That's Hot!

I'm sure most people remember the story of poor Stella Liebeck, that victim of cruel fate who had the misfortune of spilling a cup of McDonald's coffee on her in 1992, sued, and won almost 3 million dollars because she didn't realize that hot coffee was hot. (If you noticed a bit of sarcasm there, I'll admit it, it was there....). If you ever wondered where this rash of mindless warning labels came from, like, careful, knife is sharp, or careful, you could fall off this balcony if you lean over too far, now you know. Companies felt the need to rush out warning label after warning label to protect us all from the Stella Liebeck that resides in each of us.

But that does raise a legitimate question. What do you do if you spill hot coffee (or your jelly doughnut, or your hamburger or your soda) all over you while you're driving? That's what we are going to delve into right now.

First off, this happens all the time. It seems that more and more, we are doing more and more things while we are supposed to be driving. We are talking on the phone, checking how our hair looks in the mirror, drinking coffee, and thinking about how work is going to go or how the kids are doing in school. With all that going on, it's easy to lose focus and spill something on yourself. Sometimes these are just annoyances, like a jelly or ketchup stain on your shirt. Other times, it can be more serious, such as a hot beverage spilled near your groin.

Regardless of what happens, the first thing to remember is that you must maintain control of the car. A spill, whether it's on your 700 dollar pair of ripped jeans, or on the seat next to you, is no reason to take your focus from driving. You must maintain control of the car no matter what. Do not, and I repeat, do not take your eyes off the road, see how bad the stain is, and try to clean it by spitting on a napkin and trying to rub it out while you drive. If you've learned anything from these articles, hopefully it is that where your focus goes, the car does too, and if you are trying to get a stain out by focusing on the right side of your body, the car will start to go right as well. Whether you stained your jeans, ripped the seat, or spilled that 12 dollar cup of coffee that you were craving all morning, none of them are worth your life, so don't let them be. Stay focused and keep control of the car. If you must clean it up immediately, pull over when it's safe, and only then, take care of it.

But what if we have a serious issue, like a coffee burn (and I have heard of coffee causing third degree burns, as a matter of fact, my sister received third degree burns when she accidentally spilled water meant for tea over her when she was two, so it can, and does, happen). The steps are very similar. First, stay in control of the car. No matter how painful the injury, a crash will hurt much worse, so keep control of the car. If the situation is serious, pull over when it's safe to do so, and check yourself out. Notice I said when safe to do so, that doesn't mean you make a beeline from the left lane all the way to the shoulder of the road, cutting off everyone else. Your pain doesn't give you that right. You proceed safely, respecting everyone else. When you get to a safe place to pull over, check the injury. If it is very painful, and you get the feeling it's serious (it's amazing, but our bodies seem to know just how serious an injury is if we only decide to listen to them), get help. Don't hesitate to call 911 if you think you can't drive or if the pain is that bad. There is no rule saying that 911 is only for serious injuries. If you think you are compromised because of what happened, and cannot drive safely, call 911 and let someone help you. Follow what they have to say, and get the help you need.

One tip I can give you that can help you avoid burns in dangerous places is to not place a hot drink between your legs on the seat. It is very common for people to use their legs as drink holders, especially if we are talking about a car that does not have drink holders. There are a few reasons you should not do this. First off, is the danger issue with hot beverages, but the other important issue is distraction. I have seen this with myself, and other people where the driver has a drink between his or her legs, usually a soda. They have to stop fast, and as a result, the drink goes flying forward, spilling all over the brake and gas pedals and the driver's shoes. What is dangerous is not the spilling, but the inevitable attempt to stop the spill. Just like when we are sitting down, if we see a drink about to fall, we will put our hands out to stop it. When someone has their drink between their legs, and has to stop suddenly, let's say for a car that cut them off or a kid who ran in to the street, as soon as the driver feels that drink going forward, they will instinctively try to keep the drink from falling, thereby taking a part of their focus off of the road. This focus could be taken away just when the driver needs to begin braking or needs to swerve to avoid hitting someone or something. If there is no drink between the driver's legs, he or she have nothing to distract them, and they can drive much safer.

