Spring Break In Texas Means More Inexperienced And Distracted Drivers On The Road

by Andrea L. Algar
Motorheads Performance

It's spring break time here in Texas, and with it we see our youth heading out to popular vacation spots to celebrate breaks in their school year. That can mean more inexperienced drivers, distracted drivers, and typically even more inebriated drivers.  A bad mix for the roadways.

Mardi Gras Celebration in New Orleans
Photo Credit: statesman.com

Many spring breakers head out to parties on the coast, New Orleans, or even a drive to Mexican hot-spots. All this can lead to trouble with more drivers on the road and even more thieves willing to take advantage. We encourage homeowners who will be away to secure your home, secure your vehicles, and stay alert while driving.

If you've got kids who are planning a getaway, make sure you've discussed the rules of safety in numbers, risks of carrying cash, driving with a designated sober driver and/or plans to hire a ride home after a night of partying. Here are some tips:

• Plan your trip in advance
• Make reservations for your accommodations
• Be wary of overly friendly people
• Keep political opinion to yourself
• Don't look like a tourist
• Don't act like a tourist
• Speak the local language if you know it
• Stick to well-lit, populated areas

And, more specific to a day/night out partying:

• Travel in groups and stick together
• Don't go out with cash
• Don't carry purses/wallets
• Have one person pay for the night's activities on a credit card (divide it up later)
• Watch your drinking - have a few drinks but don't overdo it
• Have someone in your group stay sober or limit their drinking
• Have a designated "mother" who will keep everyone safe
• Don't drink and drive

Guy Algar explains, "We've all grown up having our fair share of parties and fun. What's different for today's youth are all the distractions that surround you while you drive. We didn't have cell phones, smart phones and iPads and vehicles that are equipped with technology that allows you to text and post to Facebook or Twitter while you drive. Couple that with driving when you've been out drinking and it's a formula for disaster." Our children have grown up with these technologies and don't see how distracting they can be.

We wish everyone a safe and happy spring break.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Andrea L. Algar is co-owner of a classic car performance and restoration design shop in Leesville, Texas. Motorheads Performance specializes in repairs, maintenance, performance upgrades and restorative work on cars and trucks from the 1920’s through 1970’s. Her husband Guy L. Algar is a Mechanical Engineer with over 25 years experience. He holds 5 ASE Certifications from the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence and has been working on old cars and trucks for over 37 years. Together they share their passion for old cars and trucks with other enthusiasts from around the country.

Schools Are Open - Proceed With Care!

by Andrea L. Algar
Motorheads Performance

Yes, schools here in South Central Texas have started back up again. As classic car and muscle car drivers, we not only have to take extra care in watching out for children walking to school, but also for the school buses.

I'm on the road a lot, and when making an early morning run, I frequently run smack into a school bus along its route. In our rural location, the buses are well equipped with flashing strobe lights, and I know the rules of the road well enough to know that I must stop every time that the red flashing lights are put on because the bus is either picking up or dropping off a child at their home or the neighborhood bus stop. But, not everyone on the road follows the rules, and I'm always amazed when I see someone blast around the bus when it's making its stop, or become impatient at the long wait and try to sneak around! This is not only dangerous to the kids boarding the bus, but to other drivers, as no one is expecting to look out for someone passing the bus, especially the bus driver.

But, children and buses are not the only thing we as classic car drivers need to worry about. Yes, there is always the increased traffic that seems to come out of nowhere once school begins, but the hidden dangers are in the increased number of young drivers who are old enough to drive themselves back and forth from school, but who statistically are not the best drivers!

If you live near or drive in an area with a high school, you need to be especially aware and cautious. New drivers are notoriously unaware of the dangers of driving and tend to take risks that we adults would not. Applying makeup, talking on the phone, texting, taking eyes off the road to locate something in a bag on the floor, chatting it up with friends, girl-watching or boy-oggling are all events that happen on a daily basis with teenage drivers. Many are not fully aware or believing in the dangers of distracted driving.

So, although we cannot stop these actions or events from happening, we can at least step up our awareness and be extra careful while on the road. Safe driving.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Andrea L. Algar is co-owner of a classic car performance and restoration design shop in Leesville, Texas. Motorheads Performance specializes in repairs, maintenance, performance upgrades and restorative work on cars and trucks from the 1920’s through 1970’s. Her husband Guy L. Algar is a Mechanical Engineer with over 25 years experience. He holds 5 ASE Certifications from the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence and has been working on old cars and trucks for over 37 years. Together they share their passion for old cars and trucks with other enthusiasts from around the country.

