Tag: Distracted driving

The Car Insurance Rate Impact for a Distracted Driving Ticket

I’ve written several posts on distracted driving and how dangerous it is for both the driver and everyone else on the road. Related topics I’ve written about include the types of things that contribute to driving in a distracted manner such as phone usage, video billboards, electronic systems in most cars, etc. An article recently appeared in The Dallas Morning News and Bloomberg about a recent study that revealed the average car insurance rate increase resulting from a driver being awarded a ticket for distracted driving.

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Mojo, an App That Can Reduce Distracted Driving

What do you do while driving? I know I don’t always pay attention like I should. I may be having a conversation with one of my assistants or answering a client’s questions about their policies. I check email and text messages at lights, confirm directions if I’m headed to someplace for the first time, and listen to books on Audible. I guess this means I’m driving distracted, and I know I’m not the only one. But there’s a new app from TrueMotion that may make each of us a better, less distracted, driver.

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Do Cell Phones Cause Car Wrecks?

The question may seem rhetorical to some and overly obvious to most, but it’s a question researchers attempted to answer in a study released on Monday in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Their study set out to determine the role cell phones play in car wrecks, and their findings, were very interesting even though it missed a couple of potential behaviors which contribute to accidents.

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Safe Driving Practices for Bad Weather

North Texans finally got a taste of winter weather over the past two days when the rain that fell Sunday night froze leaving our streets covered with a half inch of ice. Snow is in the forecast for Wednesday morning which complicates rush hour traffic. We don’t get this weather very often, but it does provide an excellent backdrop to review safe driving practices in all kinds of inclement weather.

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Car Insurance and the Texas Legislature

There are three bills that have been filed in the current Texas Legislative session; two are directly related to car insurance, while the third is not. Two of the bills aim to tackle the problem of named driver policies and exclusions, while the third bill focuses on the issue of texting and driving.

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The Surprising Results of One Safety Technology

My mom has discovered texting at 79 years of age. It’s very entertaining to read the text messages she sends. My mom feels like a technology power user because she discovered she doesn’t have to type text messages on her Android smart phone; she has speech to text capability. What’s entertaining is the spelling that comes through on her texts due to her thick Southern drawl.

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Distracted Driving and Google Glass

About two weeks ago, Cecilia Abadie of Temecula, California, was issued a speeding ticket by a California Highway Patrolman. That’s not unusual, but what followed may be the first ticket of its kind in the country. The CHP officer noted Abadie was wearing Google Glass and gave her a second ticket which is usually reserved for drivers who may be distracted by a video or TV screen.

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Insurance Related Bills Before the 2013 Texas Legislature

?There are several insurance related bills before the 2013 Texas Legislative session covering a broad spectrum of issues. There are also a few that aren’t really related to insurance but I’ve included them either because I’ve blogged on them last year or they are related to our overall safety and privacy.

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Dashboard Technologies & Distracted Driving

?My first car was a 1972 Ford Maverick. It had crank windows, an in-line 4 cylinder engine, and a push button radio. It was a medium blue and had been repaired after being in a wreck. Paint could be seen in the wheel wells where it hadn’t been taped off well. The dashboard was as basic as the car. It only had a speedometer, gas gauge, and temperature gauge.

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Distracted Driving & Digital Billboards

Most weeks don’t pass without some article, news item or blog post on distracted driving. Most of these articles tend to focus on texting and driving. I’ve even written a couple of posts on texting and driving too. But let’s face it, there’s more to driving distracted than just texting. We can be distracted by a number of things including

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