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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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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Bruce Westbrook 18 wheeler, auto accident, big rig, car accident, cell phone accident, semi truck, tractor trailer, traffic accident, truck accident texting accident
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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Bruce Westbrook auto accident, car accident, cell phone accident, traffic accident cell phone accident, texting accident
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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