Toyota To Give Away 100 Vehicles in 100 Days For Good Cause

by Andrea L. Algar
Motorheads Performance

As publisher of Classic Car News, I sometimes receive news releases from organizations wanting to publicize their events or noteworthy news.  Today I received an announcement from Lori Zaharek from Survive The Drive, a Connecticut non-profit designed to help deliver driver safety programs and defensive driving classes to high schools and other community groups in their area. With the rash of recent fatalities and serious accidents we have had in San Antonio in recent months, and just days after my own article on a teenager's near-death from distracted driving, I think we all see that driver safety is important, especially for our youth.

Lori explained an interesting initiative launched by Toyota, a large San Antonio employer, to seek out non-profit organizations across the country that provide worthy services.

Survive The Drive has been selected as one of 500 nonprofit finalists in Toyota's 100 Cars for Good program, a major philanthropic initiative in which the automaker is giving away 100 vehicles over the course of 100 days. Each day, during the program, 100 Cars for Good will profile five finalists at the website 100carsforgood. Individuals from all over the country will be able to vote for which ever nonprofit they think can do the most good with a new vehicle. The nonprofit with the most votes at the end of their voting day will win one of six Toyota models. Runners-up will each receive a $1,000 cash grant from Toyota.

What Survive The Drive Does For Their Community


Survive The Drive

 Survive The Drive motivates and informs teenage drivers, through comprehensive educational presentations, to understand their own vulnerability and imprint safe driving attitudes, behaviors and techniques. Our goal is to save lives and make communities safer environments in which to live and work. Their primary goal is to reach every newly or soon-to-be licensed teen (or adult).

Bob Green, Executive Director, focuses the students on the detrimental activities of texting, reading, drinking, phoning and other distracted driving activities. Bob calls this type of driving "Driving While Oblivious" (DWO) which results in driver error in 93% of all crashes!

Survive The Drive offers 10 Top Tips for Teenage Drivers (and their Parents).

How To Cast Your Vote

The actual voting date for Survive the Drive is August 16, 2012, but you can  pledge now by clicking on Cars For Good's Facebook Page, then click the green VOTE button. Go to Day 95 where you can place your pledge to vote. Survive the Drive will send you a reminder to vote as August 16th draws close.

For more information or to book a presentation, please contact Lori Zaharek, Marketing Director at 860-671-1430, loriz@survivethedrive.org, or Bob Green, Executive Director, and visit their website at wwwsurvivethedrive.org.

About Toyota

Toyota established operations in the United States in 1957 and currently operates 10 manufacturing plants in eight states. Toyota directly employs nearly 30,000 people in the U.S. and its investment here is currently valued at more than $18 billion, including sales and manufacturing operations, research and development, financial services and design facilities. Toyota's annual purchasing of parts, materials, goods and services from U.S. suppliers totals more than $23 billion.

Toyota is deeply committed to being a great community partner and is focused on supporting programs in ways that achieve long-term sustainable results. Toyota supports numerous organizations across the country, with a particular concentration on education, the environment and safety. Since 1991, Toyota has contributed more than half a billion dollars to philanthropic programs across the U.S.

Author's Note: 
Although this blog distributes to people all around the country, and the world, I realize that some people would rather contribute to their own communities. I still think it's important to share interesting ideas. Reading what other communities are doing in an effort to protect our youth and promote safe driving can inspire us, in our own communities, to become active, and seek out or establish programs of our own. One much-needed program in San Antonio is to help prevent the wrong-way driving which has become so prevalent and deadly! Perhaps we can take note of what Survive The Drive is doing and come up with some creative programs as well.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Andrea L. Algar is co-owner of a classic car performance and restoration design shop in Leesville, Texas. Motorheads Performance specializes in repairs, maintenance, performance upgrades and restorative work on cars and trucks from the 1920’s through 1970’s. Her husband Guy L. Algar is a Mechanical Engineer with over 25 years experience. He holds 5 ASE Certifications from the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence and has been working on old cars and trucks for over 37 years. Together they share their passion for old cars and trucks with other enthusiasts from around the country.

