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#59: Distracted driving during COVID-19
72 Plays5 years ago
In this episode, podcast series host Jill James interviews husband and wife team Jacy Good and Steve Johnson. Jacy and Steve are normally out touring the country giving speeches to high schools and businesses about the dangers of distracted driving. Jacy and Steve were called to the profession after Jacy’s parents were tragically killed by a distracted driver. Come and listen to their perspective on the effects COVID-19 has had on distracted driving.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Background
00:00:10
Speaker
This is the Accidental Safety Pro brought to you by Vivid Learning Systems and the Health and Safety Institute. This is episode number 59. My name is Jill James, the Health and Safety Institute's Chief Safety Officer. And today, I'm joined by J.C. Goode and Steve Johnson. They are the founders of Hang Up and Drive. They're public speakers on the subject of phone-based distracted driving with over 1,000 corporate and school events under their belts in the 10 years they've been active.
JC's Crash and Advocacy Journey
00:00:39
Speaker
Back in 2008, when they were dating, JC was in a terrible car crash caused by another driver using his phone behind the wheel. Now, as a married couple, they travel the world mixing their personal story with statistics and science about distracted driving to try to help companies and communities become safer.
00:00:58
Speaker
You might remember hearing their story from episode number 35, which we recorded live at the National Safety Council Conference in 2019. Welcome back to the show, Jaycee and Steve. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us again.
00:01:15
Speaker
Yeah, episode 35 to 59. Wow, we've had some distance between us. And I'm just so grateful that you came back to the show because I have a feeling that people who know you both and know your story or have heard it in their workplace or maybe their kids have heard it in their schools.
00:01:35
Speaker
might be wondering, hmm, what's life like for people who usually have been on the road for all of these years telling their story?
Pandemic Effects on Personal and Professional Life
00:01:46
Speaker
So I guess I'd like to hear, like, where are you right now?
00:01:52
Speaker
Oh, boy. At home, I think? At home for the first time. I guess we were on the road, on the road, normal stuff until our last event was on March 10th. Then we just watched slowly as everything went downhill, obviously for the country and as well for our work schedule. We've never been home for this long of a stretch.
00:02:22
Speaker
You left one part out. We found out that everything was done when we were halfway to Pittsburgh. We drove four hours and then I actually answered the phone to learn that.
00:02:33
Speaker
Pittsburgh was not going to be happening. Instead of driving four hours more to get to Pittsburgh, we'd be driving four hours exactly back home. Yeah, that's true. That was the start. Here we are, we live, and maybe to add insult to injury of losing what was going to be a very, very fun and busy spring schedule.
00:02:58
Speaker
is that we live in Westchester County, New York, just outside of New York City. We were that first hotspot. It was just a couple of towns away. We're in that area that's the slowest to reopen as well. One of the last schools we spoke at a few weeks later was the very first school to close because the child, the very first person who was infected, went to that school. Well, you talk about being at the tip of the spear.
00:03:28
Speaker
Thankfully, they had no infections and we were fine. It was the son of that new Rochelle lawyer that was the first super spreader went to this high school that we had just spoken at.
Financial Impacts and Virtual Adaptation
00:03:40
Speaker
It's just rough. We're used to spending all of our time together, so that's not a big change because we live together and we work together.
00:03:53
Speaker
But you hadn't been at home together. You'd been living in hotels for the last 10 years traveling around the country together. And that's what we love doing. It's not just hard for us to not be out giving our presentations, which we love, love, love to do. But the job is fun because we're always somewhere new and we're always asking
00:04:17
Speaker
a local for a restaurant recommendation, and we're spending that free eight hours we may have to go do some state park or something. I was just thinking about doing this podcast and some thoughts I had on it earlier today, and I was like, all of our friends have always envied what we do for a living. We have a bunch of friends that certainly make a lot more money than us, but no one has had
00:04:47
Speaker
the work-life balance, the fun that we've had, and I wonder how they now feel as essentially all of our good friends are still employed right
JC's Advocacy and Public Speaking Evolution
00:04:57
Speaker
now. We literally have not made a penny since that last event on March 10th. As the world opens up again, which is wonderful, there's no telling when we're going to have any consistent income.
00:05:17
Speaker
Jace, you can maybe speak to this, but some people have approached us already about doing virtual presentations.
