Better News!

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has been counting and projecting again, and the results are excellent. We the drivers of America are buckling up more and killing fewer of one another on the road. Yay! Mother R is so proud of us that she is not even going to crab about our making many of the alarming statistics in her book out of date.

I will only bore you with a few of the new facts (see Traffic Safety Facts for more), such as seat belt use increasing by a measly 1% to a grand total of 84%. That's nice, but you can do better, and that's exactly what I expect for the next report. Don't make me tell you again! But I will tell you that traffic deaths have declined by a whopping 7% in the first half of 2009 as compared to the same period in 2008. Good job, salubrious drivers!

Good news!

Well, old news, but still very good!

Mother R doesn't have to tell you that texting is popular, and that doing it while you're driving is not safe, now does she? Of course not! And how many of you are still doing it anyway? Yeah, I thought so.

It's encouraging to see that state traffic regulators are jumping on this important safety issue by enacting bans, but there's considerable concern that such rules will be difficult to enforce. Huh. Imagine drivers ignoring the law! Do we ignore speed limits, cell phone and seat belt rules or stop signs? OK, so they have a point.

Which brings us to Mother Rider's basic safety rule motto, which is:
We should be smart enough to do the right thing without being told!

Still, there are a bunch of techie folks out there who think we need extra help and are hard at work creating apps that will prevent texting in a moving vehicle using GPS technology, or making it safer to do with voice recognition technology. Check it out in this WSJ article: Firms Racing to End Texting and Driving

And in the meantime, will you please just listen to Mother and don't do it! Thank you, dears.