Windshieldtime
Love me, love my pickup
An estimated 40 percent of pickup-truck owners have slept in their trucks, pointing to a very strong bond between owners and their pickups, according to research by PickupTrucks.com. A survey of 1,068 pickup-truck owners also revealed that more than half of 25-to-34-year-olds have given a name to their truck; 45 percent spend at least $1,000 customizing their trucks (wheels and tires, audio and video, exterior trim); and 59 percent prefer their trucks over sex.
Child safety seats
More than 80 percent of 1,073 child passenger safety seats inspected in September by the Pennsylvania State Police were incorrectly installed. Getting it right makes a lot of sense. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the lives of more than 8,300 children under age 5 have been saved over the past 30 years by using child restraints properly. State police offered the following tips to parents: Use the car’s seat belt to anchor the seat to the car unless you are using a child safety seat with a latch system; fill out and return the registration card for your seat so you’ll be notified if there is a safety recall; make sure the seat’s harness fits snugly; and use a tether strap if the seat requires it.
Distracted driving
More than 200 safety experts, researchers, elected officials and members of the public gathered in Washington, D.C., at the end of September for the Distracted Driving Summit. “We must act now to stop distracted driving from becoming a deadly epidemic on our nation’s roadways,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “This Summit will give safety leaders from across the nation a forum to identify, target and tackle the fundamental elements of this problem.” State cell phone and texting laws, as well as an overview of the distracted driving issue, can be found on the Web site of the Governors Highway Safety Association at www.ghsa.org/html/stateinfo/laws/cellphone_laws.html. Meanwhile, a 100-car study sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration showed that driver inattention involving looking away from the road for more than a few seconds is a factor in nearly 80 percent of accidents.
Women under the influence
The number of arrests of women driving under the influence of alcohol is on the rise, according to a new study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The number of impaired women drivers involved in fatal crashes in 2008 increased in 10 states, and remained flat in five states, despite an overall decline of 9 percent in all drunk driver crashes in 2008 from the year before. Overall, about 2,000 fatalities a year involve an impaired female driver. The 10 states with increases in the number of drunk female drivers involved in fatal crashes are: Ohio, New Hampshire, Montana, Nevada, Wyoming, West Virginia, Indiana, Washington, Kansas and Tennessee. The five states where the number of alcohol-impaired female drivers remained unchanged in 2008 were Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Oklahoma and Utah.
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