More Than 3,000 Distracted Driving Deaths in U.S. Yearly

John Michaelson

AUSTIN, Texas

Today kicks off Distracted Driving Awareness Month, and experts have said the problem goes way beyond texting or talking while behind the wheel. Joel Feldman, founder of the Casey Feldman Foundation, noted that three-quarters of all distracted driving injuries and deaths are unrelated to cell phones. "You can't legislate against me reaching for my GPS, me reaching into my glove compartment, me reaching around if I've got an infant in the back in the car seat, me eating - there's just so many things that can be distracted driving," he explained. Feldman became an advocate for the issue after his 21-year-old daughter was struck and killed by a distracted driver in 2009. Nationwide, he said, distracted driving is responsible for nearly 400,000 injuries and more than 3,000 deaths per year. Many of Feldman's efforts are focused on younger drivers. He works with lawyers nationwide who deal daily with the tragic consequences of distracted driving accidents to carry the message into schools about the need to break dangerous habits. "Studies show that teens who grow up in a household where the parents drive distracted are two to four times more likely to drive distracted," he said. "I drove distracted all the time before my daughter was killed - I was a poor role model, I would drive distracted with my kids in the car." Feldman said many students express concerns about their parents' distracted driving. In Texas, the use of hand-held phones and texting is illegal in school zones.

More information is available at http://www.distraction.gov and at http://www.caseyfeldmanfoundation.org/.

Texas Governor Rick Perry firmly reiterated that the state will not expand its Medicaid program, saying that it is a broken system that needs to be reformed by allowing states more flexibility.

Seems to me April Fool's Day is the perfect day to discuss something as foolish as Medicaid expansion, and to remind everyone that Texas will not be held hostage by the Obama administration's attempt to force us into the fool's errand of adding more than a million Texans to a broken system," Perry told reporters at the state Capitol.   Perry was joined by other Texas Republican officials, including U.S. Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz. In Texas, Medicaid expansion would cover more than 1 million new low-income Texans by 2017, according to the state Health and Human Services Commission. About two dozen demonstrators stood outside the room where the press conference was held chanting loudly and holding signs with slogans that included "Rick Perry take the money." Last June, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld President Barack Obama's health care overhaul but allowed states to opt out of a provision expanding the Medicaid program. Since then, 25 governors have indicated support for Medicaid expansion, 15 say they are not participating and 10 states have not decided, according to the Advisory Board Company, a consulting firm that is tracking the issue. Of those last 10 states, three are leaning toward not participating, it said.

Survivor Shares 4 Strengths to Build Upon

Acamea Deadwiler’s earliest memories are the two weeks when she, at age 6, and her brother, 5, nearly starved to death as her mother suffered a mental breakdown. Her stepfather, a Navy man, was away for extended periods, leaving Acamea alone with her brother and mother, who was convinced the outside world was out to harm the family. Deadwiler’s mother kept the three shut in their home and, eventually, restricted all food for fear of poisoning. “I often think about what I’d say if I could write a letter to my 6-year-old self,” says Deadwiler, author of the memoir, “Life, Love, and Lack Thereof” (www.acamea.com). “It would begin: ‘I would love to tell you not to be afraid but, actually, there is much to fear. Things will get worse, much worse, before they will get better. But, they do get better eventually. Somehow, despite every justifiable reason to be weak, you grow up to be strong. Though you will never understand, you will endure. You will be alright.’ ” Deadwiler says children raised in families affected by mental illness, substance abuse, domestic violence or extreme poverty, can turn the disadvantages of childhood into the strengths of adulthood. “Don’t look at the things that happened to you as baggage,” she says. “Instead, look at the admirable qualities they helped shape and focus on building those.”

Here are four you should look for:

• Independence: When you feel like you have no one to turn to, you turn to yourself, she says.  Children who suffer abuse, advertently or inadvertently, or who are neglected, often guide themselves into a new way of constructively viewing and participating in society. These children are resourceful and adaptable and are not merely products of how they’re treated by their parents. Deadwiler plunged into constructive activities like reading, writing and basketball.

• Perseverance & endurance: Some kids are sheltered their entire lives and it’s not until they’re away from the safety of their parents’ protective wing that they learn the trials of life. Those who have suffered while at home, however, are often optimistic about what the world has to offer them. They’ve already suffered and have developed the mental endurance that typically comes later in life for others.

• Outside-the-box perspective: Children who do not succumb to the emotional and mental pitfalls of bad parenting break the mold by seeking another way. Very often, this becomes a life habit that can lead to innovation in all aspects of life. “I really don’t believe in easy answers when it comes to how someone is supposed to live their life, other than to focus on the wellbeing of oneself, and others,” she says. • How not to treat others: “The only reason we have baggage is because we choose to carry it with us,” Deadwiler says. To say that an adult’s mistreatment of another is due to the baggage of their childhood, then, is to needlessly abdicate personal responsibility. In fact, after having been mistreated, she says, this is all the more reason to treat others better.