For decades, millions of Americans have trusted Japanese automaker Toyota. They’ve bought Toyota’s cars and have made Toyota rich. And how has Toyota repaid them? With treachery. How so? Because Toyota knew that its cars had stuck accelerator defects in 2009, and it didn’t recall them until forced to do so by the U.S. government in 2010.
U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said as much this week when he revealed that it took considerable pressure from the government before Toyota would recall millions of cars in order to fix their gas pedals.
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Distracted drivers using cell phones to call or text killed about 6,000 Americans in car crash accidents last year. And more and more states are passing laws banning texting or calling when behind the wheel. Yet some results of such bans are not encouraging.
According to the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI), affiliated with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), no reduction in crashes occurred in New York, Connecticut, California and Washington, D.C. after bans on drivers using handheld cell phones took effect. This was based on assessing insurance claims for car crash damages.
Why? That’s a good question, since the link between cell phones and traffic deaths has been clearly established. One conclusion could be that fewer drivers in those states chose to heed the law and continued texting and talking, anyway.
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As the holiday season looms, drunk drivers lurk. They can come from anywhere — a home, a bar, an office, a holiday party — and can strike just as unexpectedly, killing and maiming innocent Americans. And it’s all because they choose to drink and drive — a willful act of horrendous negligence which causes about 30 per cent of all USA traffic fatalities per year.
Indeed, drunk driving accidents have killed more than half a million Americans since 1982. That’s more Americans than have been killed by foreign enemies in all wars since and including World War II.
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Last week’s national summit on distracted driving brought much needed attention to a malady that’s killing and maiming thousands of Americans. It seems cell phone calling and texting along with web surfing is an addiction, and people can’t seem to stop doing it, even when engaged in the most dangerous thing they do each day: driving.
Since it’s not enough to say “Hang up and drive” and expect everyone to do it, anymore than it’s not enough to say “Just say no” to drugs and expect everyone to do it, states are passing laws to, in effect, legislate common sense. Up to 18 states and the District of Columbia now have laws on the books making texting while driving illegal.
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Men have always been guilty of enormous wrongs as drunk drivers. No news there. But women are narrowing the gap rapidly, and that’s news — big news.
In fact, it’s alarming news, because if women drinkers become as dangerous on our roads and highways as men, then America’s carnage from drunk driving accidents is going to get far, far worse. And it’s bad enough already, with about 16,000 drunk driving deaths per year.
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State by state, Americans are standing up to resist today’s avalanche of driver distractions, largely spurred by the cell phone industry. And now the federal government is trying to help, too.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, on behalf of President Obama, is calling for a national summit of safety experts to address the explosion of irresponsible driving that’s accompanied the invention of cell phones and texting. Millions of Americans talk by cell and send texts while driving, and many of them have killed their fellow Americans in the process.
So far, 17 states and the District of Columbia have enacted laws making texting while driving illegal. Congress also is mulling legislation which would cut states’ highway funding by 25 per cent if they failed to pass such laws.
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Fatal traffic accidents involving a car, auto, truck, bus, motorcycle or other vehicles are declining in America. That’s the good news. The bad news is that at least 37,000 Americans still die on the USA’s roads and highways each year, and almost all of them die due to persistent and, in some ways, increasing driver errors.
Indeed, drivers are the most vital variable in car wrecks and other traffic accidents — not weather, defective parts or road conditions. Though such reasons and many others do arise in wrecks, most collisions continue to be due to drivers who — quite simply — make a momentary but lasting mistake.
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If terrorists were killing many thousands of Americans, injuring far more and causing billions of dollars in damages each year, something would be done about it. Sadly, homegrown “terrorists” are doing just that, and not enough is being done about it. These are the killers and destroyers also known as drunk drivers.
Drunk driving in America is a tragedy seemingly with no end. Though DUI or DWI accident fatalities have declined since as many as 26,000 died yearly three decades ago, the current annual death rate of around 16,000 is a horrendous price to pay for allowing drunks to roam freely on America’s roads and highways.
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Across America, motorcycle drivers and riders are dying or are being seriously injured on a daily basis, and for most it’s not because they weren’t wearing helmets, because they were. Nor is it because they failed to obey traffic signals and rules of the road.
Instead, it’s because today’s zoned-out, multi-tasking, in-a-hurry drivers of cars, autos, trucks and other larger vehicles aren’t paying enough attention. They’re too busy making cell phone calls or texts or are in too big of a rush, and they fail to note smaller motorcycles even though such cycles and their drivers are clearly visible.
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Obviously, a single car can cause great damage on our roads. But how much more damage can a semi truck, 18 wheeler, big rig or tractor trailer cause?
Lots more. Just take a look at Urbana, Ohio, where a semi truck rammed into a row of cars which had rightly stopped for a school bus which was letting off young passengers.
As is often the case in a semi truck accident, the large truck’s driver was not injured. Probably not even a scratch. But as is also the case so often, the innocent drivers and passengers of the cars struck by the big truck most definitely were injured.
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