00:05:27
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. JC, interested to hear in case our audience isn't familiar with you, which of course they can be if they go back to episode 35, but do you maybe want to set the stage of what this life has been about in the 10 years that you've been traveling together, making an impact and having fun and how it came to the screeching halt. Absolutely. Traveling all the way back to 2008,
00:05:56
Speaker
The day that Steve and I both graduated from college, my parents and I were driving home from that graduation ceremony. Steve and I had our lives together planned. It was kind of all at the tip of our fingers with jobs and everything that we were so excited to start living before kind of starting a life together. And as my parents and I were driving home, we were hit by a tractor trailer, 18 Wheeler.
00:06:25
Speaker
He had swerved to miss an 18-year-old young man who was talking on his cell phone. He came to a red light and stopped and then turned left through that red light because his brain just wasn't paying attention to the road. Unfortunately, both of my parents were killed on impact at 58 years old. It's hard to understand how I survived.
00:06:56
Speaker
seven or eight broken bones, my pelvis, my leg, my wrists, my collarbone, and damaged liver, collapsed lungs, my carotid arteries were very badly injured, and a traumatic brain injury, which doctors said gave me about a 10% chance of living through that first night. I went through all kinds of surgeries, all kinds of, again, just inexplicable things that somehow
00:07:25
Speaker
kept me alive and started to come out of a coma, starting to come back into consciousness. It was a full two months before I could even understand what had happened to me and my family and why I was in the hospital. From there, you know, I went through about a year and a half of, no, that's not true, three years of just full-time rehabilitation, trying to regain the ability to live independently.
00:07:54
Speaker
It was shortly after I got out of the hospital and learned what had caused this horrific crash that I started fighting for laws in Pennsylvania, where it happened. Because in the end, no one was punished, even though my parents were dead. It wasn't illegal to use a phone in Pennsylvania. And so the District Attorney determined there was nothing he could do to hold anyone accountable for doing something, even back then we knew was dangerous.
00:08:25
Speaker
And so my name kind of started to get out there in 2010. I shared this story on Oprah's show. And since then, it's kind of been traveling wherever we can to try and make a difference.
00:08:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And Steve was with you the entire time. I mean, I didn't know that a lot of the time, but yes. Yeah. So through college and through better or worse, and a lot of worse, and you've built this life together on the road, trying to make an impact to decrease distracted driving crashes.
00:09:05
Speaker
And so your audiences have, tell us a little bit about what your, who your audiences have been over the years. Well, for us, it started out just after Jace was on Oprah. We were asked to speak by my old high school. And I think maybe like a lot of people's instinct, it sounded absolutely terrifying to, as people who weren't uncomfortable with public speaking, but we said yes. And
00:09:31
Speaker
Um, it ended up feeling really positive, even though it absolutely was terrifying. And we were basically reading off of note cards. Um, and then it just kind of spread through word of mouth locally first. And JC was getting more press and some of it was national. And, um, yeah, I'm trying to remember, we didn't even have a website for the first, maybe two years or more, but people just kept finding us. Um, and it was a lot of schools at first and then one company found us and they
00:10:00
Speaker
were very good to us having us at like, I don't even know, 10 or 11 of their sites over a couple of years. So that kind of got us, uh, helping us dip our toes into the corporate arena. And we just, we just started getting better at that, um, through, through repetition and, and maybe some aging. You know, when we started this, we were, I mean, Jason, Jason was 20. Yeah, you were 23. I was 24. And it was very easy for high schoolers, especially to relate to us. I mean, we're,
00:10:30
Speaker
relatively young people telling a love story. Um, and then as we aged up a little bit and, uh, you know, very conveniently my hair turned gray prematurely, I could be, I could be more, more relatable to, uh, to the corporate audiences. And then we got exposure at events like the national safety council stuff and, uh, started getting some accolades there. And, um, and, and then again, it's, it's, it's companies talking to companies and, and companies, I don't know, like,
00:11:01
Speaker
In January, this January, we did an event for a big kind of energy oil natural gas company in Omaha. And they loved us. And they had already booked us at one of their subsidiaries for, I guess it would have been last week now. And
Founding of Hang Up and Drive and Legislative Efforts
00:11:21
Speaker
they were booking us for a big conference event in September, which we just don't know. And that's how our business has grown. But it's also the stuff that
00:11:31
Speaker
we're losing now. It feels like a big loss of momentum. We had finally turned a corner where we were getting the kind of quality and quantity of corporate work that we've had as our goal for a long time now. That rug was pulled out from under us.
