Young Driver Scare Tactics: The Grim Reaper

At high school several (ahem) years ago, a police officer visited our class to scare the shit out of us. He brought along a slideshow which might have been entitled “100 ways to die in a gruesome fashion while driving”. (Though was probably called “young driver education.”)

Visual `highlights’ included human brain lying on the asphalt and the close-up of the charred corpse of an (ex)-driver who slammed into an electricity pole and got fried. One teen in the class had to leave because he almost passed out. Yup, the police frightened us into good driving.

More recently I completed my mandatory hours of driver’s ed to get a Connecticut driver’s license. The shock tactics are still in play.

The class instructor defied us to stay tear-free as we watched a short film examining the aftermath of a drink-driving accident, which featured the families that were destroyed. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room. I’m almost welling-up now thinking about the dad talking at his son’s funeral. Yup, the tactics worked again. (Not that I’m a drink-driver, but it just reminded me why it’s such a terrible risk.)

The local high school has a different take on making the risks real. Last week,  it held “Grim Reaper Day” to bring home the dangers of drink-driving. At intervals throughout the day (representing every 48 minutes that a person in the U.S. is killed in an alcohol-related car accident), a volunteer teen was pulled out of their classroom to be a victim of drink-driving. A police officer and EMT described to the class how their classmate died. The volunteer was painted up like a corpse and remained silent for the rest of the school day.

(Timed for the cusp of prom season and graduation, it’s the 10th year of Grim Reaper Day at Staples High School. Read more here).

It’s hard to gauge what impact the Grim Reaper has on students. Professor Paul Atchley of the Department of Psychology at the University of Kansas, told Dreadful Drivers that empathy is key to being effective.

“Fear appeals don’t typically work well, especially for younger adults.  But if they empathize with the victim or the perpetrator, an appeal has a greater effect.”

I hope that the Grim Reaper hit a nerve with the high-schoolers.  Drive safe, kids.

 

Drink Driving Checkpoint Genius. Or Not…..

Memorial Day is around the corner and to many people that means a long weekend of sunshine (let’s hope) and plenty of adult beverages.

Well, drinkers, here’s the bad news for you: the police in Norwalk are setting up a checkpoint to catch drivers who are over the limit.

Amber nectar (for adults only)

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But here’s the good news: the police have announced where the checkpoint will be and precisely when it will be.

Genius!!

So the only drunk drivers that the cops are going to catch are a/ the people who didn’t hear about the checkpoint and b/ the people who did hear about it beforehand but got too drunk to remember.

According to the news item, the checkpoint is paid for by a federal grant with the condition that the public is informed ahead of time. Great job, Department of Transportation.

Excuse me while I go crack some heads together.

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As a footnote, I wish that the Norwalk cops were on the Merritt Parkway last night. At 8:45 pm – it’s dark!! – a woman in an SUV is merrily doing 60+mph with no headlights. Please can someone take her license away, and that of her adult front-seat passenger who also didn’t care to notice that they were in stealth mode. Plain stupid.

Finding the trigger to prevent more tragedies

The 16-year-old driver who was using her cellphone when she knocked down and killed a jogger in Norwalk in March, was charged with negligent homicide this week. The high-schooler could spend up to a year in jail if convicted, reports say.

The father of the jogger says he is struggling with the fact that his son was killed through stupidity. The girl also has to pay the price for her stupidity. Her own and her family’s lives are damaged forever. Because of a cellphone and a mistake.

Can anything positive come out of the tragedy?

If other people change their behavior because of this terrible incident, then yes. Lives could be saved if other people put down their phones when they’re driving.

But sometimes a tragedy like this won’t be the trigger.

This letter from a college student to her psychology professor describes how, even after the deaths of three high school classmates in distracted driving accidents, she continued to text and drive. It was only during a college class with her professor that she decided to change her ways.

It’s not always clear what the spur will be for any particular individual to alter their behavior.

Perhaps the young woman who killed the jogger can herself be the trigger. She can talk to her peers at any number of high schools: “This happened to me. It could happen to you.” Hearing about the traumatic event and after-effects from the protagonist might be more effective for students than reading about it on the internet and talking about it in school hallways. And maybe those high school kids could persuade their parents to put down their phones too, because this is not a problem exclusive to teenagers.

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Use of cellphones is, for a large portion of society,  highly addictive during all waking hours. (And for me too). So let’s liken it to smoking or alcoholism. A smoker isn’t going to quit lighting up in their car just because there’s a law against it; and a hard drinker is still going to get behind the wheel even if they’ve had a few.

So let’s deal with cellphone addiction: we need to learn how to put the smartphone away for short periods every day. And then being without the devices while driving won’t seem like such a trial. And we can get our priorities right while driving.

