AUTOMOTIVE SAFETY Call now for your Power Tech DVD! Career Training... Get Started Today! (877) 785-8324 LincolnCollegeofTechnology.com Child safety 75 percent of car seats installed incorrectly Distracted driving Pay attention to the road, not your phone Front windshield More important than you think AN INDEPENDENT SUPPLEMENT BY MEDIAPLANET TO CHICAGO SUN-TIMES June 2010 KEEP THE ROADS SAFE THIS SUMMER Educate yourself on becoming a safer driver. 3 TIPS
“In almost every state, wearing a seat belt is the law. It also makes perfect safety sense.”
2 · June 2010 An InDePenDent suPPleMent by MeDIAPlAnet to ChICAgo sun-tIMes
CHALLeNGeSHave a safe and happy summer on the road.
Summer road travel safety tips
the beginning of summer is a won-derful time when we all start plan-ning getaways with family and friends. We make plans to
spend time together driving to the shore, the cabin in the mountains, or the lake to go camping. We also start lining up our days off to take that long-talked about fishing trip or head to that rented beach house.
Yet, whatever your getaway plans, before you load up the cooler and the luggage, hook up that boat or camp-er, or pile your family and friends into your car, SUV, or truck, take the time to review some summer road travel safety tips. Prevention is much easier than dealing with the consequences of a flat or even a crash.
Check your tires
1 The best way to avoid a flat tire, or even more frightening, expe-
rience a blowout, is to check your vehicle’s tire pressure at least once a month—and don’t forget to check your spare, as under inflation is a leading cause of tire failure. When to-wing a trailer, remember that some of the weight of the loaded trailer is transferred to the towing vehicle. If you are towing, make sure you inflate your tires to the recommended pres-
sure. You can always check the tire information placard or your owner’s manual for the maximum recom-mended load for the vehicle, as well as the correct tire pressure.
Buckle up
2 Everyone must agree to wear his or her seat belt every time
they are driving or riding in your ve-hicle. In almost every state, wearing a seat belt is the law. It also makes perfect safety sense. If you’re not buckled up, you could be thrown th-rough a window and crushed under a vehicle in a crash. Seat belts are the most important piece of safety equipment in your vehicle. But you have to wear them for them to work.
Don’t drive distracted or impaired
3 The focus of every driver, at all times, should be driving. Nearly
80 percent of crashes and 65 percent of near-crashes involve some form of driver distraction. Distracted driving can be anything that pulls your at-tention away from driving. The most common forms of distraction are cell phone use, texting while driving (both of which are illegal in many states), eating, drinking, talking with passengers, and using in-vehicle technologies and portable electronic devices. Also, never drive when
drunk or impaired. Every 45 minutes, and 32 times a day, someone in the United States dies in an alcohol im-paired vehicle crash. Be responsible and don’t drink and drive. If you plan to drink, choose a designated driver before going out.
Know how to protect children
4 If you will be traveling with children, find out how to best
keep them safe. Motor vehicle cras-hes are the leading cause of death for children ages 3 to 14 years old. Make sure car seats and booster seats are properly installed in your vehicle and that any children riding with you are in the restraint system best suited to protect them. In addition, all children under the age of 13 should ride in the back seat.
Enjoy your road trip
5 As the summer gets underway, load up the cars, trucks, and
SUVs, and hook up the boats and campers, as you are now ready for that safe vacation as long as you fol-low these safe driving tips from the National Highway Traffic Safety Ad-ministration.
David L. stricklandAdministrator, national highway traffic safety Administration
Jennifer smithinspires us to drive undistracted.
We recommend
PAge 4
Focused Driving p. 4stay focused behind the wheel
Know your technician p. 6Proper training is critical
responsible for this issuepublisher: terence [email protected]: Annika Kaljurand, missy Kayko Contributors: elinor nauen, Kelly Wolframron Pyle, david L. Strickland
Distributed within: chicago Sun times, June 2010this section was created by mediapla-net and did not involve the chicagoSun times or its editorial departments.
