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50 • JUNE 2015 • WORLD FENCE NEWS Visit Logical Decisions at www.ldi.com Your Gate Operator Specialist Find us on THE HUMAN LINK by Jim Lucci Management Motivational Associates Addicted to your cell phone? Please put it away when you're behind the wheel! Editor's note: Jim first wrote this column in 2010, when the danger of talking or texting on mobile devices while driving was first being brought to the forefront of the public's atten- tion in a major way. Unfortunately, the issue has not been resolved, and this action continues to be a major cause of vehicular accidents resulting in injuries or death. Many states and municipalities have since put in place laws against using mobile devices while driving. • • • For this and next month, I have been asked to readdress the issue of cell phones and the seeming "addic- tion" so many people have for their use – and mis-use – especially while driving. Much of this is repeated from a series of columns I did in 2010, but the information is as valid, or more so, to- day as then. Some of the specific data may have changed, but was accurate at the time of publication, and is still valid. Talking or texting while driving is a major cause in a huge number of auto crashes. More about that later. The National Safety Council (NSC) a few years back launched a billboard advertisement in some 67 markets nationwide, reaching more than 1 million people daily. Sponsored by Nationwide Insur- ance Company and Lamar Advertis- ing, the billboards featured Linda, a 61-year-old wife, mother and grand- mother from Oklahoma, and Joe, a 12-year-old from Michigan, both of whom were killed in car crashes caused by drivers using cell phones. Linda's daughter, Jennifer Smith, described the circumstances of the ac- cident: "A young man ran a red light and T-boned my mother's car at 45 to 50 miles per hour, which was the post- ed speed limit. My mother died with- in a couple of hours from blunt force trauma to the head, neck and chest. I just call it 'death by cell phone.'" The billboard featured photos of Linda and Joe, along with a web site where viewers could watch a short video that told their stories. Appearing in the video were Jen- nifer Smith and Joe's father, David Teater. (Mr. Teater presented a sobering and thought provoking appeal to avoid talking and texting while driving to members of the Chain Link Fence Manufacturers Institute at their sum- mer meeting that year.) Smith and Teater made impas- sioned pleas for drivers to hang up their cell phones and to stop texting while driving. Both believe that the drivers of the cars that killed their loved ones were unaware of the cognitive distrac- tion caused by talking (or texting) on the cell phone while driving. According to one estimate, cell phone use is a factor in 6% of all crashes, which equates to 636,000 crashes, 330,000 injuries, 12,000 se- rious injuries and 2,600 deaths each year. Studies also show that cell phone using drivers are four times more like- ly to be involved in personal injury crashes than other drivers, and that most crashes are caused by driver in- attention with cell phone use being the number one distraction. According to a recent poll at the time by Nationwide Insurance, roughly 8 in 10 cell phone owners reported that they talk on their cell phones while driving. Comparatively, about one in five cell phone owners continued on page 52