Parents Influence With Unsafe Actions

Safety Attitude extends beyond the company walls and far beyond the 8-4 workday. Safety Attitude is what you need to help your people develop so that they can go home and stress the importance of a Safety Attitude amongst their family members.

I followed a car on the highway for about 20 miles last weekend. The car had originally passed me while a 30-something female driver was text messaging on her phone. Once past me, she pulled into the lane in front of me and drove the same speed as I was driving. I watched her SUV sway from side-to-side in the lane, occasionally hitting the shoulder or putting two wheels over the line. After witnessing this stupid behavior for some 20 miles, I pulled alongside (never exceeding the speed limit since in addition to side-to-side driving, her speed was erratic) and finally blew my horn while wagging my finger at her. She finally put her phone down because she knew what she was doing was wrong and she had been caught.

Yep, she's going to be a great mom - showing her children the unsafe way to drive. Any advice she gave to her children to the contrary would be hypocritical.

Please, please, please start an initiative at your workplace to educate your people about the dangers of texting while driving as well as the dangers of talking on the phone while driving. Teenagers don't normally use their phones for talking - unless they're driving. If they need to talk with someone so badly, encourage them to travel with a friend who can text for them. Do something to help the kids understand that they're flirting with disaster.

Suggest to your employees to check their kid's phones and to be diligent about matching up texting times with driving times and to take their phones and car privileges away if they break the rules. 

The last thing your workplace needs is to be attending the funeral of a co-worker whose child was tragically killed while texting or talking on the cell phone in the car.

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Kevin Burns - Corporate Safety Attitude/Culture Strategist
www.safety.kevburns.com
Toll Free 1-877-287-6711
Creator of the 90-Day System To Improve Safety Culture!

Self Absorbed Drivers and Optional Signal Lights

Spend a little time in malls these days and you will no doubt hear it too: the cacophony of whiny children crying when they want something, crying when they are denied something, crying because it gets them attention. See the parents of children trying to control their kids (or not) at Starbucks as they attempt to enjoy their lattes while their kids, who need constant stimulation, get bored with a grown-up's coffee shop.

It exactly the way the parents of these children were raised too. They were told they were special and that the world revolves around them. Now they drive. Now they influence how their kids will drive. There are no consequences when they see their kids behind the wheel with phone glued to their ear, or worse, texting while they drive.

Signal lights have become an option in cars or maybe it just seems that way since it's impossible to signal a lane change while holding a phone in your left hand. Courtesy for other drivers is not taught. Hell, courtesy for others is not taught to these little self-absorbed teen and twenty-something drivers who have never been given consequences.

Perhaps mandatory sentences of one year license suspensions to any driver caught texting while driving and perhaps 3-5 demerit points to the parents of new drivers (under 21). Safety on the road is EVERYONE's responsibility, especially the parents of new drivers. Maybe it's time to get tough to ensure parents get their priorities straight, intervene and force courtesy and safety in their children and stop being so self-absorbed themselves.

If it were a job-site and a worker was injured due to the negligence of another worker, that second worker would face charges. So should parents of cell-phone-talking and texting teens while they drive.

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Kevin Burns - Corporate Safety Attitude/Culture Strategist
www.safety.kevburns.com
Toll Free 1-877-287-6711
Creator of the 90-Day System To Improve Safety Culture!

Fifteen Years Prison For Text Messaging

It’s not very often that the State of Utah gets a round of applause (OK, there was that Olympics thing not too long ago but otherwise…). Today, I want to applaud Utah. While most other US States give someone a slap on the wrist or a measly fine for causing an accident while text messaging behind the wheel, Utah gives you up to fifteen years in prison.

Causing an accident while texting and driving is no longer considered an accident, it’s wilful. That means it becomes a case of reckless driving. Drinking and driving and texting and driving become the same.

Utah is the same state that recognizes talking on the cellphone is as hazardous as a .08 blood-alcohol level. But this new legislation (May 2009) states that there is an assumption that people know the risks and if they intend on texting while driving and caused an accident, then they carried a blatant disregard for others. That’s a wilful act punishable by up to fifteen years in prison.

SAFETY ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT: Either put down the phone for the short time you’re driving or risk going to prison where you’ll have all of the time in the world to text. Oh right, they take away your cellphone when you go to prison. So either put the phone away for a few moments while you’re driving or put it away for fifteen years. Your call.

Texting While Driving? Wake Up!

This is a video that every single person who believes they can text while driving needs to see. Make sure you get this video into the hands of your children and all teens and early 20's people. This video is disturbing ... be warned.



Safety Attitude includes making sure you look out for the people who don't bother to look out for themselves. As the video shows, one person texting can have dire consequences for others.

Tell me you won't hear, "I want Mommy to wake up," after you're done watching this video.

Texting While Driving Studied

It seems incredible that people still don't think that the safe operation of a vehicle is compromised while texting. In fact, just this past week I witnessed three separate incidents of excessive speed, swerving and lane-creep while texting at highway speed.

So when I read an article on just how distracting texting is, I felt it just had to be shared. Here is the link http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/technology/28texting.html
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