00:11:54
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And in the midst of it, you've developed a company name, Hang Up and Drive. And so you now have a presence, right? So people can go and learn about you and learn your story as well, correct? Hangupanddrive.com. Yeah. Yeah. And you actually have made some impact as well, JC, with legislative activity too, correct?
00:12:18
Speaker
Yeah, I started working really hard in Pennsylvania trying to get a handheld ban in place. Unfortunately, that turned really kind of partisan. Any vote that happened was right down the aisle, unfortunately. But again, everything I did kind of kept getting my name out there.
00:12:39
Speaker
Pennsylvania finally passed a texting and driving law. It took until, I think I testified in 2009, that took another two years. 2011, they put that in place and it's not a good law and you talk to police officers and they can't enforce it, but it's a step. I've helped a lot in New York, making New York's laws as strong as they are, which are still some of the best in the country. They were one of the first states to pass these laws.
00:13:08
Speaker
praise Governor Cuomo a little bit. He's worked really hard to make sure that we kind of stay on top of this. Yeah, yeah. So there's much work yet to be done.
00:13:19
Speaker
Oh, that's an understatement. Right. So you're both chomping at the bit. I'm sure to get back in front of your audiences. And like you said, you started out today explaining you're essentially in the epicenter of the pandemic as it reached the United States at any rate.
00:13:39
Speaker
And Jaycee, you started to talk about people have been asking if you can do some virtual speaking engagements. Is that something that you're talking about and trying to figure out what that might look like? Yeah, we are absolutely trying to figure out how we can make that happen from watching webinars, talking about all the options of ways to do it, and watching other people attempting to kind of translate this to their own stories to a virtual manner.
00:14:09
Speaker
I just don't know. What are you trying to say, Steve? Well, I just, we've just always felt like so much of the power of the story part of our presentation, which is more than half of our presentation is just that ability to look us in the eyes as we tell it. Like, you know, JC literally challenges an audience to, you know, look me in the eye and tell me what's more important on your phone than my parents' lives. For example, is a line she works into most presentations and
00:14:38
Speaker
We just don't know what's going to be lost, but we don't, I hate to say it, but we're getting to that point where we may not have an option and we're going to have to figure out how to be absolutely as effective as possible because the issue is so important.
00:14:56
Speaker
but doing that virtually because we, I mean, luckily we're savers and we have some money in the bank that we can live off of for a while, but that's unsustainable.
Pandemic's Impact on Driving and Crash Statistics
00:15:08
Speaker
And I think to kind of just pitch in there, you know, I've done so many different videos and that's what a lot of people would recognize me from just sharing this story and specifically the one challenging people to look me in the eyes and tell me what they're doing.
00:15:24
Speaker
And when we go and meet people and they meet me in person, they say, I saw that video. I saw another video that's out there in real life. It is so much better. It just does not even compare to have virtual versus real life.
00:15:40
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we're probably told that at literally every event we go to. Yeah. And there's so many people like you who have speaking tours, doing advocacy work, just like the two of you. In the safety arena, our listeners who are listening right now are thinking, oh yeah, I can think of this person and this person and this person that speaks at so many conferences and who's impactful.
00:16:09
Speaker
who they choose to follow and so you're not alone but it's still a bummer. I have recently been listening to people saying that our virtual meetings that we're having using these various platforms that everyone's using right now to connect when you can look people in the eye that sometimes it's very intense for the listener or for the person who's communicating as well because you can't necessarily look away.
00:16:38
Speaker
you know, they're right there in front of your face. And so maybe, maybe you'll be able to have some of those connections too. And I bet you will. Yeah, I hope so. You may be, that may be more true for corporate events. I wonder if it's, if it's true for, for the school events. Yeah. I know this is more of a corporate geared podcast, but just thinking out loud, I, I would,
00:17:05
Speaker
We get so much from our audience. We're tweaking what we're saying based on body language and what you're hearing. Especially with the high schools, we're trying to be funny while being serious. If they're laughing at something, we may play it up again.
