Author: Dave Abels

It’s a scary thought – letting your teen out on our roadways without a supervising driver. Luckily, there are monitoring tools that can help parents to keep an eye on their newly-licensed drivers, even when they’re not able to ride with them.

My Northwest recently reported about the Tiwi device, which is a device that can be installed in the windshield of your teen’s car. It knows where the car is, how fast it’s traveling and even the speed limit of the road it’s traveling on. This information is then passed on to the parents of these teen drivers, allowing them to keep an eye on their young driver’s habits behind the wheel and to help to reduce the risks of car accidents in Phoenix and elsewhere.The device also comes with a cellular modem and a GPS. This device is able to warn drivers about dangerous driving habits. If teens don’t listen to these warnings and they don’t shape up, then parents will be notified immediately.

Our Phoenix car accident lawyers understand that teen drivers face some of the highest risks for car accidents on our roadways. These drivers are not equipped with the same driving experience as you and me. When our teen’s graduate from the GDL program, it’s important to stay on top of their driving habits to help ensure a safe driving career. Luckily, these devices and cell phone apps can help to keep an eye on these drivers even when parents can’t be present in the car.

Like the Chicago Sun-Times reported, there are a number of smartphone apps that parents can use to keep an eye on their teen’s driving behavior.

–iGuardianTeen: This app can monitor G-force readings in your kid’s vehicle, meaning if they’re taking turns too fast then parents will be notified. The app also allows parents to see into the vehicle when these G-forces are too high. Parents are notified immediately if the phone has been turned off or if the app has been terminated.

–Speedbump: This app lets parents control the speed. Parents can set speed limits for different roadways in the area. When these speeds are exceeded, parents are notified. If the app is disabled, parents are also notified.

–MobileTeen GPS: This device can notify parents about their teen’s whereabouts. These notifications can be sent every five minutes if the parents want. Parents can also set up unacceptable driving areas, which alerts parents in their teen is driving in places they’re not supposed to be.

Do these devices help keep teen drivers on the road to safer driving habits?

“‘Yes, they absolutely work,'” said Peter Kissinger, with the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

Keep an eye on the teen driver in your life. Make sure that they know what is expected of them behind the wheel. Make sure they understand that driving is a responsibility and shouldn’t been taking lightly.
Continue reading “Smartphones Actually Reducing Risks of Teen Car Accidents in Phoenix and Elsewhere?”

Every day, there are about four families across the U.S. that have the unfortunate task of burying a loved one who is killed as a result of a backover car accidents. What’s even worse is that many times these loved ones are children who have been backed over by a motor vehicle and killed, according to AZ Central. Many times, these accidents happen when a child or an elderly loved one gets caught in a vehicle’s blind spots. These accidents are a top concern for officials, but it seems that the solution may be a little farther away than we initially thought.Safe-driving advocates have been saying for years that these types of car accidents in Phoenix and elsewhere could be prevented if more vehicles were equipped with rear-view cameras. We could have seen more cars with this technology a lot sooner if the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) had kept to its initial proposals to have camera technology in all new-model vehicles by 2014. While officials were supposed to finalize this rule in late February, it has now been postponed until later this year. Pressure from the automobile industry is being blamed for the delay.

Our Arizona car accident attorneys understand that nearly 115 lives could be saved if all new-model cars had these rear-view cameras. In addition to that, officials believe the technology has the ability to prevent more than 7,500 injuries. Officials with the NHTSA have been working to require backover cameras in new cars to help to reduce these risks.

“While the Department has made progress toward a final rule to improve rearward visibility, it has decided that further study and data analysis — including of a wider range of vehicles and drivers — is important to ensure the most protective and efficient rule possible,” said the NHTSA.

Now, the final rule may not be issued until the 31st of December.

According to Janette Fennell, president and founder of KidsAndCars.org, this is the third delay this rule has been through. She says that already in 2012, she knows of 11 kids who have been killed in these kinds of accidents. There could be many more. She adds that were only going to see more until someone does something about it.

About four years ago, Congress first passed the Cameron Gulbransen Kids Transportation Safety Act. This act was a result of a backover accident in which a father ran over his 2-year-old child in his own driveway.

Nationwide statistics reveal that there are nearly 250 people killed and another 17,000 injuries every year in backover accidents that involve a passenger vehicle.

