Jotto Desk

     For months now, Jennifer Smith has been telling her tragic distracted driving story to anyone who will listen in an effort to prevent the same thing from ever happening again. Her mother was killed in 2008 by a distracted driver who was talking on a cell phone. In her mother's honor, Jennifer has pushed for increased awareness of the dangers of distracted driving. Now she is President of FocusDriven. FocusDriven is the was formed as a result of the 2009 DOT Distracted Driving Summit. Several family members of distracted driving victims in attendance have decided to take positive steps toward ending further distracted driving accidents and deaths.

     Today, U.S Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood appeared on the CBS Early Show with Shelley Forney, a mother whose daughter was killed by distracted driver, to announce Focus Driven, Advocates for Cell Free Driving. This organization supports cell phone free driving, aims to put a face on distracted driving, promote public policy and increase personal responsibility. From all of the tv exposure I have seen today including CBS' Early Show and interviews on Fox News Channel, the primary goal is humanizing the heatbreaking stories of loss due to preventable accidents caused by cell phone and laptop distracted drivers.

     Secretary LaHood also blogged today about FocusDriven on his DOT blog and includes a video featuring FocusDriven's Jennifer Smith and the National Safety Council's David Teater, whose son was killed by a woman that ran a red light while talking on her phone. David's wife, Judy, is also a founding member of Focus Driven.

According to the FocusDriven.org, the initial scope is small for the organization, but with increased funding, they hope to further support education and technological solutions for better distracted driving safety. SOUNDS LIKE A GREAT PLAN.

What I always come back to is that these accidents and deaths are PREVENTABLE. That is why LaHood is so committed to eliminating tech distractions. He knows that the more people know the dangers and solutions to avoid them, then fewer lives will be lost due to inattention. Keep up the good work Secretary Lahood!

Comments for From Tragedy Comes FocusDriven: Campaign To End Distracted Driving

Friday, January 15, 2010 by tim thurman:: I understand the basis against texting while driving, or even holding your cell phone while driving. But, you're going to be against hands free devices as well. I don't see you're logic. If you're going to make it against the law to even use hands free devices to talk to someone you might as well make it against the law to talk to passengers that are sitting in the car with you. while you're at it make it illegal to listen or sing-a-long with the radio.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010 by Helari:: Very true!!! While driving we can’t do these kind of activities such as text messaging, talking on cell phones or emails etc, these are all some kind of distracting things for the driver that automatically reduces the reaction time and hence leads to dangerous accidents. Moreover, the drivers who use their cell phones behind the wheel are four times more likely to have an accident, while texting doubles that risk. Therefore texting should be banned or declared illegal while driving and instead there must be some alternative for that such as some kind of auto generated messages that the person you are calling is driving or some kind of software the can replace texting. What I have seen now days, a mobile application that people are using in place of texting while driving i.e something called www.drivesafe.ly, it can be used hand free and can reads the text messages and emails out loud in real time. Try it, may be it would be a better alternative of texting while driving.