Texas Teens in Greater Danger on Roadways This New Year's Eve

They know it's the most dangerous night of the year for drinking and driving, yet they do it anyway.

2012-01-11

DALLAS, TX, January 11, 2012 (Press-News.org) They know it's the most dangerous night of the year for drinking and driving, yet they do it anyway. According to a recent survey conducted by Liberty Mutual and Students Against Drunk Driving (SADD), teenagers are more likely to drink and drive on New Year's Eve despite a common belief in the extreme perils of driving on that night.

The survey is especially alarming in light of an Allstate report released earlier this month, which found that more teenagers are dying in Texas auto wrecks than any other state. According to the report, 556 teens died in car accidents throughout the state in 2009.

The report stated that Texas needed to take action to tighten restrictions on teen driving.

Texas has been steadily working on stronger restrictions. In 2002, they started a graduated licensing program that restricted teens' driving privileges during their first year holding a license. Teens were not allowed to drive between midnight and 5 a.m. and they could only have one person under the age of 21 in the car with them who was not related.

In 2009, the legislature added further restrictions in an effort to eliminate the number of distracted driving accidents caused by teens. A new law barred any teen driver from talking on a cell phone or texting until they turned 18. In addition, the training time required for new drivers was increased almost three-fold.

Allstate proposes changing the age of obtaining a learner's permit until age 16 and not allowing a teen to have full driving privileges until they reach 18. While the debate about just what measures need to be taken to reduce teen fatalities in car accidents there is encouraging news from the Liberty Mutual/SADD study.

The study found that teens were highly influenced by their peers and if a passenger asked them not to drive drunk, they would likely stop. Parents are encouraged to talk to their children about the dangers of driving while intoxicated (DWI) during New Year's and how to speak up if their friends are trying to drive impaired. In addition, preventing Dallas DWI car wrecks means talking with teens about how to deal with others who might be drunk on the roads.

Website: http://www.textrial.com

Source: www.insurancenetworking.com, "More Teens Drink, Drive on New Year's Eve Than Any Other Holiday," 28 December 2011, Pat Speer and www.kxan.com, "More Texas Teens Die in Traffic Wrecks," 12 December 2011, Erin Cargile

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

NSF grant to Wayne State aims to develop new ways to calculate odds of structural failure

2012-01-11

Current approaches to calculating failure probability in complex engineering structures can be inefficient and result in inconsistency, but a Wayne State University researcher is working to change that. Christopher Eamon, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, recently received a three-year, $250,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop an accurate and efficient method for calculating failure probability (reliability analysis) for computationally and probabilistically complex structural engineering problems, with the goal of achieving ...

Cosmetic chemical hinders brain development in tadpoles

2012-01-11

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Scientists, health officials, and manufacturers already know that a chemical preservative found in some products, including cosmetics, is harmful to people and animals in high concentrations, but a new Brown University study in tadpoles reports that it can also interrupt neurological development even in very low concentrations. In the cosmetics industry, the biocide methylisothiazolinone or MIT, is considered safe at concentrations of less than 100 parts per million. Lab studies, however, have found that lower concentrations affected ...

Two Things Certain in Life: Divorce and Taxes?

2012-01-11

In a 2007 study published in Forbes.com, 56 percent of women and 36 percent of men whose wealth was at least $1 million said that they had hidden or protected assets. Those that made over $10 million were the most likely to have hidden assets. Many people admitted to using wealth preservation strategies, where they hid assets from creditors and spouses through offshore accounts and asset protection trusts. Others use other trusts, holdings, charitable foundations, family-limited partnerships, and equity reduction plans (ERPs). Still others may hide assets through their ...

High rates of disability and health care use for older americans with cirrhosis

2012-01-11

New research shows that older Americans with cirrhosis have significantly worse health status and greater functional disability compared to those without this potentially deadly disease. In fact, findings now published in Hepatology, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, show that elderly patients with cirrhosis require twice the amount of informal caregiving and contribute added strain on the health care system. Given the increase in obesity and aging of those with hepatitis C (HCV), researchers expect the prevalence of cirrhosis ...

Is Your Spouse Hiding Assets in Your Divorce?

2012-01-11

Whether you are considering filing for divorce, in the midst of a divorce, or newly single, it is time to start thinking about how your Texas divorce will affect taxes. The following are some of the important factors to consider when filing taxes in 2012: Tax filing status: Your filing status for the entire year is based on your marital status on December 31, 2011. For example, if you were divorced on December 30, 2011, you will be considered "single" (or, depending on your situation, "head of household") for 2011 tax purposes. You may not file a ...

New fibrosis classification improves accuracy of diagnosis in hepatitis C

2012-01-11

A new classification for diagnosing fibrosis in patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) has shown to be as accurate as currently used algorithms, but required no further liver biopsy. The study appearing in the January issue of Hepatology, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, details a method that synchronously combines two fibrosis tests, providing a non-invasive and more precise fibrosis diagnosis. HCV affects up to 170,000 million individuals worldwide and is a leading cause of chronic ...

UGA study offers hope for hemlock attack

2012-01-11

Athens, Ga. – Thousands of broken trees line the banks of the Chattooga River. The dead gray stabs were once evergreen monsters offering shade to trout and picturesque views to visitors. These Eastern hemlocks are dying rapidly, and University of Georgia researchers are working to save them. One tiny insect, the hemlock woolly adelgid, is to blame. The Asian insect first appeared in the eastern U.S. in Richmond, Va., in the 1950s. In 2003, it crossed the river from South Carolina and started feeding on Georgia trees. The tiny pests suck up cells from the tree's needles, ...

Reese Witherspoon Learns Pedestrian Laws After Hit While Jogging

2012-01-11

Movie actress Reese Witherspoon suffered minor injuries after she was struck by a vehicle during her afternoon run in Santa Monica. The Oscar-winning actress was hit while crossing an intersection. The driver, an 84 year old woman, was issued a citation for failure to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk. The actress received minor injuries and after a brief visit to the hospital is recovering in her home. Although Ms. Witherspoon was jogging in an unmarked crosswalk, the driver is still liable for the injuries caused. Such laws are not unusual and are found here in ...

Lower risk of death linked with access to key attributes of primary care, UC Davis study shows

2012-01-11

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) —Greater access to features of high-quality primary care -- comprehensiveness, patient-centeredness and extended office hours -- is associated with lower mortality, according to a new national UC Davis study. Published in the January-February issue of the Annals of Family Medicine, the research is the first to link the availability of three specific attributes of primary care with reduced risk of death. "There are a number of studies that found lower mortality risk in geographic areas with relatively high concentrations of primary-care physicians, ...

Gut microbe networks differ from norm in obese people, systems biology approach reveals

2012-01-11

For the first time, researchers have analyzed the multitude of microorganisms residing in the human gut as a complex, integrated biological system, rather than a set of separate species. Their approach has revealed patterns that correspond with excess body weight. The collection of microbes inside the human gut is a bustling network of genetic interplays and energy use. By constructing models of these microbial communities, scientists have discovered novel differences between obese and lean people. They were able to detect organizational shifts away from a normal ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Effectiveness and safety of tenofovir amibufenamide in the treatment of chronic hepatitis B: A real-world, multicenter study

NYU Tandon School of Engineering receives nearly $10 million from National Telecommunications and Information Administration

NASA scientists find new human-caused shifts in global water cycle

[Press-News.org] Texas Teens in Greater Danger on Roadways This New Year's Eve
They know it's the most dangerous night of the year for drinking and driving, yet they do it anyway.