Cellphone Ban Proposed For Drivers By National Transportation Safety Board 12DEZ11

MY Aunt Lynn was killed on 14 MAR 2010 by someone who lost control of their car while talking on their cell phone while driving. The driver who T-boned my aunt's car walked away from the accident. Politicians that allowed this behavior to be legal then and still are just as guilty of killing her and hundreds of others as the drivers themselves.

By John Crawley
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. safety investigators called on Tuesday for a nationwide ban on texting and cell phone use while driving, a prohibition that would include certain applications of hands-free technology becoming more common in new cars.
The National Transportation Safety Board recommendation covers portable devices only but still goes beyond measures proposed or imposed to date by regulators and states, most of which already ban texting while behind the wheel.
"When it comes to using electronic devices, it may seem like it's a quick call or a quick text or a tweet, but accidents happen in the blink of an eye," said NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman. "No emails, no texts, no calls. It's worth a human life."
More than 3,000 people were killed in distracted driving crashes in the United States in 2010, according to Transportation Department figures.
Most motorists participating in a Transportation Department survey released last week acknowledged few situations in which they would not use a cell phone or text while behind the wheel although they supported measures to curb the practice.
The five-member NTSB recommendation to states for a ban, except in an emergency, stemmed from an investigation of a Missouri chain-reaction crash that killed two people last year, an accident blamed on a driver who was texting.

The panel's action follows nearly 10 years of investigating transportation accidents linked in some way to distraction and is not binding. But the safety board has long been effective at articulating national transportation safety priorities and its views can be influential in legislative or regulatory decisionmaking.
Congress has shown no interest in banning cell phone use or texting while driving. So far 35 states and the District of Columbia ban texting while driving, but fewer than a dozen prohibit using a cell phone.
The Transportation Department has waged an aggressive public campaign on the issue under Secretary Ray LaHood that has included limited bans.
"There's no call or text message that's so important that it can't wait," LaHood said.
LaHood has raised concerns about distracted driving and hands-free technology with automobile companies but has not prompted federal action or asked industry to stop putting it into new vehicles.
Cell phones and communication technology is ubiquitous and sweeping bans like the one proposed by the NTSB are considered difficult to enforce, experts have said.
This is one reason why federal and state restrictions so far have focused on the most obvious distraction - texting - or targeted individual groups, like truckers or federal workers.
The auto industry has invested heavily in hands-free communications technology, like Bluetooth, that is now available in most 2012 models sold in the United States as standard or optional equipment.
"It actually is a big decisionmaker for some consumers," said Jesse Toprak, a vice president of TrueCar.com, who noted that Ford Motor, in particular, has been aggressive in using it to attract younger buyers who may not otherwise have considered one of their cars.
Ford referred inquiries to the industry's trade group in Washington, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which said it was reviewing the NTSB recommendation.
"What we do know is that digital technology has created a connected culture in the United States and it's forever changed our society: consumers always expect to have access to technology, so managing technology is the solution.
"Features that are integrated into the vehicle, and are designed by automakers are engineered to be used in the driving environment. That means it's designed to be used in a way that helps drivers keep their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel," the group said.
The trade association representing carriers, suppliers, and manufacturers of wireless products said texting while driving is "incompatible with safety."
CITA-The Wireless Association deferred to individual states on "what they believe are the most appropriate laws" and said it has always encouraged industry to develop tools that would create safer driving.
(Editing by Christopher Wilson)

FACES OF DISTRACTED DRIVING

My Aunt Lynn was killed in a car accident on 14MAR10 because a person was talking on his cell phone while driving and lost control of his car and crashed into hers. This video is part of a series from the U.S. Dept of Transportation on the deadly problem of distracted driving.....please share with family and friends and coworkers....
 
On November 10, 2009, 17-year-old Alex Brown was killed when she crashed her truck on a rural road while she was on her way to school. She was texting at the time of the crash.

To honor Alex's memory, her family -- Jeanne, Johnny Mac, and 12-year-old Katrina -- formed an anti-distracted driving advocacy group, the Remember Alex Brown Foundation.

For more information, please visit www.distraction.gov. To share your story, upload a video to YouTube and email the link to faces@distraction.gov.