00:17:22
Speaker
just not having that in-room feedback. Because it just makes it harder. It just is all it is. It's going to make it less fun. And it's not about having fun. We don't do this to have fun. But it happens to be fun. And the thought of doing it and having it be less fun is disappointing.
00:17:39
Speaker
Yeah, I think everyone understands that when you say fun when you're a professional speaker and when we're trying to share something that's impactful, it becomes professional fun. We know that we're making an impact and that's the part that makes it fun in quotation marks, right? Oh, and then all the people coming up to us afterwards, it's all the handshakes and the thank yous and the hugs at high schools for JC and
00:18:05
Speaker
All right, now it's just going to be elbow bumps from everyone, right? Yeah, that's fine if we're in the room with people, but it doesn't happen virtually.
00:18:15
Speaker
Well, you've both been at home now, hunkered down in New York, and I'm happy to hear that it sounds like you've both been healthy. But it's also a time to do a little research as well, and I know that you're both very studied on statistics, that you're always updating your presentations.
00:18:38
Speaker
And one of the things that I've been hearing a little bit about, and I wanted to ask you more, is it I started to hear that auto crashes are actually going up during this pandemic, which seems like counterintuitive to what we would
00:18:57
Speaker
what we would anticipate when so many of us are home and things are, you know, our movement around the United States has just been, you know, changed when we look at traffic patterns, but the increase of accidents is going up. And I'm curious to hear from you, what have what have you learned? What is that true? So from what I've read, I follow the National Safety Council pretty closely. Yeah. And
00:19:27
Speaker
Um, there was a 14% jump in fatality rates per miles driven in the month of March. Wow. Right. I think, uh, JC literally has some of the stats we jotted down in front of her and I'm in a separate room, but I want to say it was, you know, like miles driven was down by a third or two thirds.
00:19:52
Speaker
but fatalities was only down by some disappointingly small number. And I'm curious to know what it's like elsewhere. I just mean from anecdotal stuff. We live in an apartment building and we have our windows open. It's nice out. And we just hear how fast people are driving. It's as if people are drag racing on what have usually been busy roads in our area
00:20:22
Speaker
and are now nearly empty roads, although they're finally starting to get busy again. But it's every single day at every hour of the day you hear somebody's tires going. It sounds like drag racing, and I know people on the city Facebook page complain about drag racers in their neighborhoods, and it's hard to figure out.
00:20:44
Speaker
Yeah, what's going on there? You know, what kind of opportunistic thing is happening with JC? That's an interesting statistic. What else did you find out? Steve said that you had some others. So one of the most interesting things to me that I found, what were you gonna say, Steve? I
00:21:05
Speaker
There were some interesting statistics about what states were showing increases in crashes and deaths versus which ones were going down. I think it was like Hawaii was down.
00:21:21
Speaker
a normal amount, like 38% kind of in conjunction with fewer people. And maybe if you think about it, it's, well, you don't have tourists right now. You don't have a bunch of people from the mainland renting wranglers and not knowing where they're going and that kind of stuff. But then places like California or Illinois, the numbers were up. California, New York, Texas, they're all up.
00:21:52
Speaker
The question is, why? It's a little too early. There's not as much hard data on why, but there are some stories with smart people making their best guesses.
00:22:11
Speaker
A lot of it is stress. A lot of it is mental health. Right now we are all certainly living in a time of higher stress and people are maybe just not thinking about the task of driving as much as they should as they're preoccupied with maybe it's making ends meet or maybe it's a sick family member or whatever it may be.
Road Safety Concerns and Educational Gaps
00:22:37
Speaker
One of the other things I read was that people right now are so attuned to staying connected through their devices that distracted driving seems to be as a percentage of miles driven on the rise. The people who are on the road, even though it's fewer people, more of them as a percentage are
00:23:02
Speaker
are on their phones. Again, this is just my brain. The increase in delivery, the increase in Amazon drivers and FedEx and all these things, Instacart, individual people driving through apps.
00:23:21
Speaker
for Instacart or whatever it may be, who are more reliant on phones to figure out where they're going and maybe in more of a rush because of the pressure to deliver things quickly and make more money, just has people driving more recklessly.