Spilling coffee or anything else on you while driving can be either an annoyance, or a dangerous situation. Whatever it is, remember these things: No matter what, don't lose control of the car. Don't take your focus off the road to clean up, only do that after you're safely pulled over. And above all, remember that hot drinks can cause serious burns, so if you think that has happened to you, don't hesitate to call 911, that's what they're there for. Until next time...

Car-B-Que

This article is going to be about car fires, or as I've heard them called, Car-B-Ques, by a reporter in Phoenix. This might truly be one of those things that you think could never happen to you, as it's likely you have never experienced one, and it's just as likely that you don't know anyone who has gone through one. That being said though, they are very dangerous, and a lot more common than you'd think. The website Business Insider reports findings of the National Fire Protection Agency that on average, 17 cars are burning every hour here in the United States. And these fires cost the lives of 209 people a year. Having said that, 209 deaths is a drop in the ocean compared to the vast number of people who die in collision crashes every year. But forewarned is forearmed, so let's see how to fight this particular kind of fire.

First off, what causes them? Well, when you think of it, it's a miracle that more cars don't go up in smoke every day. Your car's engine runs on very highly flammable gasoline. The engine in that car actually ignites that gasoline on purpose in the cylinders to make the car run, and your car has a specially built tank to house gallons of the flammable stuff so you can take it with you wherever you go. Add that to the very hot environment that a car's engine bay endures, and it's miraculous that car's don't catch fire more than they do.

So now we have two possible culprits: heat, and fuel. But there could be others. I have heard of car fires being caused by bunches of wires, called harnesses, which have made it so that they actually lay on the engine or exhaust manifold. The wires melt, then either the melting plastic causes a flare up, or the wires themselves spark, and cause fires.

What can you do to prevent car fires? Maintenance, maintenance, maintenance. When you are underneath the hood, checking your fluids once a week, (you are checking your fluids once a week...right?), take a look at the whole engine. Don't just check the fluids, make sure they are all OK, then slam the hood down and go. Take a look at your whole engine. Does anything look amiss? Are there wires where there should not be, like laying on an engine or possibly getting snagged by the hood's hinges? Are there scorch marks or melted plastic from wires or other parts touching a hot engine? Can you smell gasoline when you are checking fluids under the hood? Being mindful of maintenance and making sure you check the whole car out is the first, best, step in preventing a car fire.

Now for the fun part. You're driving. It's a beautiful day and you're out having a blast driving on a gorgeous, twisty road. Or you are stuck in traffic knowing you have still an hour to go until you get home. All of a sudden you smell smoke, and even see smoke coming from your car. Then you notice how hot the cabin is getting, and you start to get a bit concerned. What do you do?

Well first off, pull over as far as you can out of traffic. If there is any smoke in the car, GET OUT! If there is any visible flame at all anywhere in or outside of the car, GET OUT! Whatever you do, don't open the hood if you see smoke or flame pouring out of it. Opening the hood will literally mean adding fuel to the fire because you will be doing just that in the form of oxygen. Remember the the legs of the fire pyramid?

Those three legs are represented here as the three sides of this triangle. A fire needs all three of these in abundance to sustain itself. If you take any one of these away, the fire will die. On the flip side, if you add any of these three to an already existing fire, let's just say the fire will take off...literally! Opening the hood of an engine bay which is on fire or is smoking will allow massive amounts of air to get in there, air has oxygen as you know, and this can cause a car to literally explode, especially if the hood was opened quickly.

So you pull over, and do not open the hood. Turn the car off, get away from it, and call 911. This is truly a situation where do it yourself isn't usually the best thing. The only thing that you could do to help the situation is if the car is not burning yet, and the smoke is not that bad. In that case, pull over and pop the hood. Notice I said pop it, don't open it. Popping the hood is what happens when you pull or push on that release in the cab. It literally pops the hood up a couple of inches so you can get your hands in there to open the hood. If it's safe to do so, pop the hood. Then go get your fire extinguisher (you do have one of those in your car, right? right?), and using only the gap that was created when you popped the hood, spray the extinguisher inside. Of course, if the car is already burning or if the car is engulfed in smoke, it's a lost cause. Do not get the extinguisher, even if you have one. Only try and spray the extinguisher as I just described if there is no visible flame and you have not opened the hood apart from popping it.  This is what a popped hood looks like:

If, and only if it's safe to do so, you could try and spray the extinguisher into that opening that was made when the hood was popped. If it's not safe, run away, and let the car burn. Better the car burn, than you.

