I’m stepping out of my comfort zone here.
Last week was literal hell for some families. 8 children and 1 adult were ripped from their family. They will never go home because of someone else’s selfish act.
Tuesday morning, 4 children were hit by a truck as they crossed the street for their school bus. Two 6-year-old twin boys and their 9-year-old sister died, while another child was taken to the hospital in critical condition. They were hit while the bus had its lights on and stop single extended.
Wednesday morning, a 9-year-old boy was crossing the street for his bus and was hit and killed. The school bus’s lights were on and its stop single was extended. Also, on Wednesday morning, two brothers, aged 11 & 13 were crossing the street to get to their bus stop when they were struck. They were taken to the hospital, but survived.
Thursday morning, five children (ages, 6, 6, 6, 9 & 12) and two adults were all hit by a car while waiting at a school bus stop. Thankfully, they all survived. Also, on Thursday morning, a 7-year-old boy was hit and killed while he was waiting at his bus stop and was discovered when the bus pulled up.
Saturday afternoon, a Girl Scout troop in Wisconsin was picking up trash on the side of the road when a vehicle veered off and into the ditch they were in and struck them. 3 girl scouts and an adult were killed and a 4th girl scout was injured.
While we don’t know for certain what exactly caused each and every one of these accidents, we do know that there is SOMETHING happening.
Who likes numbers? I know I do. Here’s some statistics for you. These were pulled directly from Teensafe.com.
- Distracted driving accounts for approximately25% of all motor vehicle crash fatalities.
- 9 people in the U.S. are killed each day as a result of crashes involving a distracted driver, according to the Department of Motor Vehicles.
- It takes only 3 seconds after a driver’s attention has been diverted from the road for a crash to occur.
- Over 80%of drivers admit to blatantly hazardous behavior while driving, such as changing clothes, steering with a foot, painting nails, or even shaving.
- 80%of car crashes are attributed to a driver being distracted or not paying attention.
- Unsurprisingly, cell phone use is the second largest cause of distracted driving. 14% of distracted driving related deaths comes from cell phone use (as of 2015).
- Sending or reading a text causes drivers, on average, to take their eyes off the road for 5 seconds. When driving at 55 miles per hour, that means that drivers travel approximately the length of a football field with their eyes closed.
- According to the National Safety Council, cell phone use while driving leads to 6 million crashes annually.
- Texting while driving is 6 times more likely to cause an accident than driving under the influence of alcohol is.
- 1 out of every 4 traffic crashes that occur in the U.S. are caused by cell phone usage.
We as a people need to WAKE UP and pay attention to the outside world especially when driving something that is capable of taking lives. Too many people are doing distracting things while driving. We are “too busy.” and too “obsessed” with things that keep us connected.
Cell phones, putting on make-up, shaving, eating, even dealing with your own child in the back seat – these are all forms of distracted driving and almost everyone I know it guilty of doing at least one of these things. I’ll admit just today I had to go to my daughter’s school during lunch so I ate while I drove. I purposely got something easy (chicken nuggets), but that doesn’t change the fact that it happened.
Every day on my drive home from work, I see at least 2-3 people with heads down looking at their phones. A couple weeks back, I went to lunch with my coworkers and while we were driving there was a man in a brand new truck ALL over the road. As we went to go around and get away from him, his head was literally staring down into his lap not paying any attention and we watched him blow through a red light. Thankfully, it had just turned red, so no one was affected.
While driving to my mom’s house in the morning, there was a school bus stopped on the side with its lights on and sign out, MULTIPLE cars and a Big Rig blew past. I slowed and stopped which apparently caused the other lane to stop, but this should not be needed! People need to pay attention and stop rushing. These are our children! It takes an extra couple of minutes for the bus to do its thing and if you are seriously going to be late because of the extra couple of minutes, then I have one thing to say. LEAVE EARLIER. If that is what it will take to protect our children, then do it!
I have heard stories of bus drivers that park sideways in the road to prevent people of running past. I have seen videos of a car drive on the SIDEWALK on the right side of the bus almost hitting a couple of kids who were walking to their bus.
Life is hard enough; let’s not make it harder by destroying someone’s future. Slow down and look around you. Stop looking at your phone. It can wait. I promise you, your technology will be there when you get to your destination. You yourself, or someone else is worth more than that text message, Facebook post, or Snapchat Selfie.
Everyone deserves to go home today.
End Rant.
This is true!! So many speed through school zones and that also makes me so upset. Awesome post!!
Thank you so much for reading and commenting. It’s really sad to see so many people who just don’t care. We already live in a world where we have to worry about them being at school, now getting to school. It’s just so sad.