Texting While Driving Nearly Kills 21 Year Old Texan

by Andrea L. Algar
Motorheads Performance

I normally don't get the chance to post anything on a Saturday because it's such a busy day in the shop. But, I came across some compelling information when doing research for another article I'm working on, and I just felt I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get the word out about the serious risk drivers put themselves in when they choose to text while driving.

According to some reports, texting while driving may even surpass driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI or DWI depending on where you live) in terms of the risk potential to both the driver and other drivers on the road.

One example is a 21 year old college student from Houston, Texas who, according to an autoblog article by Steven J. Ewing, "drove his pickup truck off a bridge, over a cliff and down into a deep ravine." What he wrote as his last text was termed "prophetic", but I think it's chillingly real. Read the whole story, watch video, and learn all about the driver's six months of rehab following a broken neck, crushed face, fractured skull and traumatic brain injuries.

I must admit, I know a few people who insist on texting while they drive. They just don't want to hear about the problem with this. I guess they feel they're superior drivers, and because they may be able to effectively multi-task at work, perhaps they can drive effectively while sending and receiving texts. But statistics don't seem to back up this thought process. These people seem to be real chatty types who probably aren't too comfortable sitting with their own thoughts, which may be why they feel the need to constantly be glued to the keyboard of their cell phones! Whatever the reason, they need to know that they are putting their own safety, and that of other drivers on the road, at real risk. Men's Health magazine reports that texting is the single most dangerous thing a driver can do. With today's high speeds, as we reported in our article Speed Limits & Safety for Classic Cars & Vintage Trucks, the accidents they can cause won't be pretty.

The Dangers



Car & Driver
Magazine



A study by Car and Driver Magazine found that texting does delay a driver's reaction time. They found people who texted while driving took nearly one whole second longer in reacting to another car’s brake lights. In comparison, they found that .08 blood alcohol impaired drivers actually responded twice as fast in the same situation!

IcyRoadSafety.com reported the seriousness with 2009 driving statistics:

• 458 people had fatal accidents from icy road conditions
• 448,000 & 5,400 fatal crashes from"distracted driving" 

And just what does this have to do with classic cars? Well, it does make me think that because most of the old cars are not equipped with hands-free GPS style units like more and more of our new cars are, drivers may be tempted to text with their phones in hand. That combined with cars that may not have the most up-to-date or best maintained brakes, steering, suspension and other safety equipment, it could be a disaster just waiting to happen, and the odds of a serious accident would be much greater than if you were driving a new vehicle equipped with a half dozen or more airbags!  Just take a moment to think about this.

Guy Algar, who is Shop Manager, remembers back to when he grew up working on classic cars and muscle cars in the 70's. "We didn't have any interest in the phone except to call to arrange whose house we were all going to meet at to work on one of our cars. Now, it seems that people can't go down the street without getting on their cell phone or texting someone." It's especially true for the youth, who have known nothing but cell phones. We hope we can get the word out to this especially vulnerable group.

Even if you're fully aware of the risks and would never contemplate texting while YOU drive, consider having a talk with your kids, your nephews and nieces, or family members, friends and loved ones about the risks of texting while driving. Pass on this article and let them see what happened to someone they can relate to. Unfortunately, this problem is going to have to get a lot worse before it gets better.

REFERENCES:
Story Source:  autoblog.com
News Sources: WTVR, WHOU-TV, IcyRoadSafety.com, Car & Driver, Men's Health

RESOURCES:
Insurance Institute for Highway Safety - Laws by State
Stop The Texts. Stop The Wrecks
Teen Driver Source
Distraction - Official US Gov't Site for Distracted Driving
Distracted Driving - Info from AAA
Texting While Driving - From the FCC
Texting While Driving - Car & Driver
Dangers of Text Messaging & Driving - By AT&T
Distracted Driving Help
Can You Be Addicted To Texting? - Men'sHealth
2010 Distracted Driving Summit by Consumer Reports

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Andrea L. Algar is co-owner of a classic car performance and restoration design shop in Leesville, Texas. Motorheads Performance specializes in repairs, maintenance, performance upgrades and restorative work on cars and trucks from the 1920’s through 1970’s. Her husband Guy L. Algar is a Mechanical Engineer with over 25 years experience. He holds 5 ASE Certifications from the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence and has been working on old cars and trucks for over 37 years. Together they share their passion for old cars and trucks with other enthusiasts from around the country.