00:23:40
Speaker
Yeah. So who, yeah, those are good observations and good wonderings. So who gathers the statistics on the crashes, you know, like how, what's the lag time? When will we learn, you know, what is related to distracted driving versus, um, you know, alcohol related crash or, you know, some other reasons. Will we be able to get that data, do you think?
00:24:05
Speaker
I think we will be. Usually, generally speaking, it takes about a year. Anything they have out right now are preliminary numbers, but by next year, they'll be able to compare again and say, kind of compare what fell from where. Yeah, and who's the clearinghouse for that kind of data usually? Is it done by state departments of transportation or how does that work?
00:24:30
Speaker
I can read you exactly what it says. National Safety Council collects fatality data every month from all 50 states and DC and uses data from the National Center for Health Statistics so that deaths occurring within one year of the crash on both public and private roads are counted in those estimates.
00:24:52
Speaker
Hmm. Okay. Okay. So JC, you listed the top, the states that had the most, um, accidents right now. I don't even want to call it accident. Let's use the word crash. Let's call it crash. Right. We don't want to say accident. Um, which are this, which state has the lowest or what are some of the lowest first three months of 2020 following states experienced increases?
00:25:17
Speaker
Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Louisiana, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas. These are just, I mean, that's like every kind of state. It's not even like, you can't even draw a through line. Yeah, but they're not a cluster. Notable decreases were Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Oregon, and South Carolina.
00:25:46
Speaker
Oh, interesting. Yeah, I can't wait to hear more about these statistics as we look at 2020 and learn what were those differences.
00:25:57
Speaker
One of the things that I've been thinking about specifically maybe in the last two or three weeks as we've gotten closer to for schools graduation and as more just like conferences and things like that have been canceled is if there's going to be any ripple quantifiable or not,
00:26:24
Speaker
of people not being educated, of people not attending conferences where they may learn safety information or having the kind of safety stand downs that we might speak at or schools. You know, there are so many schools for us that have us every year in like March, April or May to speak to their seniors who are about to either go to prom or about to graduate and
00:26:51
Speaker
I know we're good at what we do and people tell us we're good at what we do and how many of those seniors are just going to kind of pass through without learning a lot of the important lessons. And I'm sure they're having speakers on, on drug and alcohol use. And I'm sure they're having speakers on bullying, maybe at younger grades, you know, a lot of schools choose March, April, and May to bring in their speakers and all these things are going to be missed. And how may that impact, especially as we enter
00:27:21
Speaker
What is it, the 100 days, Jaycee? What do they call it? Yeah, 100 deadliest days. What is that? Memorial Day to Labor Day, teenagers specifically die at much greater rates than any other time in the year because they're not in school, they're out on the road, and unfortunately, they don't have the experience. That's another one of those ripples that
00:27:44
Speaker
as people haven't really been driving for a month or two or three, you got rusty. And for even adults, you got to recharge up and remember how to be a good and safe driver. And for teenagers, they don't have as much background to fall back on. So getting back on the road and not having the experience under their belts is
00:28:09
Speaker
going to be very dangerous in conjunction in conjunction with their home states depending on where they are getting more lax with the rules and you know suddenly maybe you're allowed to go see your friends and people are going to be excited or they're going to want to go drive to the beach together all these things
00:28:29
Speaker
or you can get your license without taking a driving test, which has been, I know it happened, I believe in Georgia and now New Jersey was looking at doing it, which is insane for the most densely populated state to try and let kids drive without being able to pass a test. And I think they're lowering the amount of required miles or hours on the road for some professional licensing as well. So it's like we're all trying to accommodate
00:28:55
Speaker
the world that the pandemic has created, but we can't forget that.
Personal Reflections on Advocacy and Community Support
00:29:02
Speaker
Of course, this has been a way worse, deadlier situation than most other things that kill people every year, but we're still losing 40,000 people a year on the roads. And I would hate to think that that number is going to go up because we're being more lax with licensing and with education and things like that.
00:29:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think the ripple effect is definitely something to be paying attention to and to be working diligently in the world of safety, whether it's for our workforce or whether it's in our home life and whether it's with our teenagers to try to bend that curve and keep working on it. I know just in my personal life, you both mentioned the hundred most deadliest days.
