Traffic Related Deaths

Daun Thompson — Tue, 04 Nov 2014 16:52:06 +0000

It’s so great to be back home. Road trips are not for the meek. One thing I noticed while driving in Illinois was their reported number of traffic related deaths thus far this year is 731. Which is a significantly lower number than those in Texas, which is 2,644. Of course, the population and size of the two states greatly differ. The population of Illinois is 12,830,632. Whereas Texas is bursting at the seams with a population of 26,448,193. But, what are the real numbers when the results of traffic related deaths are broken down by alcohol-related accidents or even distraction-related ones?

An entire month spent in the mid-western USA made me long for the warmth of a Texas autumn. I suppose I’ve never adjusted to cold weather. And, after years of living in the south, I’ve become accustomed to the Fall here, where some are so freaking hot, that the leaves literally ‘melt’ off the trees. Like a surreal, ‘Salvador Dali’ kind of Fall. I must admit that, up north, I reveled in the beauty of the giant oaks and maples, with their annual transformation in shades of sun-kissed gold, brilliant orange and vibrant red. But I knew that it was just a short time before those leaves would fall. And with the falling leaves would come a brutal winter. This was my cue that it was time to come back home to the lone star state.

I dreaded the drive back home. And my imagination drifted to the new ‘Dorothy’ app. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to just click my heels and instantly find myself 900 miles away, back in my own warm nest. Of course, that’s not how the app works. But at least the app did come in handy to get me out of an awkward conversation with a creepy toothless guy. Until that encounter, I thought the dating website FarmersOnly.com was just a myth.

Happy Fall to all of you good drivers out there.

Until next week….

Daun Thompson
Writer / Comedienne / Artist

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Where’s Baby? Look Before You Lock!

Daun Thompson — Mon, 07 May 2012 16:27:08 +0000

When I was a kid, safety was an option. Sure, we had seat belts in the car, but they were conveniently tucked down into the seat. My mom’s arm was our seat belt. And she could knock the wind out of you. My dad used to call her the seat belt. Now he calls her the air bag. She’d also go into the grocery store for hours and leave us in the hot car. That big Oldsmobile was an awesome babysitter and it didn’t charge ten dollars an hour to do it. Today, if you left your kids in a hot car, mommy would go to prison for a long, long time. And maybe she’d get out just in time for your college graduation.
It’s only the beginning of May and temperatures are already crazy hot. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) recently announced its first ever national campaign to prevent child heatstroke deaths in cars, urging parents and caregivers to think “Where’s baby? Look before you lock.” Heatstroke is the leading cause of non-crash, vehicle related deaths for children under the age of 14, with at least 33 fatalities reported in 2011 alone.
This campaign will not only help prevent parents to avoid unnecessary heartache, but it will also hopefully reach babysitters, nannies, school carpool drivers, grandparents and relatives that may be transporting small children.
Not only did 33 children die last year due to heatstroke (medically termed “hyperthermia”), there were 49 deaths in 2010. And, an unknown number of children are injured each year due to heatstroke in hot cars, suffering ailments including permanent brain injury, blindness, and the loss of hearing, among others.
Here are a few safety tips to follow. Additional tips can be found at www.safercar.gov/heatstroke.
• Never leave a child unattended in a vehicle – even if the windows are partially open or the engine is running and the air conditioning is on.
• Make a habit of looking in the vehicle – front and back – before locking the door and walking away
• Ask the childcare provider to call if the child does not show up for care as expected.
• Do things that serve as a reminder a child is in the vehicle, such as placing a purse or briefcase in the back seat to ensure no child is accidently left in the vehicle, writing a note or using a stuffed animal placed in the driver’s view to indicate a child is in the car seat. I have a friend who attached a pacifier to her key ring as a reminder.
• Teach children a vehicle is not a play area and store keys out of a child’s reach.

In addition, should you see a child left unattended in a hot vehicle, please call 911 immediately. If the child is already suffering heat stroke, they should be removed from the car and attempts made to cool them down.

Until next week…don’t put baby in a corner and don’t leave baby in a hot car.

Daun Thompson

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Traffic Related Deaths

Where’s Baby? Look Before You Lock!