If the car is on fire anywhere else  but the engine bay, that is an even greater reason to get out. Your fuel tank is behind you (on trucks, it can be literally inches from the back of your seat, in most cars, it's behind the rear axle), and if the fire is anywhere near there, run, don't walk, away. Fire is nothing to mess with. It will win if you try and fight it, so leave it to the professionals.

Get as far as you can, call for help, and wait. That is the smartest thing to do in case of a car fire. So to review, the primary causes of car fires and heat and fuel. Making sure you are taking extra time to look over your engine can make it so that a car fire is much less likely to happen because you are making sure that nothing in the engine bay could cause one. If one happens, you should only try and fight the fire if there is no visible flame and you have a fire extinguisher. Remember, never open the hood because that will make the fire worse, and no matter what you do, don't be a hero. Leave the firefighting to the men and women who get paid to do that for a living. The best thing to do in the end is to just get away. You are much more valuable than your car. Until next time...

Before I go, a quick shout out to firefighters everywhere, heroes all...

Don't Follow the Lights

If you're a fan of the Lord of the Rings series, or even just seen one of the movies, you are familiar with Gollum, the perverted, desecrated, hobbit-like creature whose single-minded fixation on the one ring largely drives the story of The Lord of the Rings. On the surface, there might not seem to be any parallels between those movies and driving, but there is at least one, and it occurs in the scene above, where Gollum leads Frodo and Sam through The Dead Marshes on the way to The Black Gate, which is the entrance to the evil land of Mordor, where Frodo and Sam have to venture to destroy the one ring to save all of Middle Earth. While in the Dead Marshes, Gollum warns Sam and Frodo to not follow the lights, as those lights are made from those who died in those marshes thousands of years ago in a great battle.

These dead, like the gentleman above, lure unsuspecting travelers into the marsh so they can kill them and keep them in the marsh for eternity. That is why Gollum warns Sam and Frodo to not follow the lights, as following, and therefore, trusting the lights will ultimately lead to their deaths.  Me being the driving education focused guy that I am, this scene reminded me of yellow lights. Why yellow lights you might ask? It is because, like our lovely undead/dead friend above, they tempt you to follow them with promises of it won't turn red before I'm through, or I have time to make it, or everyone in the intersection will stop for me if I go? Of course we know that those temptations turn out to be more untrue than true many times. Here's why.

Here is your average yellow light:

Nothing too special, nothing noteworthy. But the real issue isn't the light, it's what it represents, and that is uncertainty. The purpose of a yellow light is to warn you that a red light is coming, but apart from that, you are given nothing but questions. How long will that light stay yellow? Do you have five seconds between the beginning of yellow and the beginning of red? Do you have just one second between the beginning of yellow and the beginning of red? Can you make it at the speed you're going? Should you speed up, hit your brakes, slow down? I've seen  every scenario you can imagine regarding yellow lights on city streets. I've literally seen a streetlight in Glendale, Arizona go green, yellow, red, just as quickly as it took you to read this sentence. I've seen others that literally took ten to fifteen seconds between the yellow light coming on and the red light coming on. The bottom line is that there is no way to tell how long a yellow is going to stay yellow, so the bottom line is do not trust them. I'm sure you've heard the old saying that green is for go, red is for stop, yellow is for going really fast, but be careful around yellow lights. They are great warnings of a red light approaching, but they can lure you in to a false sense of security.  The next article will go in to more detail about how you can tell when it's safe to go or when you should brake and assume the light is going to turn red the next instant. But bottom line, you should treat all yellow lights as the uncertain things they are, and with all uncertain things, they should be afforded as little trust as possible, because more often than not, trusting in a yellow light to stay yellow for as long as you think it might is a recipe for disaster. Until next time...