When Grace and Death Collide by Nadia Bolz-Weber 06-09-2010

This is a great article from the SOJO blog, and makes me think about two family members my family lost earlier this year, suddenly, unexpectedly. My Aunt Lynn was killed in a car accident in her 70th year of life. My little niece who I never got the chance to meet, Sophia Rose, was almost a month and a half old and died of SIDS. I still don't know why either had to die, but this gives me something to think about and hope to hold on to, and to appreciate life, family, faith and friends even more.

Luke 7
11Soon afterwards he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went with him.  12As he approached the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. He was his mother's only son, and she was a widow; and with her was a large crowd from the town.  13When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, "Do not weep."  14Then he came forward and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, "Young man, I say to you, rise!"  15The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.  16Fear seized all of them; and they glorified God, saying, "A great prophet has risen among us!" and "God has looked favorably on his people!"  17This word about him spread throughout Judea and all the surrounding country.

Hans Peterson, a good friend of mine, died two months ago in a work-related accident. Hans was this compact little distance runner with white blond hair and a smile so bright that even the very best clichés couldn’t describe it. I had coffee with Hans while I was in San Francisco two weeks before his death and part of me still can’t believe he’s gone. And a really big part of me doesn’t understand why he’s gone.
But this past Monday night I dreamed of Hans. It was one of those dreams so real it takes awhile after you wake up to realize it was a dream. We were just sitting around chatting like normal when all of the sudden I remembered he had died. I walked up to him, kissed his scruffy blond cheek and said, “Sweetie, I’m so sorry you’re dead.” To which Hans simply looked me in the eyes and replied, “It’s okay. I lost myself in a collision with God’s grace.” Then I woke up.
It’s okay that I’m dead because I lost myself in a collision with God’s grace. I have no idea what that means. But I think it’s beautiful and maybe true.
We hear of the Widow of Nain in Luke’s gospel (Luke 7). She is a nobody from nowhere. What we know is that her husband has died. What we know is that she has but one son and now he too is dead. What we know is that without husband or son she has no real place in society. Without a man to define and defend her she is now barely visible. And it is from this nobody status in the midst of her grief for her dead son that she is joined by the townspeople in a funeral procession.
Of course the entirety of the gospels is about Jesus of Nazareth. What we know is that he was born of an unwed virgin.  He is a nobody from nowhere. What we know is that he has left his mother and her guardian. He has left his home and siblings and has no real place in society. It is from this status of outsider that he has gone about the countryside healing the sick, raising the dead, and always touching things he shouldn’t in blatant disregard for biblical teachings. And he is joined everywhere he goes by the crowds and hangers-on in a march of mercy. This day is no different.
For it is on this day that the childless widow of Nain is  joined by a swarming crowd of townspeople in a funeral march as they move toward the city gate — her dead son carried on a plank of wood. I imagine her, walking with the crowd, looking up to heaven and wondering, why has God abandoned me? Where now is my God? I imagine her, knowing that there is no one left to protect and provide for her, questioning why this had to happen. From her isolation in the midst of the throng she searches the heavens for answers to why God has abandoned her. Yet the crowd keeps moving.
Meanwhile, coming toward her, a crowd following Jesus makes their way closer and closer to the same city gate. They just keep following this God-man who heals on the Sabbath, insists we should love our enemies, and then backs that ridiculous claim up by raising a Roman centurion’s servant from the dead. Like a flash mob of grace, this great multitude following Jesus move from outside the town toward inside the town while at the same time a great multitude of the funeral procession move from inside the town to outside the town. Like an epic battle scene, two great forces, two formidable armies move Braveheart-style toward one another.
I wonder if the crowd following Jesus that day knew they were about to collide with a death march. I know that we ourselves make such brave attempts in our death-denying culture to avoid the inevitability of death, as though we can all live forever with the right combination of positive thinking, herbs, diet, exercise, and elective surgery. Then when death happens we wonder, like the Widow of Nain, where is our God now?
But here’s the thing: as she walked with the multitudes in a march of death searching the heavens for answers, she suddenly walked smack into God in the flesh. Death and Grace collided.
And at the moment of impact Jesus sees her. He sees this husbandless, childless widow, and the text says he has compassion on her — only that’s an unnecessarily polite translation of a Greek word which means something closer to “his guts churned for her.” He looked upon this woman who has lost everything, and his reaction was intestinal in nature.
And at this same moment of impact the widow does not receive answers to her questions. But she receives God’s own self. We too might have a lot of questions in our grief and isolation and despair, but the faith is not where we find answers to questions. The Christian faith is where we have a collision with God, who insists on being in the places we are sure are God-forsaken. Andrew Root says that “Christianity is faith in a God who enters death.”
See, Jesus can never seem to just keep a safe distance from death and impurity. The funeral procession and the march of grace collide, he sees the widow, his guts churn for her, then he totally ignores the rules in the Bible and reaches out and touches the wooden plank holding the dead body of her only son. Jesus defiles himself by touching death. Now ritually impure, Jesus hands the young man back to his mother foreshadowing when he will give his own mother a new son from the cross. So in this collision, rather that Jesus fighting death, which death would expect, he simply touches it. Like on the cross, Jesus enters death as though to say, “I will even be found here … death will not keep me from you. I will not stand above this earth indifferent to your despair and dying. I will reach out and touch death itself.”
So as we might either deny our mortality or despair in the inevitability of it, Jesus is being present in it — having been the one to take on death mano y mano. And he continues to pull life out of death in a gut-churning compassion for the world.
So while people keep dying and life keeps happening and questions keep forming, maybe the church, Christ’s body on earth, need not pawn ourselves off as some kind of answer dispensary when what people really need is God. But as Christ’s body, may our guts churn for those who suffer and may we extend our own hands to touch what the world calls impure for the sake of compassion. And may our outstretched hands point to nothing but the light that shines in the darkness — a God who comes to us in cradle and cross touching death until it too rises to new life.  Because God brings more life than answers.


