Be careful when you back up!

This seems like something only an idiot could ever do but I can see how it could happen. You are backing out of your driveway and you run over one of your own kids. Horrifying of course. Probably one of the worst things a person could do "by mistake". In addition to all the other "normal" car accidents, some safety advocates are trying to prevent these injuries and deaths. The New York Time reported yesterday that new rules will be announced requiring rear cameras in all cars by 2014. The piece says that 228 people die and 17,000 are injured each year in these type of slow back up accidents. This is actually not a lot given that around 40,000 people die each year in car related accidents but they are horrible and efforts to prevent them should be undertaken.

A few reactions:

1. Is this the best way to prevent them? Looking at a small TV screen when you back up seems like an odd thing to do when driving, the people who do this are obviously not paying complete attention anyways to where the kids are, will they see the small kid who runs behind the car on the screen? What I do when I back up when my kids are outside, is to very clearly make sure they are far from the car before I back up, I lower the windows, talk to them, make sure I can see them all before I back up. I can see how many would not be so careful.

2. The article explains that the design of big SUVs make the blind spot on cars much worse. One reason to not get a Yukon.

3. Best bang for buck? While these are terrible accidents, there are so many more injuries and deaths related to other factors. Could this money be spent on other things to prevent more accidents?

4. Think outside the car- What about home/ driveway/ street design issues? If studied carefully there could be commjavascript:void(0)on types of home layouts which more often cause these types of accidents and efforts could be made to change the way driveways are built.

5. Most traffic deaths do not have a clear cause, like drunk drivers or faulty tires, etc. and, as a result, the families of those killed do not have a way to channel their energy to make changes to prevent future problems. This problem is one where people can rally behind an approach to prevent future problems which is good but the larger problem of too many traffic deaths still remains and so much more could be done to prevent more accidents than is done today.

drink a toast to never

"Moe" Tucker's songs from the Velvet Underground are just great, not quite. Kind of reminds me of the silly wonderful songs from Juno (of course one of them, 'I'm Sticking With You' was in the movie). Not quite the Heroin intensity but great none the less.

Cars, Roads and Driving are Evil!!!!!!!!!!

So this touching piece about Jeff Zaslow that is one of the top read stories on the NY Times webpage describes why he is a wonderful writer, father and person. But not once but 2 times in the short article it is mentioned that someone dies all of a sudden in a car accident. As I have said many times before, too many people are dying or getting seriously hurt in cars on the roads. I was just checking it appears that according to the most recent #s I found, more people die from car accidents (including pedestrians and bikes hit by cars) than die from breast cancer. We must re-think the way we travel to stop this.

Oh yeh actually i'm pregnant, Yeh i'm havin a baby in like 6 months so no yeh yeh

I love her and I love this song, I also love the mix of talking and singing.

Jerry

I know I said I never do this but I saw another really good online ad, it is a long commercial for new Acura with Jerry Seinfeld. I think this maybe in Super bowl. My reason for putting this here is to say, check this out it is pretty funny but it brings up another issue that has been bugging me.

Seinfeld should get the gang back together. Seinfeld was one of the best, if not the best, TV sitcom ever. Every important actor in the show is still alive. They are all still great actors. For them to deny the world more of what we all love is a crime. Why should he waste his talent on the Bee Movie and commercials. Curb is great but it is not Seinfeld. It would be like if Van Gogh or Monet just stopped painting at the hight of their career. Or if Paul McCarthy or Mick Jagger just said, I will never play again. I know they are all sort of worried it would not be the same but fuck, just agree to do 2 or 3 more seasons, give America something to be happy about. please