Being a Pedestrian

We all love our cars, but there always comes a time where we have to leave those cars, and walk. Sometimes we have to do this because our cars break down, sometimes it's because we just  feel like walking. Whatever the reason, being a pedestrian can be even more dangerous than being in a car. Here is how to walk safely

First off, do not fall in to the trap I see so many pedestrians fall into, and that is thinking that they are safe on the sidewalk or the crosswalk. The next time you are walking, notice how close the cars are to you, and how fast they are going. Also notice that there is usually no wall between you and the cars, and that the only protection you usually have is that six inch curb that separates the street from the crosswalk. So first off, do yourself a favor and don't think you're safe out there walking on the sidewalk, or the crosswalk, because, unfortunately, you're not. The damage a car does to the human body is so serious it's almost not worth writing about. I have seen videos of people on foot or on bikes being hit by cars and being tossed in the air like rag dolls, going fifty or sixty feet before landing. And very often, when a person is hit by a car, they are rarely the same. Cars pack a heavy wallop, and normally cause damage to people after hitting them that is never healed. So the first piece of advice I have is to respect the cars around you and what they can do to you if they hit you. Bottom line, as I said before, you really are not safe on the sidewalk, so I encourage you to keep that in mind as you walk.

Having said that, I do have to say that for the most part, the reason pedestrians aren't safe is not because of the cars that are so close to them, but because of themselves. How many times have you seen someone walking on the sidewalk, or crossing a crosswalk completely oblivious to what's going on around them? It happens a lot. Normally people have their noses in their phones as they are walking, or they are listening to music as they walk. The picture below shows one person who unfortunately had this happen.  This woman was texting and walking, and walked right over a grate, stepping through it and getting her leg caught. Luckily she was able to get her leg out without any major injury, but just think what would have happened had she walked into the street or walked through an intersection on a red light? She was very lucky

The website Digital Trends also talks about other texting and walking accidents. One woman walked off a pier on a lake in Michigan while texting. And in a much more serious case, a man who was texting and walking fell off a 60 foot cliff because he was texting and not watching where he was going. (http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/texting-while-walking-strikes-again-girl-gets-leg-stuck-in-storm-drain/). The last two examples of course are not related to anything having to do with cars, but they do illustrate the ease that we can lose focus while texting. 

Another way people are oblivious to the dangers of being a pedestrian is in regards to their music. It is very common to see pedestrians walking or jogging next to traffic with earbuds or earphones on, effectively separating themselves from the real world so that they can stay in the virtual world their music provides them. Being that music is a major part of my life, I can appreciate that desire, but I suggest that people explore that in a much safer place, say their homes, rather than out near cars. I have seen people listening to music do the same silly things that people texting have done: walking in to traffic, crossing streets when they shouldn't, and running into things. This is as dangerous as the distraction that cell phones cause. This point was brought home recently in a study by The University of Maryland Hospital for Children. In this study, Dr. Richard Lichtenstein made the following claim:

"Sensory deprivation that results from using headphones with electronic devices 

may be a unique problem in pedestrian incidents, where auditory cues

can be more important than visual cues."

Dr. Lichtenstein here hits on what I think is the biggest danger that comes from wearing headphones around cars, and that is the removal of the person's hearing. When a person is listening to music, the sounds of the outside world are replaced by the music that person has chosen. That's important because, as the study found, auditory cues can be more important than visual ones. This is true if you think of the fact that as a pedestrian, you are more likely to hear an accident happen than see one. I know this was true for me when I was 18 years old and jogging with my dog. I did not have headphones on as I jogged, and my focus was making it to the next spot, pushing myself as hard as possible to get the best workout possible. That's when I heard the tires squeal loudly behind me. Not knowing how close the accident was, I literally grabbed the leash of my dog, and jumped over a nearby low wall, hoping that it would keep me safe. In the end, the accident was nothing more than a driver losing control of his car after another driver cut him off. In fact, neither driver even hit anything, but the sound was so loud that I took action immediately to save myself, because I thought it very likely that those cars were coming in my direction. Now just imagine the same incident, but let's say that the car is out of control, and heading straight for the jogger and his dog. But this time, the jogger has his earbuds in, and his music loud. He will never hear the car, and if the car hits him, that will be his first inkling that anything out of place is going on. 

Bottom line, being a pedestrian shouldn't be a big deal. Millions of people do it everyday. The danger comes when pedestrians try and drown out the real world by using their cell phones or music, and then walk obliviously next to cars and other things that can hurt them. If you focus on the walking and your surroundings rather than your phone or your music while you are a pedestrian, you can be assured of having the safest pedestrian experience possible. Until next time..

