News tagged with 'Texting'

More trouble for Toyotoa while Hurricane Alex, now a tropical storm. About $260 million in swine flu vaccine will be destroyed as it's past its date, and trinkets for kids given away by doctors anddentists is found contaminated with cadmium. Some news headlines for this first day of July!

A new law that went into effect to reduce the number of teen driving deaths, has sparked a public protest with promises to repeal Kyleigh's Law.

Looking at collision data in three states and the District of Columbia after hand-held phone bans were put into place, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety finds no difference in the crash rate. The results are perplexing in that other studies have shown distracted driving presents a four-fold increase in the risk of collision and injuries.

The NTSB has concluded that engineer, Robert Sanchez, was responsible for a September 2008 commuter train crash in California that killed 25. Improving rail safety is now a priority of the board, including automated systems that stop a train when the engineer fails to.

Expect new models of autos to increasinigly allow drivers and passengers to connect to the Internet for commerce and pleasure, but at what cost to safety?

Distracted drivers can include airline pilots and now those at the helm of NWA Flight 188 have lost their pilots' license after missing the airport by 150 miles.

The Obama administration has thrown out the longer hours-of-service rules the Bush administration had three times imposed allowing truck drivers to stay on the road more hours per week. New rules are being crafted.

The Distracted Driving Summit has resulted in President Obama signing an executive order that bans 4.5 million federal employees and the military from texting and driving. Truckers are not included at this time.

A conference on distracted drivers begins in Washington Wednesday, and truckers are sure to square off with safety advocates over computers in the cab.

Major automakers expressed support Wednesday for banning drivers from text messaging and using hand-held mobile phones while operating a vehicle.

reStart Addiction Recovery, the first program of its kind to help Internet addicts, is now open in Fall City, Washington, near Redmond (home of Microsoft) and Seattle.

Legislation introduced Wednesday would withhold federal highway funds from states that do not ban texting while driving, known to be more distracting than driving under the influence. States would lose 25 percent of the federal highway funds, until the funds were depleted, if they failed to enact the ban.  

When Boston trolley operator Aiden Quinn ran into a trolley ahead of him last May, he admitted he was texting his girlfriend.  Today the 24-year-old was arraigned and could spend three years in prison for gross negligence operating a train.

So far text messaging while driving is banned in 13 states with more states likely to join as the death count mounts from the dangerous activity.  

Texting teens average more than 2,000 messages a month which may be having a negative impact on their maturity, anxiety levels, and sleep, according to experts.  How do you limit your teens texting?