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Drugged Driving Accidents Increase in Tennessee
Go to Drugged Driving Accidents Increase in TennesseeAccording to data recently released by the Tennessee Highway Patrol, drugged driving is now a bigger cause of deaths on the state’s roads than drunk and distracted driving. In just one recent example, in 2015 a semi truck near Chattanooga slammed into the back of a Toyota Prius, causing a massive pileup that eventually involved…
Motorist Endangering Students’ Lives in North Georgia and Hamilton County
Go to Motorist Endangering Students’ Lives in North Georgia and Hamilton CountyIn a recent story on WDEF’s website, Logan Patterson and Edith Chavarria-Hernandez, are each facing charges in Whitfield County for allegedly failing to stop for school buses that were dropping of children. The two drivers were reported to law enforcement by witnesses who recorded the license plates of the alleged violators. Motorcycle dangers to students…
Tennessee Sees Seat Belt Use Increase
Go to Tennessee Sees Seat Belt Use IncreaseAn observational survey study by the University of Tennessee Knoxville’s Center for Transportation Research (CTR) has found that in 2016, the number of drivers and front-seat passengers wearing safety belts jumped to almost 89 percent. Per the study, the statewide average comes to 88.95 percent of people in the front seat wearing seat belts, an…
Auto Accident Fatalities Seem to Rise
Go to Auto Accident Fatalities Seem to RiseAccording to preliminary estimates by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 2015 saw an increase of roughly 7.7 percent in traffic accident deaths over 2014. The agency’s data states that 35,200 drivers, passengers, cyclists, and pedestrians died in some sort of vehicle accident in 2015. What’s still unclear at this point is why the…
National Transportation Safety Board Recommends Banning Hands-Free Cell Devices
Go to National Transportation Safety Board Recommends Banning Hands-Free Cell DevicesIn a list of improvements that they want to see in the coming year, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has included a complete ban on hands-free cell phone devices while driving. According to Christopher Hart, the chairman of the NTSB, “Current laws that ban handheld, but not hands-free, use can foster a belief that…
Shelby County’s New Grant Funds Fight Against Drunk Driving
Go to Shelby County’s New Grant Funds Fight Against Drunk Drivingpresented by: Gary Massey Shelby County, TN, was recently the lucky recipient of almost $1 million from the Tennessee Governor’s Highway Safety Office to fund its work against drunk driving. The money is earmarked in part for covering the costs of prosecuting DUI offenders, including the overtime pay of the police who conduct checkpoints. The…
Tennessee County Pilots Program Urging More People to Buckle Up
Go to Tennessee County Pilots Program Urging More People to Buckle UpHawkins County, TN, has the dubious distinction of being an area of the state in which fatal car accidents have increased recently. It’s due to a factor that’s deceptively difficult to combat: lack of seatbelt use. The fateful decision not to buckle up has cost many people in Tennessee their lives over the past month…
Distracted Driving Leads to Runner’s Death
Go to Distracted Driving Leads to Runner’s DeathIt has happened to all of us at some point: as we’re driving, something pulls our attention away from where it should be and we end up focused on something other than the road. Most of the time we refocus before any harm is done because we all know the critical importance of paying attention…
The Many Preventable Dangers of Distracted Driving
Go to The Many Preventable Dangers of Distracted Drivingpresented by: Gary Massey According to numbers gathered by the U.S. Department of Transportation, in 2013 there were approximately 424,000 people hurt in crashes caused by distracted driving. Per the website Distraction.gov (the U.S. government website devoted to fighting the distracted driving epidemic), there were also 3,154 fatalities. As smart phone use behind the wheel…