No More Mr. Nice Guy (or Gal)

Today's article was inspired by what I see numerous times a week at many stop signs, or sometimes even on the road away from a stop sign: people being nice to other drivers and letting them go first. I can hear you saying, but why would that be wrong? Shouldn't drivers be nice to other drivers whenever they can? That's an interesting question, and one I intend to examine here.

Before I start, I want to say of course it's good to be helpful to others when they need it. If someone has broken down, it's great to help them pull the car off the road or give someone a jump when their battery has died. But that's not the helpfulness I'm talking about here. The helpfulness I'm talking about is a kind of helpfulness that on the surface looks good, but in reality it hampers other drivers. Let's look at this a bit more closely.

Imagine yourself at a stop sign. You pull up to a stop sign. There's no one at the intersection except you, and the driver to the right of you. You both arrive at the stop line at the same time, so you, remembering the rules of the road, wait and allow the driver on the right to go first. And you wait...and you wait. Eventually you see the driver on the right waive you by. You waive him by, knowing that he has the right of way. The two of you wait, each looking for the other to make a move, and then it happens, the same all the time: you both go at the same time, and you both slam on your brakes at the same time, (hopefully) avoiding colliding with each other. At this time you are getting a bit angry because you know the other driver had the right of way, so you wait again for him to go, and he does the same thing...waits. So in round two, you guys both take off at the same time again, and again slam on your brakes to avoid hitting each other. This continues until one of you gets annoyed enough to just force the issue and cross the intersection.

I have seen the above happen many times. Sometimes the going at the same time only happens once, and someone asserts themselves and crosses the intersection. At other times I've seen situations where there have been two uber-nice folks at the intersection, and that game of going at the same time, slamming on the brakes, waiting, rinse, wash, repeat goes on ad naseum.

The reason this is so dangerous is because of the anger it generates. Inevitably, one of the two parties gets annoyed, and this can lead to assertive driving or speeding through the intersection. This is also dangerous because there might be pedestrians waiting to cross the intersection, or cars that have to enter traffic from close to the intersection. All of those groups are waiting for the two people at the stop sign to figure out who goes first. I hope you can see why this is so dangerous. Being nice is great, but when niceness leads to someone not knowing what someone else is doing, the chances of a crash are much higher. There are reasons that the traffic laws dictate who goes first at a stop sign. If they are followed without exception, things will go much smoother, and safer, at stop signs.

Another dangerous situation involving kindness appears when someone is trying to enter the road from a parking lot or house. I have seen many people slam on their brakes and stop traffic so that they can let someone in who was waiting to enter traffic. Again, their motives are noble, but I don't think people who do this think about the consequences.  What happens if the car behind the car slamming on the brakes has a driver who is in the middle of texting, and isn't paying attention because the last thing they expect is for someone to slam on their brakes in the middle of the street.? What happens if the car behind the car slamming on it's brakes is going much faster then the car that slammed on it's brakes was when it started to brake? Situations like this can lead to bad accidents.

My suggestion is to never slow down or stop to allow cars to enter the road unless the traffic around you is stopped or just moving. If you are in line with a bunch of cars waiting for a stoplight to turn green, there's nothing wrong with you allowing a car to enter traffic in front of you, because the cars behind you already know you're stopped, and you won't surprise them. That, and slow moving traffic, would be the only times I'd suggest allowing cars to enter the road.

Now having said that, it isn't always a bad idea to allow cars to go through a stop sign before you, even if you have the right of way. If you are driving a large vehicle with a large load that you know will accelerate slowly through the intersection, or a car that is going slowly for whatever reason, it's great to allow traffic to go in front of you so you don't hold others up. If someone gets to an intersection at the same time, and they see that you are in a large, slow moving vehicle, and you wave them through ahead of you, most drivers will understand that you are letting them go first because your car is so much slower than theirs is, an they will appreciate it. But that is the only time I'd suggest waving a car to go through a stop sign before you if you have the right of way.

In conclusion, it's great to be kind and look to help others, but be careful how you're doing it if you're doing it on the road. If you have the right of way in a regular car (a car that isn't heavily laden or going slowly), and you wave someone through when you should go first, you will confuse the other driver, and possibly make them angry. If you slam on your brakes to allow a driver to enter traffic from a driveway, you will just endanger others because you risk a rear end collision with traffic behind you. Niceness is a great thing, but make sure you practice it in a way that is safe and is truly looking out for others. Until next time....