Avoid Personal Injury: 10 Texting and Driving Statistics Every Driver Should Know
Texting has become an integral part of day-to-day life in the United States, especially for younger generations. More than 150 billion text messages are sent each month, ranging from a quick piece of information like “the meeting is at 3” to in-depth conversations. Unfortunately, this convenient technology has a dark side.
In theory, everyoneAvoid Personal Injury: 10 Texting and Driving Statistics Every Driver Should Know knows how dangerous texting and driving can be. Multiple national campaigns use everyone from teen celebrities to the families of people killed in texting and driving accidents to hammer home the point. Distracted driving increases the likelihood of an automobile accident so significantly that some New York legislators are pushing for a breathalyzer-like test for texting and driving.
It isn’t just the distracted driver and his passengers who are at risk. At 55 mph, taking your eyes off the road for the average of 4.6 seconds it takes to check a text message means you’re driving the length of a football field blind. Imagine what could happen in that distance: a car pulling into the lane in front of you, an object rolling into the road, a lane merging unexpectedly on an unfamiliar road. And, that’s assuming that you’re on a highway. In populated areas, the risks include a bicyclist swerving into your lane, a child or pet running into the street and a car pulling out of a driveway.
Most states prohibit texting and driving, but distracted driving accidents caused by texting and other cell phone usage occur at an alarming rate.
New App and Website launched to expose street Harassment!
The real motive of street harassment is intimidation. To make its target scared or uncomfortable, and to make the harasser feel powerful. But what if there was a simple way to take that power away by exposing it? You can now use your smartphone to do just that by documenting, mapping, and sharing incidents of street harassment.
Hollaback is a movement to end street harassment powered by a network of local activists around the world. We work together to better understand street harassment, to ignite public conversations, and to develop innovative strategies to ensure equal access to public spaces.
Dedicated to fighting street harassment, Hollaback has empowered people in over 50 cities and 20 countries internationally to respond through a smartphone/web application. Users are encouraged to speak up when they see harassment by quickly documenting it in a short post (photo optional) and sharing it to a publicly viewable map. Anyone browsing the stories on the Hollaback maps immediately understands 3 things:
- If you’ve been harassed, you’re not alone,
- Street harassment is used to exert control over others by making them feel scared or uncomfortable. It is much more than individuals just acting inappropriately.
- There are street harassment “hotspots” in most cities often centered around high pedestrian traffic areas.
Hollaback provides comfort to those harassed, and proof that street harassment is a serious problem warranting a serious response from policy makers.
Best Apps for Women Concerned with Safety and Security
Reduce Your Chances of Becoming a Victim, Get Help Quickly With These Apps
by about.com
The best way to minimize your chances of becoming a victim of violent crime (robbery, sexual assault, rape, domestic violence) is to identify and call on resources to help you out of dangerous situations. These five iPhone and Android apps put those resources at your fingertips quickly, and several of them have both free and premium versions. Whether you're in immediate trouble or get separated from friends during a night out and don't know how to get home, having these apps on your phone can reduce your risk and bring assistance when you need it. Although several were originally developed for students to reduce the risk of sexual assault on campus, they are suitable for all women.
SMART PHONE APPS FOR WOMEN'S SAFETY (Reviews and download links)
Women’s Safety and Security in Cities
In many cities around the world, women and girls still have a lot to worry about when it comes to their personal safety.
“On average, violence makes up at least 25 to 30 per cent of urban crime and women, especially in developing countries, are twice as likely to be victims of violent aggression (including domestic violence) as men” (UN-HABITAT, State of the World’s Cities, 2006-2007).
UN-HABITAT believes that local authorities and city management have a crucial role to play in the prevention of violence against women, both in public and private spaces, whether it be harassment or attacks outside the home, or domestic abuse behind closed doors.
UN-HABITAT and UNIFEM fighting violence against women
UN-HABITAT and UNIFEM this week signed a global pact to tackle violence against women and girls in the world’s cities.
The Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka and the Executive Director of UNIFEM, Mrs. Ines Alberdi, signed the agreement in New York on Wednesday, 3 June.
Violence makes up at least 25 to 30 per cent of urban crime and women, especially in developing countries, are twice as likely as men to be victims of violent aggression, including domestic violence.
30 Percent of U.S. Teen Girls Meet Up With Online Strangers
(HealthDay News) -- Nearly a third of American teenage girls say that at some point they've met up with people with whom their only prior contact was online, new research reveals.
For more than a year, the study tracked online and offline activity among more than 250 girls aged 14 to 17 years and found that 30 percent followed online acquaintance with in-person contact, raising concerns about high-risk behavior that might ensue when teens make the leap from social networking into real-world encounters with strangers.
Girls with a history of neglect or physical or sexual abuse were particularly prone to presenting themselves online (both in images and verbally) in ways that can be construed as sexually explicit and provocative. Doing so, researchers warned, increases their risk of succumbing to the online advances of strangers whose goal is to prey upon such girls in person.
Cologne attacks a disaster for women and migrants
(10 January 2016) -- It was a good week for implacable anti-immigration warriors, for extremists and regular right-wingers. Gleefully they turned up in newspapers and on radio and TV to denounce multiculturalism and Islam and declare that they were right all along. Non-Europeans were a threat to civilisation and a blight. Their message must have been welcomed by nationalists all across Europe. And who can really blame them?
Women out celebrating New Year’s Eve in Cologne and other German cities were stalked, surrounded, sexually assaulted, abused, humiliated and robbed by gangs of men, hundreds of them. Such incidents were also reported in Finland, Sweden and Switzerland. The onslaughts and thefts seemed to be well co-ordinated. The police watched the drama of sexual violence as if they were at a theatre and did nothing; the German media seemed cowed. Angela Merkel, who did the right thing by admitting desperate Syrian refugees, is now caught in a maelstrom.
According to witness and victim statements, most of the brutes looked Arab or African. Some, it turns out, were asylum seekers. Among the suspects are Algerians, Moroccans, Syrians, Iranians, an Iraqi, a Serbian, an American and a German.
Those of us on the left who believe in equality and justice for all have found these events intolerably hard to deal with. They have led to moral chaos and loss of faith. We need to get over the shock and find our voices. We must take on those who blame migrants and refugees for all vices and political failures. But more importantly, we must unconditionally damn the villains and defend the victims. Anti-racism is weak and unworthy unless it embraces the principles of feminism. Too often it doesn’t.
NEWS ON WOMEN'S SECURITY
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