Growing Number of Distracted Driving Fatalities

Distracted driving is considered a major reason for numerous deaths in the United States. This prompted the government to launch a website that solely tackles this worsening problem. It is called Disctration.gov and one of its goals is to alleviate the country’s problem on preventable driver, pedestrian, and passenger deaths.

 According to this site, this present year, at the onset of 2012, about 3,000 citizens have been killed due to distracted driving. California was named as the state with the most number of fatalities, which was at about 3,081 just in the year 2009.

To state a clear and understandable premise, distracted driving takes place when the driver of the vehicle tries to do two things at once. An example is texting while driving. Many people are guilty of doing this, not to mention grooming or reading while still behind the wheel. Distraction is also described as when the attention of the driver is divided. A driver may not be doing anything but his or her thoughts may be far from driving the automobile. 

Citizens of the United States must realize that they are the ones highly at risk if they continue certain actions within their vehicles that could lead to crashes. Americans must know and understand that many children have died due to reckless motorist actions. These innocent lives were wasted because people failed to follow clear guidelines that have long been set. Every day, about 700 children get injured which, if added, could reach 250,000 child casualties in a year. 

Consequences of Dog Bites to Child Casualties

Humans used dogs before as hunting companions. However, this had changed through the years as the need for food was commercialized by certain industries. Hunting became passé and dogs were no longer treated as games, but as pets.

These days’ pet dogs range from the large Great Danes up to the tiny Chihuahuas. Dog breeds differ in every household depending on the owners’ preferences. Sometimes, such animals serve as family guards driving thieves away or act as companions bringing comfort to lonesome individuals.

Because of the popularity of caring for such animals, it is not surprising then that dog bite cases also grew to great rates during the past years. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), around 4.7 million Americans were bitten every year by these animals. Each year as well, some 800,000 individuals need medical treatment for the bites that they suffered. Half of these numbers were children, since toddlers were common victims of dog mauling due to their size and frail bodies.

Unknown to many, these attacks were often fatal due to the deep wounds that they create. Some victims even lose too much blood or become infected with deadly virus and bacteria. These infections were namely the tetanus bacteria and the rabies virus.  Both of these infections attack the nervous system of the victim and cause their early deaths. Most of the time, treatments are quite expensive especially if the wounds would need reconstructive surgery to restore the skin’s normal appearance.

Parents should particularly be alarmed, since there are cases where dogs attack little children who were just visiting a relative or passing by the houses of some neighbors. The mauling on these kids leaves permanent injury since dogs’ common target includes children’s faces and scalp. Others were affected psychologically and would bear the trauma of the event throughout their whole lives. Some were even bullied due to their physical deformities caused by bite scars.