Straight Talk Law Blog: Giving Distracted Driving The Human Touch By Seattle Personal Injury Lawyer Jason Epstein

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It’s easy to make distracted driving an abstract issue. That’s why the Department of Transportation has decided to put some real human faces on the subject.

As I write in my new article, “The Faces of Distracted Driving,” Ray LaHood, the Secretary of Transportation, has begun a new online video campaign showcasing the victims of distracted driving car accidents. The videos are meant to be personal portraits of the lost lives, turning them into flesh and blood examples of the wrongful death and personal injury tragedies that result from the use of cell phones while driving.

LaHood, who has hosted a national distracted driving summit for the past two years, has become increasingly involved in a subject he admittedly didn’t know much about until he became Secretary. That’s all changed since he began to see the startling statistics; 5000 wrongful deaths, 500,000 incidents of personal injury in 2009 alone.

Following the launch of the Faces of Distracted Driving campaign (you can view the first three videos in the series at http://www.distraction.gov/faces/index.html), LaHood mentioned that the government was even looking at requiring software that prevented cell phones from operating when a car was in motion. Software from companies such as Zoomsafer, tXtBlocker and iZup are able to determine that the user is in a moving vehicle—by gauging the signals passing between cell phone towers—and disable the phone.

“I think the technology is there, and I think you’re going to see the technology become adaptable in automobiles to disable these cell phones,” commented LaHood.

It’s clear that the war against distracted driving has a very committed warrior in LaHood.

Please feel free to visit my website at www.straighttalklaw.com , where you can order free books on personal injury and wrongful death lawyers, Washington auto and motorcycle accidents, auto insurance, and other valuable legal information, offered as a public service by myself and my law practice in Seattle, Washington. I also invite all teens to take the pledge against texting and driving at www.teensagainstdistracteddriving.com.