Open Letter to Moms in the School Parking Lot

Dear Moms

I am writing this letter to you now, before it’s too late.

I see you in the elementary school parking lot  and you’re driving and maneuvering your vehicle while you’re talking on a cellphone.

PLEASE STOP.

Just for a moment, consider what you know about little kids. And you know them best, after all. They are unpredictable, they are quick and they are little.

It only takes a second for one of them to be behind your car (or truck) as you’re reversing out of a space, or swinging into one.

Do you really want to take a chance by not concentrating 100 percent on what you’re doing? Driving while using a cell-phone (even a hands-free) makes you as impaired as a drunk driver according to University of Utah research. You wouldn’t drive drunk in the school parking lot would you?

There are so many things to watch out for in a school parking lot, especially at pick-up and drop-off times: other drivers in a hurry, kids yelling, school employees giving directions. Please don’t impede your ability to drive safely by adding the distraction of a phone conversation. So please hang up your call before you get to school; and don’t start one as soon as you get back in your car.

There is no conversation that’s important as the physical well-being of a child.

Please put down the phone.

A Concerned Parent

There’s Dreadful, Then There’s Irish Road-Racing Dreadful

There’s dreadful and then there’s holy-cow-i-can’t-believe-they’re-racing-horse-buggies-into-oncoming-traffic-on-a-busy-road dreadful.

Fairfield County drivers have got nothing on this pair of fools in the south of Ireland.

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The YouTube footage is more than six minutes long, but really it only takes a few seconds to grasp the hair-raising idiocy of racing two sulkies (horse buggy with only a seat, frame and two wheels) along the main road between Cork and Mallow. The garda (Irish police) car is doing its darndest to bring one of the buggies to a stop, but hell, those horses are light-footed.

(The episode was filmed by the jockeys’ buddies, who are egging them on and themselves driving insanely. Good luck understanding a word they’re saying). The Irish Times report says one man has been arrested and Gardaí expect to charge more people. (I think the video evidence will be rather indisputable when it comes to Cork. I mean court).

So, thank you, mad-as-a-brush, horse-buggy-racing men of Ireland. You’ve made the drivers of the Connecticut gold coast look positively sensible.

Let’s hear it for the beep!

Go, Dog. Go! – nice use of the horn

In the land where the lawns are as manicured as the townswomen’s nails, one thing you don’t hear very often is a driver laying on the horn.

Well, the madness has to stop.

There is nothing wrong with the occasional judicious beep to let someone know that they’re driving like a donkey. For example, you’re doing 35mph with no traffic behind you on a straight road, yet someone feels the need to pull out right in front of you so you have to lay on your brakes. Well, people, lay on the horn instead. Let that person know that their reckless/dangerous/thoughtless driving behavior doesn’t wash.

And at a busy junction when the opposing cars are still sailing through when their light has been red for a full second or two, use the horn. Let them know the error of their ways. (Note: a red light is not a suggestion).

I’m not advocating an NYC-style taxi-horn-cacophony, but some use of the horn to wake people up from their driving obliviousness.

The only time you ever hear a horn in these parts is when someone fails to step on the gas at the very nanosecond that the light has turned green (and the junction is clear of Seamus) and the driver behind is in an awful hurry to get to yoga (or whatever). Use of the horn in this situation really isn’t strictly necessary and the first driver deserves at least a one-second margin.

But for calling out instances of dumbass dangerous and randomly reckless driving: let’s hear it for the beep!

Cokeheads – sort out that muffler!

Eric Clapton’s former candy (Photo by Stamford Advocate)

Coke-lovers, drink-drivers, dope-smokers, here’s a word of advice: if you don’t want to get caught by the police, then drive right. And, just to be sure, make sure your car is right too.

Take these cases in the past couple of months where the driver got nabbed:

Lexus LS430 man doing 110-mph on the I-95 in Norwalk gets pulled over. Cops find two bricks of cocaine in the car. Try explaining that one away. (See photo).

Guy was stopped in the middle of the night in Fairfield for having a loud muffler. Cops find baggie of cocaine and large amount of cash.

A car with no front license plate and a “severely cracked and damaged front windshield” was stopped by police, who quickly spotted a spilling and “frothing” Heineken beer bottle on the floor of the car. Then they noticed the cup holder and various baggies which had traces of a “white powdery substance”. That ain’t icing sugar, people.

And a speeding trucker was stopped while doing 73 mph on the I-95 on this week (granted, 73mph on a highway isn’t the most heinous crime but he was driving a tractor-trailer) . State police found the Maryland driver to be driving under the influence or drugs or alcohol – and found a small amount of marijauna.

The moral of these stories is: if you don’t want to get pulled over and charged with the more serious druggie crime, then don’t draw attention to yourself. Or even better for the rest of us, don’t drive at all!*

*DreadulDriver wishful thinking.