Field. Though police said the 30-year-old’s
death appeared to be an accident, it was one of more than two dozen cases of
fans falling at stadiums since 2003, according to the Institute for the Study
of Sports Incidents. Three of the falls occurred within the last year alone in Atlanta,
at Turner Field and the Georgia Dome. But that doesn’t mean something is wrong
with the Atlanta stadiums, said Alana Penza, director of the institute, which
is part of the National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security, based
at the University of Southern Mississippi.
“The
reality of it is, Turner Field has had two major incidents in the past five
years,” Penza said. “When it results in a death, it always makes you look at
change. … But it’s also, in the simplest terms, an accident often.”
On Sunday, I happened again, in San
Francisco. San Francisco police spokesman Gordon Shyy told the Associated
Press that multiple people saw the male fan fall from the Jamestown walkway,
which goes around the stadium, onto the sidewalk shortly after kickoff at 1:30
p.m. local time. Witnesses said the man appeared to be intoxicated.
Though teams and municipalities
can build stadiums in the design of their choosing, all must meet strict safety
guidelines. The International Building Code is the industry standard, adopted
in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. It calls for railings in front
of seats to be a minimum of 26 inches. Protective railings in open-sided areas,
such as concourses on the outer edges of stadiums, have a minimum height
requirement of 42 inches.
“It’s sad
to say someone could lose their life and not yield some lesson for the rest of
us, but this one is pretty close based on the initial reports,” said Steve Adelman,
an attorney who is considered an authority on venue safety and security. “It’s
just a tragedy.”
An
Associated Press reporter on Tuesday measured the guard rail of the smoking
platform where Homer stood before he fell, and it was 42 inches. That would
reach the top of the stomach on a 6-foot man. Homer was 6-foot-6.
“Was it
adequate? Certainly,” said Adelman, who is based in Scottsdale, Ariz. “The
venue has a legal duty to erect and maintain railings that are high enough to
keep people reasonably safe, given their reasonably foreseeable conduct at the
venue. … Because it’s not very common to be standing at a railing nowhere near
the playing field and, for some reason, lean over and fall — there is no other
instance of it happening in the last 20 years — the venue doesn’t have a legal
duty to create safety mechanisms to prevent something which doesn’t happen.”
Most
ballparks go beyond the minimum requirements, Adelman said. When the Miami
Marlins were building their new ballpark, which opened in 2012, building
inspectors recommended raising the height of some railings, he said.
“People
don’t understand how much it takes to get a major league event off the ground,”
Adelman said. “These buildings don’t go up overnight. Many, many, many people
have to sign off on different aspects of a stadium that will be the centerpiece
and crown jewel of a municipality. There are city building inspectors up and
down who are looking at these buildings at every stage of construction.
“There is
never a time when railing heights are lowered,” he added.
At
Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Texas, the guard rails in front of the
left-field seats were 34 inches, well above local and international building
requirements. Yet that didn’t prevent firefighter Shannon Stone’s fatal fall in
July 2011, when he reached out to catch a ball tossed his way by then-Texas
outfielder Josh Hamilton. Stone’s accident was witnessed by his 6-year-old son.
After
Stone’s fall, the Rangers raised all front-row railings that were above field
level to at least 42 inches, with some being raised by more than a foot. (There
were already 42-inch rails at the base of steps leading to first-row seats, and
all along the second deck of seats high above right field in an area known as
the Home Run Porch.) The new raised railings in the $1.1 million project
included beveled tops and leaned slightly inward, making it safer for fans in
front-row seats throughout the stadium.
“We take
it seriously,” Rangers general manager Jon Daniels said Tuesday. “We’ve had
outside people come in and evaluate it. Obviously, we raised the railings and
have done a lot to make people aware, both our employees, and our fans, but
(Homer’s death) that’s tough. … That’s tough to hear.”
Even with
guard rails, netting, enclosed walkways and any number of other safety
measures, Adelman said the best protection for fans will always be common
sense.
“This is
going to sound so obvious: Be careful. Be aware of your limitations. Be aware
of the space around you,” he said. “If you’re someone who doesn’t have the
greatest body control, don’t go leaning over things where you could have a bad
result if you fall. Watch your kid. Keep them close to you. The advice is
really just be aware of your surroundings and don’t take needless risks.”