00:29:53
Speaker
Last Friday one of my son's classmates was in a crash that I couldn't believe she's walked away from. The vehicle, you know, didn't look like there was room to live in it and she walked away and then on that same day there was another crash with a 16 year old who's
00:30:18
Speaker
a son of a former co-worker of mine, and he passed away this morning.
00:30:26
Speaker
And so when you talk about those most deadliest days, and you're wondering what's it like elsewhere, Steve, you had asked that question, and we're talking about interventions that have been abrupted because of the pandemic. And I don't know what caused those crashes, and I may not know what caused those crashes, but the reality is this continues to happen, right?
00:30:55
Speaker
And I just read a statistic today from, I believe, the National Highway Traffic Safety Association. Administration, right? Administration. For teenage drivers, when a fatal crash happens, 53% of those drivers were distracted by something. So for young people too often, it's whatever that distraction was.
00:31:17
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So your work is so important. Your work is so important and this message is so important to curb these crashes. And of course you're focused on distracted driving as you well should be. And I hope that you're able to give back to spreading your message and finding new ways perhaps to continue spreading your message as well. Yeah. Something else to kind of add in that
00:31:47
Speaker
I read an entire really long article about impulsivity and it kind of just started with we're stuck at home and the world feels out of control. Like we can't do anything to make a difference. And something as simple as like there's a website that sells do-it-yourself tattoo kits and they have never sold so many tattoo kits.
00:32:13
Speaker
people are really impulsive trying to take control of something. And unfortunately, that is also translating to our roads that people are driving really impulsively. And unfortunately, that means ignorantly too much of the time. Sorry, I finished, babe.
00:32:34
Speaker
More people are drinking while they're at home and maybe not necessarily working, like Steve already talked about, hearing drag racing, people going too fast because there are so few other cars on the road, or going back to cell phones, distracted driving.
00:32:49
Speaker
every time we're out and we've been out a lot since we're at home with nothing to do trying to stay in shape and go for walks. And every single car, someone is on the phone, you know, we got used to technology has been such a savior through all this has been amazing. But we got to draw that line when we get in the car that we're gonna turn it off.
00:33:11
Speaker
Yeah, I was just going to say, we have been out a lot on foot, just going for walks. We just try to find the roads in our town that are kind of less traveled and stay our distance from people. But in terms of driving, we're only in the car maybe once every seven to 10 days. It's usually
00:33:30
Speaker
I guess we've been using our relative youth and health to do shopping for, uh, for some of our older family members and their friends. Um, so we've been, we've been doing that maybe just something that helps us, uh, helps fills fill our souls up a little bit. Um, because that's something we've been missing, not being able to do our work, um, and making those deliveries, but the drivers are so,
00:33:56
Speaker
aggressive. I mean, I've never, and we live in New York, where the default is aggressive. To say aggressive, yeah, okay. Yeah. And I've never been tailgated as much. I've never seen so many people weaving as much, doing that move where they're in the middle lane of our three lane highway and then suddenly they're taking the exit two lanes over.
00:34:23
Speaker
And we're driving, we're only driving like, you know, like an hour, an hour every 10 days. And we're seeing these things that we, we've never seen so frequently. And I just, the thing is people don't equate these actions to the consequences unless they've had an experience with it. When I see somebody drive like that, I think of May 18, 2008, my brain goes back to graduation day.
00:34:52
Speaker
and and pain and crying and the ripples the ripples going out and out and out to like all of JC's parents co-workers and her mom was a teacher and all of her eighth grade students and it's like you're stupid weaving that maybe gets you where you're going
00:35:09
Speaker
you know, like 10% sooner than you would otherwise if you were following the law. The consequences of that could be so far reaching and people just don't feel that way. And I don't blame them for not making that
Driving Safety Practices and Future Considerations
00:35:23
Speaker
connection. Like if you've never been touched by a road traffic related tragedy, I can understand your point of view, but that doesn't make it any less enraging for people like JC or I to see.
00:35:39
Speaker
And to go back to those eighth grade students who I posted about May 18th, this year was 12 years and I made whatever post on social media I made. I got somewhere between 12 and 15 messages from former students of my mom talking about how much they love her, how much they still miss her. Just how that's 12 years later, still I'm backing these now 20 something year olds. Right. And impacted their lives like you're talking about Steve.
