Thursday, August 12, 2010

Here’s a text you don’t want near a school…

Well, the leaves haven’t turned, and the air hasn’t turned cold and crisp, but school is now in session in Franklin TN and much of Middle Tennessee.  Please remember the speed limit in a school zone is 15 miles per hour when children are present.

I believe it is far more dangerous to be a kid walking to school these days. Children don’t always pay attention to their surroundings, and we all know that drivers have more distractions these days, some of which they make the choice to burden themselves with -- like texting while driving.  If you’re tempted to text occasionally, consider a couple of sobering statistics:

According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, drivers who text and receive texts take their eyes off the road for an average of 4.6 seconds for every 6 seconds of travel.  Here’s what that means in real-world terms:  If you’re going 55 mph and texting, every time you look down to text, you’ll travel further than the length of a football field, without looking at the road.

It’s no surprise that if you text while driving, you’re 20 times more likely to have an accident than someone who’s not distracted.  If you add this to the fact that school is now back in session, and more children are out there walking to school, well, that’s an equation that no one wants to find out the answer to.

 

 

 

Doh -- a deer!

We're nearing the peak of the deer-mating season, the time to be extra watchful for deer while you are driving.  In fact, about half of ...