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Mar 29
Following the release of a new study that has been getting some serious buzz in anti-texting/distracted driving news (stating that more adults admit to texting while driving than teens) Yahoo News interviewed some adult texters to get their take on the issue. Most of them discuss incidents that made them change their ways. Good for them!
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Mar 28
In recent years, teenagers have become notorious for texting and driving. Adults are just more experienced, wiser, and all around safer drivers to share the road with, right? Not according to a new study that shows adults admit to texting and driving more than teens, even though they know better!
The AT&T study, conducted on just over 1,000 adult drivers, shows that although 98% know texting and driving is unsafe, almost half of them continue to do it. Compare that to 43% of teenagers who admit to texting and driving (and in this blogger's opinion, may NOT know better, as evidently there's a good chance they picked up the habit at home).
What's more, 60% of the adult drivers surveyed say they started texting while driving within the last three years! (Study by AT&T, presented by USA Today)
So which is worse- an impulsive teen who is new to driving, and on top of that, decides to text or surf the web behind the wheel, or a seasoned adult driver who, despite experience and knowledge of the risks involved (and maybe a better grasp on the concept of human mortality?), decides to engage in the same deadly activity?
It's hard to say which is the lesser evil, but at the end of the day, we have to share the road with both parties, and that is a problem for everyone.
Teens, now is your chance to show your parents and other adult drivers that you refuse to be part of this problem- you're too grown up for that. Adults, if old habits die hard, it should be pretty easy to break a three-year texting spree in the scope of your whole existence, right?
Teens and adults alike need to break this deadly habit before more innocent lives are lost. We can all do better- when you get behind the wheel, put your phone away and drive!
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Mar 25
This past week, ORIGO™ went on a little road trip up to Louisville, KY for the annual Mid- America Trucking Show (MATS). Going to MATS was a great opportunity for us to go out and spend some time with the folks within the trucking industry and show them our solution to distracted driving. After all, truck fleet owners can face a lot of liability if their drivers get into a collision while texting and driving.
What we heard from our new friends was that handheld phone use while driving is a big problem for truckers, as they need a way to be productive and safe at the same time. Not to mention the huge fines that they could face if they're caught with a phone in their hand!
We set up our booth, did some demos, gave away a ton of merch, and, most importantly, met a lot of great people with a shared interest in thwarting handheld cell phone use behind the wheel. Check out the pics below!
A truckload of ORIGO™ flashlights!
Meg charms passers by!
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Mar 15
There are lots of studies and news items covering the topic of distracted driving these days, and we at ORIGO™ couldn't be happier- with more coverage comes greater awareness of the true dangers of distracted driving, and as a result, a cultural shift for the better (we hope!). One of the best stories we've seen in a while was released around a month ago in Salt Lake City Utah.
What makes this story especially remarkable is that the news team went to the effort of spending 5 days capturing real footage of drivers performing potentially deadly activities while driving up and down a local highway. Check it out for yourself:
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Mar 14
We mentioned in yesterday's post what an honor it was to have Amanda Kloehr speak on Tuesday at ORIGO's National Press Release. Her take on the horrible accident she survived is to some, unexpected, but to those aware of the results of the majority of distracted driving collisions, spot-on: that she is lucky. Lucky that she didn't kill someone. Lucky that she didn't die. Lucky that "all" she lost was her right eye. Amanda drove home the fact that the results of a distracted driving collision are ususally far, far worse.
If you don't already know about the great things Amanda has been doing to prevent what happened to her (or worse) from happening to others, visit her blog, Amanda Reconstructed right now and check it out. It's rare to find a person with such a positive outlook in the aftermath of a tragedy, and even rarer that that person possess the passion, skills, and benevolence to share their experience for the betterment of all those on the road. Thanks again, Amanda, and keep it up!
Amanda's car after her wreck
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Mar 13
3..2..1..Blast off! Yeah, that's corny, but give us a break, we're excited! ORIGO™ has officially launched our brand new solution to texting and other handheld cell phone use while driving!
On Monday we had a press release here in Roanoke, and had a couple of great stories hit the news Monday night. It was so amazing to see the reactions of our peers right here in our hometown; we've recieved a lot of positive feedback about our solution, and our staunch advocacy of keeping production local!
Also, yesterday, we were in Washington D.C. at the National Press Club, where we demoed the ORIGOSafe™, answered questions, and heard from two special guests who came to help us out, Sandy Spavone (Executive Director of NOYS), and Amanda Kloehr, a young driver/surviver who offered her very own harrowing account of the devastating effects of distracted driving. There was not a dry eye in the room, so we think attendees left with a new level of appreciation for the dangers of texting and driving along with a new level of excitement about our solution!
We are so excited to announce that this lifesaving device is now publicly available, and ecstatic about the fact that its use will make our roads a whole lot safer! Show us your support- like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and keep checking Blog ORIGO™ for updates!
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Mar 04
"Sheesh, these days everyone thinks they can text and drive safely. Redditor dibbiluncan pointed out this little lady, who has quite the jumpstart on the bad habit.
She's so engrossed in her phone convo (we imagine with her stuffed bear about the afternoon tea party) that she has yet to even realize that her car door is hanging open.
It just proves that it's never too early to sit down with your kids and give them a stern no-texting-and-driving-even-in-your-plastic-car talk. It could save lives, on the highway or in the kitchen. ''
(Neha Prakash, Mashable's Watercooler Reporter)
At first glance, this is funny, cute, and ironic... but when you think about it, it's pretty scary! We're glad the reporter reminded readers of what a danger this behavior could become down the line. We love to post about being a good example to your kids when it comes to texting and driving, because we think it's one of the key tactics to preventing the distracted driving epidemic from getting even more out of control!