00:36:08
Speaker
Yeah. So what percentage of those 40,000 people a year are people who had impacts like that on other people? And this 16 year olds in your orbit who passed away today, like there's just so much potential. You don't know what this person had in them to what good they may have put out in the world.
00:36:32
Speaker
if given the opportunity to do so and these things are preventable. And the impacts he's already making with his life, with his friends right now and his family members and his community members.
00:36:45
Speaker
Yeah you know JC you reference impulsivity and I think that's so interesting and true you know like people are feeling like they don't have control over things and so finding ways whether it's on the road or not we listen to our
00:37:04
Speaker
our guests the Gellers the other the other week on the podcast talk about you know fear and that fear leads to frustration and frustration leads to violence and Steve you're talking about you're seeing people you know drag racing or weaving in and out of cars or you know tailgating and you know that's that's edging on the edge of violence we're seeing that and it's impacting what we're seeing on the roads and with these increases of fatality rates right now too and
00:37:33
Speaker
Yeah. It's like people are getting out every frustration they have behind the wheel. Behind the wheel. Yeah. Yeah. So you two have spent 10 years driving. You've been doing these speaking engagements for 10 years. You've been behind the wheel yourselves. What's it like when, I mean, not now, but in all of those years you've been driving, curious for you to share with the audience,
00:38:01
Speaker
You know, are you? Is it scary for you to be driving or what are the practices that you two have developed to stay safe when you're driving in all the miles that you put on across the country? I'm going to let Jaycee answer this before she does. I just want to say that if you ever feel like you need to be a safer driver, just put Jaycee good in your passenger seat.
00:38:26
Speaker
and she will tell you anytime she feels like you're doing something incorrect whether you're back to her not a pretty sure excellent did you do not lack courage
00:38:39
Speaker
No, I mean, I think I can, without officially having been diagnosed, I can pretty safely say that I definitely suffer from some mild form of PTSD. I hate getting in the car. I think Steve's little sister wants to come and visit us and she lives down in New York City and she could be here on a train in no time. And yeah, she'd be facing a virus. But I would rather face a virus than face New York City drivers who are going over a hundred miles an hour on New York City streets.
00:39:13
Speaker
As Steve says, I just make sure whatever car I'm in is the safest car on the road, whether that's attention to the road, hands on the wheel, whatever it is. Going the speed limit, wearing our seat belts, every single person in the car wearing their seat belts, those things matter so much.
00:39:36
Speaker
Yeah, maybe I'm noticing everyone weaving around me because I'm actually going 55 in a 55 and that's just kind of so out of the ordinary. Our car, which we've also had for 10 years, has 225,000 miles on it right now.
00:39:57
Speaker
No, it's 225. But of course, a lot of our events involve flying and not driving. So it's still a pretty good amount of miles on there. Wait, is it 255? Oh, it's 255. Yeah, you're right. It's 255. Our car, I said the other day,
00:40:16
Speaker
I think our car might be confused at what's going on. Did mommy and daddy get a new child or something? I think we filled up the gas once. We filled it one time since we stopped and we still have three quarters of a tank.
00:40:38
Speaker
I'm just doing a little bit of driving that we're doing in a fuel efficient car. But we are those people going the speed limit. I've never taken a defensive driving course, but so much of what I'm guessing they teach in there seems pretty logical. I'll never stay next to somebody on the highway. If they're doing the same speed I'm doing, I'm usually going to drop back.
00:41:04
Speaker
Never let people stay in the my blind spot or vice versa. You know, we have an adapted car for Jaycee. I guess Jaycee didn't mention that she can't use her left arm or hand or fingers at all. And she only has limited action in her left leg and knee and ankle and toes. Actually, I guess, Jaycee, you can't really move your foot at all, can you?
00:41:31
Speaker
No, not really. OK, so anyway, our car just has a couple of adaptations for Jaycee. So I can drive with just the one hand. And for, I guess, 11 years you've been driving, let's say, since the crash.
00:41:46
Speaker
know, incident free, even with some minor limitations. And I think we got rear ended once when we were on the way to an event several years ago, which I guess they say a rear ending is someone else's fault. But for putting on 255,000 miles on a car to be essentially incident free, I think just proves that if people are paying attention and
00:42:13
Speaker
Certainly we've never come close to touching a phone behind the wheel. And that includes a Bluetooth phone conversation, which a lot of people think is safe, but, um, there's just all the evidence proves that it's not, um, just doing those things that focusing on the task of driving. Um, we've been safe, not comfortable necessarily in a, in a 10 year old Honda fit that no longer really has much of a suspension.