Steven
Davidson, who was taking in a Yankees game Tuesday with his 13-year-old son,
agreed.
“You
wouldn’t lean too far over the Grand Canyon or over Niagara Falls,” he said.
“So why do it at a sporting event?”
Fewer teens have been putting themselves in the driver’s seat and obtaining
a license.
One in three teens nationwide now waits to get his or her license until
turning 18, according to a new study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.
This trend also holds true with Arizona teens. Since 2008, there has been a
more than 3 percent drop statewide in 16- to 18-year-olds getting their
license, according to the most recent data from Arizona Department of Transportation
(ADOT).
“The costs of gas prices and maintaining a car are causing teens to delay
licensure,” said Linda Gorman, director of communications and public affairs
for AAA Arizona. “As a leader in driver safety, we encourage teens to educate
themselves before they do get that license.”
According to ADOT, fewer teens also have been killed in fatal crashes since
2008. In 2008, 81 teens were killed in a crash in Arizona, compared to 56 teens
in 2012. Many experts believe the drop in crashes has been helped from
instituting graduated driver’s licensing, which became law in 2008 in Arizona.
As an advocate for the safety and the security of the motoring public, AAA
Arizona offers free and low-cost education opportunities for budding drivers.
This year, more than 800 teens and their parents have attended AAA Arizona’s Permit Prep
101, a free 90-minute workshop that helps prepare teens to take the driving
test.
According to AAA traffic safety experts, the top five reasons teens
are delaying licensure are:
Lack
of resources:
Many teens don’t have someone to teach them, access to a car or can’t
afford a driving school.
Daunting
costs:
Maintenance, gas and insurance often are beyond a teen’s means.
The
intimidation factor: Other drivers and driving conditions frighten some
teens.
Parental guidance: Many
parents would rather drive their kids rather than give them the keys.
No
need:
With the increasing popularity of cell phones and social media, there’s no
need to go over to friends’ houses or the mall.
It is a different world, that’s for
sure. I think that I was waiting outside the MVD for the doors to open to
get my license on my 16th birthday.
But if you need another reason not to text while driving: Teens report that if their parents drive
distracted, then they think it okay to do so too.
In a recent study by “Students Against Destructive
Decisions” and Liberty Mutual, 66% of teens surveyed said that their parents
texted, talked on the phone, or participated with another distracting activity
while driving.
To give you an idea of just how dangerous texting and
driving can be, here are some statistics from 2012 alone.
- Those who text while driving increase their
chances of an accident 23 times more than those who aren’t.
- 18 percent of fatalities from distraction
related accidents are caused by cell phones.
- 30 percent of teens text while driving
- 55 percent of young adult drivers think that it
is easy to text while driving and still pay attention to the road.
- According to a car and driver study, a driver’s
reaction time while reading and sending texts was worse than someone who was
drinking and driving.
Do as I say, not as I
do?? Doesn’t work here.
Set the example. Put
down the phone while driving.
Though there is a stigma about older drivers being
"unsafe" on roads, studies actually show that older drivers are some
of the safest drivers on the road today. By 2030, 1 out of 5 drivers will be 65
years of age or older.
“Though the natural changes that occur with age can have an adverse impact
on one’s driving ability, decades of road experience makes older drivers’
statistically one of the safest groups on the road,” said Linda Gorman,
director of communications and public affairs for AAA Arizona. “As an advocate
for the motoring public, AAA believes it is important for senior drivers to
learn how to compensate for those changes so that they can stay on the road
longer and safer.”
Below
are myths that are commonly associated with “old” drivers.
MYTH:
The fewer older drivers, the safer the roadways
FACT: While there’s no such
thing as the perfect driver, senior drivers tend to be safer drivers. In
fact, ages 64 to 69 are statistically the safest drivers on the road,
according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. With
their experience, seniors are less likely to drive distracted or impaired;
tend to drive when conditions are safest; and don’t take as many risks,
such as not driving at night.
MYTH:
Older drivers are resistant to changes in driving laws.
FACT: Though such laws as
seat-belt use weren’t enacted for decades after many older drivers
received their licenses, seniors are the most likely to buckle up – and
therefore model safe driving habits to their passengers. In fact, 77 percent
of older motor vehicle occupants (drivers and passengers) involved in
fatal crashes were wearing seat belts at the time of the crash, compared
to 63 percent for adult occupants (18 to 64 years of age).
