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Today is Oprah Winfrey’s No Phone Zone Day!~Or, Stick That Phone In Your…Pocket Day!~

Today is Oprah Winfrey’s No Phone Zone Day!

http://www.oprah.com/packages/no-phone-zone.html

If you haven’t signed the pledge Please think about doing so. Driving and texting or talking on the phone is very dangerous. When you talk on the phone or text, which I don’t understand how anyone can text while driving! You are using your car as a weapon to kill someone.

My husband and I were in a car accident in 2004 that accident nearly killed him and now he has daily seizures and can’t work.

In McHenry county Illinois, where the accident was presented, we were told accidents happen…     And the case was never brought to trial.  We were told that if the case had been presented in Cook County it would have turned out differently.  We were screwed over royally!

That accident seemed to happen in slow motion. I remember the girl, who hit us was talking on the phone while she was driving. She was tailgating and her car went out of control and hit the cement median. Then shot across the express way slamming into the driver’s side door of our car. My husband saw her coming and made an attempt to move out of the way. He was turning the wheel to the right.  He leaned to the right as well, that move pulled him away from the door before his seat belt locked up. We were told at the hospital that move saved his life. If he had been sitting straight up his spine would have been broken when the door caved in.

I still hear the booming impact; the scraping metal, brakes screeching.

We spun around one and half times, coming to a stop and facing a truck coming us. Add in the sounds of that trucker locking his breaks, I thought that we were dead!   I stared at the PETERBILT logo as the truck stopped inches from the front of our car.

She never got a ticket!

I heard her taking to her father as she came over to our car.  I heard her say:

“Daddy, I had another accident and this time I think I hurt someone.”

That moment when she slammed into us changed our lives forever. I wonder if she even remembers us… I wonder if she signed Oprah’s ‘No Phone Zone’ pledge?’

I worked for a cell phone company, T-Mobile, they told their drivers they had to be on the phone while driving or they would be fired. Even if they were exhausted- all the Field Techs were over worked and extremely exhausted. (My time at T-mobile is a movie or novel waiting to happen..)

 I wonder how many companies have the same rules and threaten to fire their employees for not answering their phones while driving- past your kids, husband, wife, mother, sister, and grandparents! They put everyone’s lives at risk for the bottom line!

One of my dogs was hit by a car and killed.  I wonder if they noticed, or were they too busy talking or texting on a cell phone…

I could go on and on, but that isn’t what I want my Blog to be about. Even though this too, is my Walking Path.

Please, don’t use your cell phone while driving…

 Sign the Pledge!

http://www.oprah.com/packages/no-phone-zone.html

Have you been hurt, or know someone who was hurt in a car accident caused by a talking on a cell phone?

no-phone-zone

Categories
Nature Writing

I still have nightmares over last years snow fall.

This morning, I woke up to scattered little clumps of snow on the grass. The air was crisp and cold, even as a hint of warmer air threatened to melt every last crystallized flake.

At the grocery store yesterday, I overheard so many people loudly exclaiming, “They would love for it to snow” Then continuing on with their seasonally induced amnesia.  “It would be so festive, ‘especially’ for the holidays.”

 I still have nightmares over last years snow fall.

 In December it showed almost every other day.  At one point, the snow came down so fast and heavy my snow thrower broke. I didn’t panic…I walked right in the house peeled off layers clothes and called the repairman.  I was told that I would need a specific part they didn’t have, and even if I got it, the repair guy couldn’t come out until the middle of January …maybe.

I didn’t panic. Instead I pulled out a rope with red flags and roped off the driveway.

Five feet of packed snow that was so solid I could stand on it, with three other people and not sink.  Nope, sorry I am not looking forward to snow. If Mother Nature could please hold off until January, I would be grateful.

 It might be too late, but I need to knock on wood fast!

My mail box was hit twice last year. The temporary mailbox, set in a bucket of cement, was also hit-twice. The second time it exploded.

Don’t get me wrong, I love snow.

 But, … last years snows were a little over the top.

If you add in my dog Zeus, ten and half, sweet heart of a dog, was hit by a car during a snow storm. An eighty pound black dog, in a white snow storm…

Please drive carefully this holiday season.