00:42:41
Speaker
or comfort in its seats but 2020 was supposed to be our we were supposed to get a new car this year and that did not come to be and now I keep reading that it's a sonda fit is a tiny little car and whatever new report came out that you're most likely to die in a small car and the next car you're gonna get is gonna be like a slightly bigger little SUV that would keep us much safer according to this report and
00:43:05
Speaker
No, I got to keep waiting to get her, but at least we're not in the car. I can feel safer that way. Yeah, true. You just mentioned about Bluetooth and talking on the phone while you're driving and that it's proven not to be a safe option as well. Jaycee, do you want to fill in the blank on that one? Talk about that.
00:43:26
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, when you hear about distracted driving, it's kind of the three or four big ones. It's hands on the wheel, eyes on the road. Being able to hear, like in most states, you're not allowed to wear headsets. You can't cover both your ears. You got to be able to hear what's going on. Or the last one, that cognitive distraction, which safety organizations call an impairment, like you are so badly distracted that your brain just can't function well enough to drive a car.
00:43:57
Speaker
I think that default when you talk about distracted driving is people just think you're the kind of like Interchangeably used texting and driving and distracted driving people just assume it's that and you hear that stat of hey if you're texting at 55 miles per hour it takes your eyes off the road like the length of a football field in whatever it is three seconds and
00:44:19
Speaker
You just hear those stats a lot. You're 27 times more likely to crash if you're texting and driving, but you don't hear as much about talking on the phone and then you add the Bluetooth part of it and you just almost never hear about it. I mean, people like us, meaning us and speakers in our arena and the safety organizations are all saying the same thing, so the message is getting out there.
00:44:46
Speaker
You know, when you're talking on the phone, you're about four times more likely to crash than when you're not. And the difference is the same if that phone conversation is on Bluetooth. You're only one half of 1% safer using Bluetooth versus holding the phone because, you know, it's just about where your brain is at, not really what your hands are doing.
Conclusion and Future Engagements
00:45:07
Speaker
Right. Right. Like you mentioned before, Jaycee, keeping your mind on the task.
00:45:13
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Well, I am so happy that you joined us today. So happy that the audience gets to hear your voices again, especially anyone who's ever heard Steve and JC speak before.
00:45:28
Speaker
Maybe your kids had them in your school, maybe you've had them in your workplace, maybe you've listened to them at a conference. And I hope for both of you that we find some sense of normalcy and you can get in front of an audience again, whether it be a virtual audience.
00:45:46
Speaker
or whether it be an in-person audience. My wish for you is that you can continue to spread this impactful and so important message to get this story out so that you can be continuing to cause those ripple effects that you talked about. So thank you so much. Thank you so much, Jill. It means I think for me, I feel like I can stay connected with my parents and maybe even help to keep those good parts of them alive when I get to share.
00:46:16
Speaker
their story and their lives in this kind of manner. And I'm so grateful that you had us on and allowed me to feel just a little bit of that connection again today. Yeah, this has been a great therapy session. Oh, for me too. Me too. Thank you. Thank you so much. And I'm so happy that your state is starting to see a bit of a downturn as well. Thank you.
00:46:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Thank you all for spending your time listening today. And more importantly, thank you for your contribution, making sure your workers, including your temporary workers, make it home safe every day. If you'd like to join the conversation about this episode or any of our previous episodes, follow our page and join the Accidental Safety Pro Community Group on Facebook. If you're not subscribed and want to hear past or future episodes, you can subscribe in iTunes, the Apple Podcast app, or any other podcast player that you'd like.
00:47:09
Speaker
You can also find all of the episodes at vividlearningsystems.com slash podcast. We'd love it if you could leave a rating and review us on iTunes. It helps us connect the show with more and more safety professionals like you and I. If you have a suggestion for a guest, including if it's yourself, you can contact me at social at vividlearningsystems.com. And if you want to continue following JC and Steve, you can find them at hangupanddrive.com as well.
00:47:37
Speaker
Special thanks to Will Moss, our podcast producer. And until next time, thanks for listening.