MYTH:
Aging makes most older adults high-risk drivers.
FACT: While specific abilities
needed to drive safely, such as vision, memory, strength, reaction time
and flexibility, decline as we age, the rate of change varies greatly.
Many older drivers do not differ significantly from middle-age drivers in
their driving skills. However, it’s important that senior drivers
recognize changes as they age and take advantage of resources to help
combat them.
“A lot of misconceptions remain about older drivers,” Gorman said. “Through
workshops, such as Safe Driving for Mature Drivers, AAA is working to educate
motorists on the strengths and weaknesses of drivers of any age.”
Drivers with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder are some of
the worst drivers. ADHD is a condition which results in restlessness and
a need to constantly be doing something. Driving while texting? Right
up an ADHD's patient's alley, and we know, texting only compounds their
problems on the road.
Texting behind the wheel is so distracting it makes
normal teens drive as poorly. Those who have ADHD are much more
dangerous. According to statistics, as many as 11 million people in the
United States are affected by ADHD, to varying degrees. It is now well
known that ADHD affects kids and adults.
"Texting is on a different order of magnitude compared to
other distractions. It's a concern for drivers across the board, and people
with ADHD are at that much greater risk," said Dr. Andrew Adesman,
chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Steven and Alexandra Cohen
Children's Medical Center of New York, in New Hyde Park.
Adesman has studied the problem of texting and driving in teens,
but was not involved in the current research. About half of teenagers admit to
texting behind the wheel, according to a study published recently in the
journal Pediatrics.
About 6.4 million U.S. children under age 18 have received a
diagnosis of ADHD at some point in their lives, U.S. health officials say. For
the new study, published online Aug. 12 in the journal JAMA Pediatrics,
researchers recruited 61 drivers who were 16 and 17 years old. About half of
them had the disorder.
Kids with ADHD are frequently prescribed stimulant medication to
control symptoms such as inattention and impulsivity. But since researchers say
most teens drive at night and on the weekends, times when they are least likely
to be medicated, the teen drivers were asked not to take the drugs.
All the teens operated a driving simulator for 40 minutes. For
about half the time, researchers let them drive through urban and rural
conditions without any distractions. For two 10-minute periods, they drove
while talking on a cellphone or while texting with a researcher who was asking
them questions from another room.
Overall, teens with ADHD had significantly more trouble staying
in their lanes and maintaining a constant speed than kids with normal attention.
On average, they drifted out of their lanes 1.8 percent of the time.
Their driving records appeared to reflect these difficulties.
About 17 percent of teens with ADHD had received at least one traffic ticket
compared to 6 percent of those without the disorder.
And when they were asked to text, their driving problems nearly
doubled. They strayed across the lane line or onto the shoulder about 3.3
percent of the time.
"That's just a heck of a lot of time for a kid or any driver
to be out of their lane when they're driving," said study author Jeffery
Epstein, director of the center for ADHD at Cincinnati Children's Hospital
Medical Center in Ohio.
The impairments of texting were evident for all drivers. When
teens without ADHD were asked to text, they spent about 2 percent of their
driving time creeping out of their lanes, which made their distraction as
severe as those with an ADHD diagnosis.
"All the kids need to stop texting behind the wheel,"
Epstein said. "The impact of texting is just so big that for these kids to
be texting behind the wheel just poses such a danger to themselves as well as
other drivers that there just needs to be not only a policy of stopping texting
behind the wheel but also enforcement," he said.
Parents play a big role in reining in the problem. Adesman
recommends that parents print out and get teens to sign an online pledge, such
as the one available from the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,
and use it as a way to start a conversation about the problem.
Also recommended: cellphone apps or easy-to-install devices for
cars that will shut a phone off when they detect that the car is moving,
Adesman said.
The attention troubles of ADHD are harder to tackle, but Epstein
said he's testing behavioral interventions that he hopes will help.
"The deficit that kids with ADHD seem to have is that they
tend to let their eyes look away from the roadway for longer glances than do
experienced drivers," he explained.
Epstein said that eye-tracking systems that sound an alarm or
cause the car seat to vibrate when drivers look away from traffic for longer
than two seconds may help kids become more aware of the problem and help them
self-correct.
"Those are the sorts of things that would be interesting if
they work out," he said.