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save the date: June 26, 10am-2pm: child car Seat checkup, one Step Ahead, 75 Albrecht drive, Lake Bluff, iL
highest weight or height that the safety seat allows.
Legally speakingIn addition, it’s illegal to trans-port an unrestrained child in Illi-nois. “Sometimes people say they didn’t need systems like that when they were a kid,” Brasky says. “But these days there are more vehicles on the road and more distractions.”
He recommends attending a seat check event—held regular-ly in the Chicago area and open to all. Checkup takes 15 minutes to an hour, depending on what type of vehicle and child seat you have. “The biggest problem we see with child restraints is that the child seat is loose on the car seat,” he says. “Also, we prefer that parents bring the kids. We weigh them, and that’s how we determine the best way to install the seat.”
To find a seat check event near you, go to www.seatcheck.net. For general info, log on to www.nht-sa.gov. For ratings of dozens of car seats by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, see www.iihs.org.
Motor vehicle crashes are the top killer of kids ages three to 14. One contributing factor is an improp-erly installed car seat. And even though 96 percent of parents be-lieve they’ve installed theirs cor-rectly, three out of four are actually put in wrong, according to the Na-tional Highway Traffic Safety Ad-ministration (NHTSA).
“That’s not due to the neglect of parents, but because it’s not easy to do,” says Robert Brasky, a feder-ally certified child passenger tech-nician who coordinates car seat checks in Chicago and the collar counties.
Correct installation is importantHis advice is to find a child seat technician to help you, even if you think you have it in right. “The technicians don’t just install it,” he says. “They teach you how to put it in yourself, for those times when, say, the carwash attendant un-buckles it to vacuum.
“Parents don’t realize how vio-
lent a crash is and what can hap-pen to a child or baby,” Brasky says. A properly installed, rear-facing child seat reduces the risk of an infant being killed in a crash by 75 percent. “This protects the head,
CHALLeNGeS June 2010 · 3An InDePenDent suPPleMent by MeDIAPlAnet to ChICAgo sun-tIMes
pRoTecT YouR pRecious caRgoNeWS
neck and spine against a frontal crash, the most common type of crash.” The American Academy of Pediatrics (www.healthychildren.org) recommends that infants ride rear-facing until they reach the
proFEssionaL GuiDanCEto ensure proper installation, seek aid at local check-ups.Photo: RobeRt bRasky
too prECiousa safely seated child is a happy child.Photo: PRivate
Where?
1Kids 12 and under should ALWAYS ride in the back seat. This cuts their risk of
death by 36 percent.
till when?
2Kids should be in a car seat or booster until they can be seated properly in a
seatbelt. For most kids, this is around 8 years old or 4’ 9” tall, but a proper seatbelt fitting is the most important factor. What if?
3If you are in a crash, the general recommendation is to replace it in the child
seat and destroy the old one so it can never be used again. Some in-surance companies will reim-burse for car seats involved in a crash, and they are as is required by law to do so in some states.
Source: www.car-safety.org
cHiLd SAfety tiPS
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Retails for $329.99www.comb-intl.com
The SHUTTLE 33 features a number of unique safe-ty and convenience features including the anti-re-bound bar—an important safety feature that im-proves the overall performance of the carrier by minimizing its rotation against the vehicle seat back in a frontal crash.
4 · June 2010 An InDePenDent suPPleMent by MeDIAPlAnet to ChICAgo sun-tIMes
“She was driving through an inter-section when a young man ran a red light and T-boned her car at 45-50 mph. Mom died within a couple of hours from blunt force trauma to the head, neck and chest. The young man was a sober, churchgoing 20-year-old who had never even had a speeding ticket. The cause of the crash was a cellphone. He was on his phone for less than a minute.”
