Anti-Distraction Measures
Posted by Karen Thomas on Sat, Jul 31, 2010 @ 12:29 AM
The days of distracted drivers will soon come to an end. Well – maybe not entirely, but if the Department of Transportation (DOT) has anything to do with it, distracted drivers will think twice about talking on cell phones, texting, applying lipstick, or carrying on conversations while looking back at the passengers sitting in the back of a vehicle.
This past year the DOT and nationwide organizations (including those lead by Oprah Winfrey) have campaigned against distracted driving with gusto. The transportation industry is not the only target, and even secondary to passenger drivers as a whole. Support for the distracted driving campaign is so strong that a second summit will be held in coming months to release further news and direction regarding the DOT's plan.
The 2010 Distracted Driving Summit will be held Tuesday, September 21, 2010 at the Renaissance Hotel on 999 Ninth Street, NW in Washington, D.C.
The first distracted driving summit was held last fall. The second summit follows nearly a year later and will allow Secretary LaHood to reconvene with “leading transportation officials, safety advocates, law enforcement, industry representatives, researchers, and victims affected by distraction-related crashes to address challenges and identify opportunities for national anti-distracted driving efforts,” (www.dot.gov.)
In an official press release, LaHood said, “
“Working together, we can put an end to the thousands of needless deaths and injuries caused by distracted driving each year.”
Last year's summit gained momentum through a number of campaigns that caught the eye of media moguls such as Winfrey. For example, four million federal employees were ordered by the President himself to stop all text messaging while driving (while working or driving a government-owned vehicle). Text messaging laws are still controlled by individual states. The second Summit is likely to continue the campaign against text messaging while driving in states where it's still legal.
The DOT's official distraction-discussing source is the site, www.distraction.gov.