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Feb 28
We just saw some disturbing news: A new report shows that the number of 16 and 17-year- -old drivers who were killed on the road rose 19 percent in the first half of 2012. The Governor's Highway Safety Association says 107 16-year-olds were killed in the first 6 months of 2012, up from 86 killed in the same period of 2011. 17-year-olds fared only slightly better; 133 were killed, up from 116 in the first half of 2011. Sadly, we wouldn't be surprised if this number has already risen significantly since the second half of 2012 and these first months of 2013.
Our feeling is that this sharp and unfortunate increase in the teen driving death toll is at least in part due to the increasing number of teens who own and use smartphones. Many of these teens are becoming so accustomed to tweeting, surfing the web, and updating Facebook status anywhere and at anytime, that they may be getting comfortable with the idea of performing these activities while driving. The result of this kind of behavior has proven time and again to be incredibly tragic.
We at ORIGO™ sincerely hope that our solution will significantly curb the teen death toll in 2013 and save exponentially more lives well into the future. Let's outsmart the smartphone: put the cell phone down when you get behind the wheel, or better yet, in your ORIGOSafe™!
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Feb 25
"Crotches Kill", states a new Canadian anti texting ad campaign, showing drivers looking into their glowing laps to read or send a text. The radio, online, and billboard ads were introduced by officials in Alberta to make drivers think twice before fiddling on their phone at the wheel. We now know that the average amount of time texting takes your eyes are off the road is 4.6 seconds, the same amount of time it would take to drive the length of a football field, blind. Here are the pictures of two of the billboard ads:
Reportedly, another such ad from the same campaign has been showing up in Alberta men's restrooms, of all places, in an area that's hard to ignore...the urinal. Yes, emanating from the urinal cakes is a sultry female voice recording that begins with the words "We know what you're doing down there." The voice goes on to warn drivers that everyone knows what they are up to as they drive down the highway gazing into their light-up loins, and it is dangerous for them and everyone on the road. If that doesn't get the attention of texters, we don't know what will.
As long as these "urinal cake-mercials" stay around, Alberta men with shy bladders are going to have to hold it 'til they get home. Let's just hope they won't text on the way!
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Feb 13
Brian (a typical 17-year-old): Hey Dad, we were watching an old movie from like 2013 today at school, and one of the characters was SENDING A TEXT MESSAGE on this huge phone the size of like a deck of cards while he was driving! Did people actually used to do that? Someone in my class said his mom told him it wasn’t even illegal to text while you were driving back then, and that people did it all the time.
Dad: Brian, things were so different back when I was your age, it was crazy. Things change so much from generation to generation. It’s unreal to think that when your Grandparents were just a year older than you are now, they used to drive around drinking beer in the car, and cops would let them slide! Crazy huh?
Brian: Yeah, but you couldn’t do that, right?
Dad: Of course not! By the time I turned 18, you had to be 21 to drink a beer, and if you got caught drinking one while driving, you were pretty much guaranteed to go to jail, just like today. And that’s how it should be.
Brian: Good, that would be ridiculous to have 18-year-olds driving around drinking beer. But as usual, you’re getting off track, Dad, what about the cell phones?
Dad: Oh yeah, well, just about the time most people realized how dangerous drinking and driving was, cell phones started to become the big thing. Like you said, they were huge and bulky back then, larger than a deck of cards! They came along and created a whole new danger. Keep in mind, those were the days when a lot of people actually held their phone and looked at it to send a text message. There were people driving down the road, looking down at their phone and texting with one or even no hands on the wheel! It was insane. Some people even surfed the web while they were driving! It was absolute mayhem, and almost no one took it seriously.
Brian: That’s so crazy! If you are looking at your phone, how are you supposed to look at the road? It’s one or the other, how could people be so stupid?
Dad: I know. Back in 2013, when I was only 17, more than 6,000 people died here in the U.S. alone due to collisions that could have been avoided if they just hadn’t been distracted while they were driving. People read every day about people dying in horrible crashes. Some people I knew lost family members, but they kept doing it. It was like an addiction- as soon as a text came, people HAD to read it, they just couldn’t wait until they pulled over. And a lot of folks suffered as a result.
Brian: That is really sad. Isn’t that how Mom’s friend Katy died?
Dad: Yeah, she was texting “LOL”, which people used to say to mean “laughing out loud” and she went barreling through a stoplight into the side of a minivan with 3 kids in it. She died on the spot, and so did 2 of the kids in the van. Katy’s boyfriend at the time, my friend Chris, was paralyzed for life.
Brian: Oh man, I didn’t know that part.
Dad: Yeah, one split second decision ended Katy’s life and two others, and changed Chris’s forever.
Brian: So, what happened? How did it stop?
Dad: Well, it was rough. Things got worse and worse. Laws were made to try to cut back on handheld phone use while driving, but they seemed impossible to enforce. A lot of what we used to call “apps” were introduced to prevent texting while driving, but none of them totally solved the problem either. Then, as you probably know, ORIGO™ came along with an early model of the device that comes standard in every car today. You know that thing you put your phone in every day to start your car? That’s ORIGO™. It was the first invention to completely stop handheld cell phone use while driving.
Brian: Wow, it’s hard to imagine a time when ORIGO™ wasn’t a part of every car coming off the assembly line… I guess that’s why people were texting and stuff in the first place, ‘cause they could just start their car with their phone still in their hand and whatever they wanted while they were driving…
Dad: I know, ORIGO™ is a big part of the reason the roads are a much safer place today...getting phones out of drivers’ hands was the best thing that could have happened.
Brian: Yeah I guess that’s true…anyway, Dad, I’d love to sit here and talk about cell phones for the rest of my life, but I told my friend Meg I would be at her house 20 minutes ago, so...
Dad: Ok, ok… don’t forget your cell phone.
Brian: I couldn't start the car without it Dad...