Losing her mother in that trau-matic way led Jennifer, 36, of Grape-vine, Texas, to found an advocacy group called FocusDriven. Its mis-sion includes increasing public awareness and supporting victims of cellphone distracted driving and
their families. “No matter how good you think you are, you simply can-not drive and talk: it is not in your brain,” she says. “We owe it to those we share the road with to focus on our driving. No call, email or text message is worth more than a life.”
practice what you preachFocusDriven’s goal is to end all cell-phone-in-vehicle use (excluding emergency calls). Jennifer has told her story on Oprah and at the UN, and she frequently speaks to confer-ences and legislatures.
Jennifer did not always practice what she now preaches. “I was a real estate agent, so if I was in my car, I was on the phone,” she says. But for me now, driving is the most peace-ful time of day. Not only that, I’m busier now than I’ve ever been, and get just as much done.”
“Life is too precious and too short already,” Jennifer concludes. “That
message and text will be waiting for you when you pull over.”
To learn more, go to www.focus-driven.org or the National Safety Council, www.nsc.org.
Most of us know very well that drink-ing and driving is dangerous. But not enough of us realize the hazards of distracted driving. Distracted driv-ing is anything that takes your eyes or mind off the road or your hands off the steering wheel—especially texting and cellphone use, wheth-er hands-free or handheld. They’re as dangerous as putting away a few beers before you drive: in fact, cell-phone use affects a driver’s reactions as much as having a blood-alcohol level of 0.08 percent.
Just a few seconds of inatten-tion can cause a tragedy. A Virgin-ia Tech Transportation Institute study found that nearly 80 percent of crashes and 65 percent of near-misses involve driver inattention within three seconds of the crash.
pay attention It’s not a small problem: In 2008,
according to the National High-way Traffic Safety Administration, nearly 6,000 people—16 percent of all traffic fatalities for that year—died, and half a million were in-jured, in crashes that involved dis-tracted driving. The annual cost of such crashes is estimated at over $40 billion.
Who’s doing it? Most of us. Esti-mates range from 100 million to as many as 200 million Americans, in-cluding a high percentage of young-er, less experienced drivers.
Influential talk-show host Oprah Winfrey recently joined the battle. “A call or text isn’t worth taking a life,” she said. “We must not allow more mothers and fathers, daugh-ters and sons, sisters and brothers to die before we take action against distracted driving. Let’s put a stop to it now, by making our cars a No Phone Zone.”
What can you do? Most important, obey the law. You cannot use a handheld cellphone while driving in Chicago, and Illinois is one of the majority of U.S. states that bans texting. Illinois also forbids the use of cellphones while driving in a school or highway construction zone, and for schoolbus drivers and drivers under age 19.
Also, do your best to eliminate dis-tractions, not just texting and talk-ing: changing CDs, eating and apply-ing makeup can divert your attention too. Keep a sharp eye out for other drivers—and always buckle up!
For more information, log on to www.distraction.gov or www.nhtsa.gov/Distracted. To take Oprah’s No Phone Zone pledge, visit www.oprah.com/nophonezone.
WhY You should dRive noW and TalK laTeR“on sept. 3, 2008, after re-ceiving a phone call offering food for the feral cats she rescued, my mom left her home in oklahoma City,” Jennifer smith relates.
stay FoCusED“she was everything to us.” Jennifer smith (right) with her late mother, Linda Doyle (left). Photo: PRivate
safety of older vehicles, and min-imum inspection requirements for all motor vehicles. ASA encour-aged policymakers to establish state vehicle safety inspection programs in states that current-ly do not have such a program and provide grants to states to assist in establishment of such programs.
Caring about the customerWhile I’m honored to lead this
nation’s leading automotive re-pair association, I’m also a con-sumer. The great news here is that we all want the same thing: a safe vehicle. The repair business also wants a happy customer at the end of the repair. The consumer wants a quality repair from a repair pro-fessional and establishment they can rely on and return to as need-ed. These mutually beneficial rela-tionships happen every day in the Chicago area and across this great nation, so if I can share one tip to help you find the repair profes-sional and facility that’s right for you, it’s this: seek out a match for your vehicle before you need it. I emphasize this to consumers ev-ery chance I get. Then, when you
need the services of an automotive repair professional to ensure your vehicle is safe for you and your passengers, you simply make an appointment and move forward from there.
