Even though almost every state in the country has some kind of law that penalizes it, many people still aren’t getting the message that distracted driving kills. In 2013, the latest year for which full statistics have been compiled, more than 3,100 people died in distracted driving crashes on America’s roads, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
More than two years after her husband Jerry’s untimely death, “Gillian” (not a real person) and her three daughters have begun to adjust to a “new normal.” Unfortunately, it’s a lot harder to make ends meet in the new normal. The payout from the life insurance policy provided by Jerry’s employer had kept a roof over his surviving family’s head, but the loss of his salary had changed everything.
“Kevin” (not a real person) celebrated his 49th birthday in great apparent health. That’s why it was a shock when, after a burning, painful tightness in his chest hit him during a neighborhood jog, examinations revealed that two of his coronary arteries were more than 90 percent blocked. The bad news: Kevin would need heart bypass surgery. The good news: he was otherwise in great health, as he’d believed, and could expect to be back at his job in about four months.
“Juan” was really good at putting up siding. Vinyl siding, wood siding, veneers, even stucco; Juan could hang it quickly and hang it properly. He’d quickly become “the man” for siding at the small construction firm where he had begun working a few weeks earlier. That’s why Juan (not a real person) was part of the two-man crew that the company had assigned that morning to a last-minute, rush siding job that had been called in late the previous afternoon.
“Just one more ride, Mom,” the boy had pleaded. The ride was on the way out of the fairgrounds, and the family had just enough tickets left for the boy and one of his parents. “Jessica” was tired, as she, her husband “James” and their son “Ryan” (not real persons) had been at the fair since the middle of the afternoon. But the ride would take only a few minutes, and there was no point in letting the tickets go to waste.
What was supposed to be a day trip to the beach has turned into a two year (and counting) ordeal for “Alex and Claire Canter” (not real people). They’d gotten the day off, waited for the rush hour to diminish, then set off in their 2010 Honda Accord with their three year old son, “Tyler”, in his safety seat in the back of the car.
As anyone who’s followed the news in recent years knows, America’s infrastructure is crumbling. Hundreds of thousands of miles of roads, bridges, and underground water mains that were constructed during the Great Depression or earlier are starting to fail.
Tara’s bachelorette party was going to be epic. It would be talked about for years, even if “Tara” (not a real person) herself might only remember bits and pieces of it. Tara’s bridesmaids, though, had handled everything responsibly. They knew that they would be spending the evening, and possibly much of the night, out on the town and would probably be doing a fair amount of drinking, so they had hired a limousine and a professional driver. Unfortunately, they couldn’t do anything about the other drivers on the road.
“Renata” was always tired. As a second year associate at a big law firm in the city, it was fairly typical for her to log 80 hours a week at the office. When going home late at night, she didn’t want to walk three blocks to the mass transit station, wait alone for one of the infrequent trains, and then hike another quarter mile to her apartment.
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