Nadia Bolz-Weber is a Lutheran pastor living in Denver, Colorado, where she serves the emerging church, House for all Sinners and Saints. She blogs at www.sarcasticlutheran.com and is the author of Salvation on the Small Screen? 24 Hours of Christian Television.

MY AUNT LYNN WAS KILLED IN A CAR ACCIDENT SUNDAY EVENING part 2 14MAR10

I went to Pennsville, NJ last Friday with my sister Jennie and her daughter Katie for our Aunt Lynn's funeral. We met Mom and Dad and Uncle Ralph and Aunt Pat at the hotel. Lynn was Mom's and Ralph's sister. It was a beautiful day, Spring making a welcome appearance, and I know Aunt Lynn loved that because she loved Spring and being in the county with all the trees and flowers and wildlife. We, the family, had a chance to see Aunt Lynn before the funeral, it was good to be able to see her here one last time, though it was, and is still hard to believe it was her funeral. A lot of people came to pay their respects to Aunt Lynn and her family. And it was good to be with family, good to see cousins I haven't seen for too long, though I wish it had been for another reason. The preacher had a very good message and was a great comfort to us. Aunt Lynn's wish is that she be cremated, and some of her ashes be scattered around Uncle Bill's grave and the rest be scattered along her favorite trail on Skyline Drive. She went there at least twice a year to commune with nature and refresh her soul. We will join her kids when they make the journey, probably on Mother's Day.
The young man that caused the accident that killed Aunt Lynn is in his early twenties. He was talking on his phone while driving. I believe he is being charged with vehicular homicide. I feel sorry for him too, he will have to live the rest of his life knowing his carelessness killed another person. He may have to spend some time in prison. I hope and pray he has faith and family to help him deal with this.
I am guilty of talking on my phone while driving but no more. Period. I will not answer my phone while driving and if I call someone's cell phone and they are driving I will end the call and they can call me back or I will call them back when they get to their destination. I will not risk putting another family through this.
So many friends have been so supportive of me and my family through this, I can only say thank you from the bottom of my heart and that I love you all so very much.

MY AUNT LYNN WAS KILLED IN A CAR ACCIDENT SUNDAY EVENING 14MAR10

She was my Mom's younger sister, and lived in Pennsville, NJ. It is such a shock, and hard to deal with loosing someone in such a violent way, to have them gone, and to not be prepared for it, so sudden, so unexpected. It is hard to believe she is gone. She was crazy Aunt Lynn, fun to be around, and making the best of her life, and I am already missing her. We are going to her funeral tomorrow. I can't express enough appreciation for all the love and prayers and support from my friends for my family right know, especially for my Mom, as she and Lynn were close. She died too soon and while I will never understand why but we will get through this with faith and family and friends.