Find the right place for youThere are several factors to con-
sider in finding the right repair facility. Ultimately, you’ll want a repair facility that can handle your mechanical service and re-pair needs (underhood, electronic, tires, batteries, etc.) as well as one that can handle your auto body/collision repair needs. (I know, I’m never planning to need colli-sion repair, either. But should you find yourself in that situation due to the “other” driver on the road, your stress level will be much bet-ter knowing you have pre-planned your repair solution.) Another tip: Like proper dental or medical care for yourself, it saves you in the long run to maintain your vehi-cle on a regular basis according to your vehicle owner’s manual.
The Automotive Service Associ-ation represents thousands of in-dependent automotive repair pro-
fessionals nationwide who agree to follow ASA’s Code of Ethics writ-ten with consumers in mind. ASA’s mission is to advance profession-alism and excellence in the auto-motive repair industry. Whether you find an ASA member for your vehicle’s needs or another quali-ty repair business, you want to do business with a repair facility that has access to the latest industry information and one that strives to improve the image of the auto-motive service industry by com-mitting themselves to quality re-pairs. The consumer’s safety and complete satisfaction should be the ultimate goal of the business.
There are many professional-ly run repair businesses out there from which to choose. A little bit of research on the front end of your search will ensure that you’ll be on track with a great partner-ship for the life of your vehicle and the safety of its passengers.
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Be pRepaRed BefoRe You need a RepaiR
With Congress taking a closer look at vehicle safety issues and trans-portation programs, ASA’s inde-pendent automotive repairers from across the country met with their representatives and senators recently to discuss how replace-ment crash parts affect consum-ers, as well as the importance of periodic motor vehicle safety in-spection programs.
ASA’s policy for automotive re-placement crash parts has been for many years that consumers should have notice as to the types of crash parts that are used to re-pair their vehicles and give writ-ten consent for the use of these parts. In addition, ASA supports periodic safety inspections that ensure proper maintenance and
as president of the automo-tive service association, ispeak with repair shop ow-ners and technicians daily—they’re the professionals who make up the member-ship base of asa. the first priority of any repair is passenger safety.
”While I’m honored to lead this nation’s leading automo-tive repair association, I’m also a consumer.”
ron pylePresident and Chief staff executive, Automotive service Association
June 2010 · 7An InDePenDent suPPleMent by MeDIAPlAnet to ChICAgo sun-tIMes
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Nobody wants a summer vacation ruined for an easily preventable rea-son. Spending a few minutes taking care of your tires may ensure you’re not stranded or worse. Tire care is es-pecially important in warm weather because longer trips, heavy loads and higher temperatures all stress tires. The Rubber Manufacturers Associa-tion (RMA) recommends getting in the habit of taking five minutes every month to check your tires, including
the spare. Here’s what to look for: ■ Pressure. Tire companies say less
than 10 percent of people check pres-sure monthly, so it’s no surprise that more than half of the cars on the road have at least one underinflated tire. Does it matter? Underinflated tires are a major cause of irregular wear, flats and blowouts. When you add air, make sure you follow the recom-mended pressure for your vehicle; that information is on a sticker in-
side driver-side door or in the own-er’s manual. Bonus: Keeping your tires properly inflated improves gas mileage, and that means saving mon-ey at the pump.
■ Alignment. Misalignment can cause quick and uneven wear. Have a tire dealer check the alignment peri-odically or if you experience “pulling” or vibration.
■ Rotation. Tire rotation is essential for even tread wear and maximum
tire life. Rotate about every 6,000 miles or according to your owner’s manual.
■ Tread. Check for signs of wear or damage. You can also help protect tires if you slow down on rough roads; avoid hitting the curb when parking; and don’t overload your vehicle.