“Every vehicle has a blind zone immediately behind the rear bumper,” said Ami Gadhia with the Consumers Union.
Continue reading “Higher Risks for Backover Car Accidents in Phoenix and Elsewhere with NHTSA Delay”

As a Phoenix car accident attorney who deals with the fallout of collisions on an ongoing basis, it’s hard not to notice that driving a car can be more like playing a video game nowadays. From the driver’s seat, we can search thousands of radio stations, request driving directions, surf the web, make phone calls, send text messages, update our Facebook status and adjust many other features of our vehicle. While many of these devices are designed to be voice-operated and hands-free, not everyone’s buying it. The main arguments against these devices are that we’re compromising roadway safety with all of these unnecessary distractions.Recently, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) submitted a set of recommendations to car makers, asking them to tone down the technology to help keep drivers’ attention on the road and to reduce the risks of car accidents in Phoenix and elsewhere. The NHTSA isn’t asking that these devices be completely eliminated from all cars. The agency is simply asking that these devices be disabled when a car is in drive, according to the Arizona Daily Star.

There are a lot of in-car technologies designed to help make driving a little easier and our roadways a little safer. These are things like the advance warning systems that alert you before you encounter a potential accident. These types of safety devices are exempt in the NHTSA’s proposal. Gloria Bergquist with the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers says that automakers already have their own guidelines that they’ve been operating under since 2002. She says that drivers are going to talk on the phone and chat with passengers and look for directions and listen to music while they’re driving – no matter what. She says we might as well offer them a safer way to do it.

“The guidelines we’re proposing would offer real-world guidance to automakers to help them develop electronic devices that provide features consumers want without disrupting a driver’s attention or sacrificing safety,” said NHTSA Administrator David Strickland.

Bergquist says if we don’t have these devices available in today’s cars, drivers are going to go back to talking on a hand-held phone and looking at actual paper maps, which is even less safe. There’s got to be a happy medium.

Despite the government’s proposal, Bergquist says it’s not a good idea to turn these devices off while the car is moving. There are often passengers present who are good candidates for working these devices. She adds that if GPS devices are disabled while the car is in drive, motorists will simply start bringing their own hand-held GPS devices with them, which will ultimately defeat the purpose.

Barbara Harsha, with the Governors Highway Safety Association, says that these new recommendations from the NHTSA are a good step in achieving better driver attention. She says there should be no in-car electronics – just the car, the driver and their eyes on the road.
Continue reading “Phoenix Car Accidents to be Reduced Under New Guidelines”

There were more teen drivers who were killed in Arizona car accidents in the first half of 2011 in comparison to the same time frame in 2010. Arizona was one of the 23 states that saw an increase in teen driver deaths during this time, according to a recently released report from the Governor Highway Safety Association (GHSA).The recent report from the GHSA looked at the number of 16- to 17-year-old drivers who died in car accidents during the first six months of 2011 and compared those stats to the figures from the same time in 2010. During the study, there was an increase of 7 percent in the number of 17-year-old drivers who were killed and a 16 percent increase in the number of 16-year-old drivers who were killed. These statistics formed an overall increase of 11 percent. The report was headed by Dr. Allan Williams, the former chief scientist for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

Our Arizona teen car accident attorneys understand that news of the increase in teen driver deaths was released as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) released a report stating that the number if overall roadway fatalities had decreased by nearly one percent during the same time. In the GHSA’s report, there were 23 states that reported increases, 19 that reported decreases and 8 that stayed the exact same. North Carolina, Texas and Florida were a few of the states that reported the most significant increases during this time.

Williams says that the significant increases in teen driver deaths across the country can be attributed to the specific laws of each state’s Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) program and the fact that they’re quickly losing steam. A lot of these laws have been in place for quite some time now and aren’t getting the enforcement efforts they once did. A second reason for the increase, according to Williams, is that the improving economy is calling more teens to our roadways. With teens spending more time on our roadways, their risks for an accident are increasing quickly.

“While it is not a surprise that these numbers are stabilizing or slightly increasing, states should not accept these deaths as something that cannot be prevented,” says Dr. Williams.

The chairman of GHSA, Troy E. Costales, says that GDL programs need to be revamped. He says that the laws need to be strengthened and enforced more. This is one good way to help keep an eye on our teen’s safety at the wheel. He also urged parents to get involved. In numerous studies, it’s been proven that positive parental involvement can help shape responsible driving habits for young drivers. Car accidents continue to be the leading killer for teens in the country. With better oversight and education efforts, we can help to equip these young drivers with the skills they need to stay safe on our roadways.
Continue reading “Teen Car Accidents in Arizona Up Despite National Decrease”