Why spend more than two years researching, compiling information about, writing three books, and publishing them about traffic fatalities increasing yearly and the related causes and the potential remedies--when few care enough to do something about that is effective?
I, the same as most people don't like to see grieving relatives when a fatal collision occurs, nor am I insensitive to the agony people go through when they are rushed to hospitals from the site of a major collision only to die hours or days later. Which is why the figures given for fatalities yearly are already off by the thousands because they don't include the persons who die after the crashes from their serious injuries and complications or during surgery.
Forty thousand plus souls lose their gift of life each year in the United States and 1.3 million worldwide. That's a lot of grieving, and that is a lot of pain and suffering, a major portion of which is unnecessary when we can have most of us to have a living and to feel that we are to some degree free to determine our happiness.
One follower and reader of my work stated: "I spent a few years as a transplant coordinator and saw up close the families that are devastated by these statistics. Great, practical call to action." - Mike Halsey-Former Transplant Coordinator State of Tennessee.
Yes, action is what is needed as with any incursion on public health.
In both The Careless Driver and sequel The Careful vs. The Careless Driver there are three legislative bills that if passed on by state legislatures and made statutes would bring about a significant limit to the number of roadway fatalities in the U.S.
Six million collisions of motor vehicles occur each year in The U.S. Look at that figure again. Does that seem to say something about driver IQ?
Again I quote a renowned educator: “The new model eggbeater or washing machine, the latest year’s car, all demand some study and learning before they can be competently operated. When people omit it, there are accidents in the kitchen and piles of bleeding wreckage on the highways.”
And with the continued addition by car manufacturers of new gadgets and new touted safety features, such as braking sensors on front ends of cars there is a great deal to learn through close study of our motor cars.
Yes, there are many peripheral assists that we can do to make our streets and highways better, safer thoroughfares to travel and these are also in the chapters of The Careful vs. The Careless Driver but we still have to look at the skill level of drivers since that is a fundamental as mentioned above. The 'Careful' in "The Careful vs. The Careless Driver" is interpreted correctly as a professional is defined as, "One who has acquired uncommon abilities in some area or activity of life;" so careful here means trained to have the expertise to handle a motor vehicle in any situation so as to bring about the desirable outcome. And that takes specific training and specific education. And sometimes it even means improving one's reaction time which is wholly possible through proper training. If the actor Tom Cruise trained to hold his breath for six minutes while swimming underwater to make a critical scene in the film Ghost Protocol we can do it on a less spectacular level by getting more training as drivers and insisting that new drivers get thoroughly trained to control a motor vehicle before they receive a license to drive.
The Careful vs. The Careless Driver can be found at these locations:
(Now in Hardcover:)
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