For more information, visit www.rma.org or www.nhtsa.gov.
tHE pEnny tEstif the top of Lincoln’s head shows, it’s time for replacement. Photo: tiRe industRy association
your life is riding on themBy now, you know you should check your tire pressure at least once a month. You know that low tires can lead to blowouts and higher-than-necessary fuel use. And you probably know you can’t tell just by eyeballing them whether your tires are correctly inflated.
not worth itAnd yet, like most of us, you may not stay on top of reg-ular tire maintenance. That’s why the government has mandated that every new ve-hicle must be equipped with a Tire Inflation Pressure Monitor System (TPMS), which electron-ically lets drivers know of low tire pressure, generally through a dashboard alert. TPMS technol-ogy can be either indirect, using data from the vehicle’s antilock brake system, or direct, using a sensor inside each tire.
So keep an eye on the dashboard TPMS icon; if it lights up, stop and measure tire pres-sure right away. And remem-ber, TPMS is not a substitute for inspecting your tires regularly.
For more info, go to www. safercar.gov and click on “tires.”
Being involved in a collision re-sults in a wide range of emotions – shock, anger, tension. Whether the collision is a small fender bender or results in major repair, knowing where to turn next can alleviate much of the frustration involved in post-collision procedures. It’s important to protect yourself and your vehicle by understanding the le-vel of training and exper-tise of your repairer.
Choose the right technicianHaving your vehicle re-paired at a facility where its techni-cians receive ongoing training on current automotive trends can be the difference in a complete and sa-fe repair. As technologies in vehic-les continually change, it’s more important now than ever to ensu-re the quality of your vehicle is not compromised following a repair.
One of the ways to determine if your collision repairer has the ne-cessary knowledge and skills to complete a safe repair is to look for the I-CAR Gold Glass Professi-onals symbol. This designation is the highest recognition for train-
ing a business can earn in the collision industry. Bu-sinesses who have earned this designation main-tain ongoing training in order to provide their customers with efficient, safe, and high-quality re-pairs.
Once your vehicle has been repaired and is back on the road, its integrity should not be compromised. An informed deci-sion on your repairer can be key to maintaining safety on the road as well as preserving the value of your vehicle.
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Drivers are not aware how cruci-al a part of a car’s safety system the windshield is. It keeps the roof from crushing occupants in a rollover, pre-vents them from being ejected in a serious collision and allows airbags to deploy correctly. In a front-end collision, the windshield provides up to 45 percent of the structural integrity of the vehicle’s cabin, and up to 60 percent in a rollover.It’s critical that the windshield stay in the car, so you stay in the car,” says David Rohlfing, CEO of Glass America.
And yet, until a decade ago, there were no standards for safe replace-ment of a broken windshield. Now there are, thanks to the Auto Glass Replacement Safety Standards Coun-cil (AGRSS), a nonprofit group that develops and maintains voluntary standards for the safe replacement of auto glass, and provides accredita-
tion for auto glass technicians. And, starting this year, “AGRSS has
begun a validation process, in which each auto-glass technician in an AGRSS shop will be rigorously test-ed by a third party,” says Rohlfing, who is also vice president of AGRSS. “Consumers who use an AGRSS-reg-istered shop have a higher likelihood of getting a safe installation than if they go to any other glass shop.”
Consumers should also ask about safe drive-away times, he adds. “For a windshield to provide absolute safe-ty, it needs to be fully cured,” he ex-plains. “This can take up to 24 hours or even longer, although new materi-als make it possible for a car to be safe to drive in one hour.”
To learn more, visit www.safewindshields.com.
the shop ■ A good body repair shop
should be clean and organized. if a repair shop is dirty or unorgani-zed, it is usually one that’s used to cutting corners to save money.
the price ■ Ask the repair shop mana-
ger to provide you with a copy of all the invoices for parts they had to purchase to fix your car. then you compare the parts list with the cost listed on the insurance company estimate.
