3 fatal driving habits one woman stopped after she took first responder training
Sharon Neish is a yoga instructor who decided to shift into healthcare. She started EMS training and soon realized that she had certain driving habits that could prove fatal in a car accident. Do you also make these simple mistakes?
Driving with all your stuff out in the open
Niesh filmed herself placing her laptop and metal water bottle on the car seats. Surely this is something many of us do daily without thinking twice. However, these metal bottles can easily turn into dangerous projectiles during a crash.
She recounts a story one of her teachers told her class: “Our instructor emotionally recalled an attending incident where a laptop hit the back of a 22-year-old driver’s head resulting in instant death.” The young driver braked suddenly, causing the laptop to blast forward.
“Loose objects become missiles,” Neish explains.
If you have kids, think twice about keeping their water bottles in the back seat. My kids have mini Yeti canteens, for instance. They don’t fit in the booster seat or car seat cup holders. The thought of them getting injured because of those…yikes.
Wearing a plastic hair claw clip
“Claw clips against a headrest can impale with force and pressure,” the first responder asserts. Of course, the likelihood and severity of claw clips causing injury while driving depends on a bunch of factors. With the stars aligned, though, medical professionals seem to agree that wearing them in the car isn’t the best idea. Having done it myself, I’ll say it’s not all that comfortable, anyway.
Taking your shoes off in the car, even as a passenger
If you’re the one driving, taking your shoes off the leaving them near the pedals is an awful idea. They can get wedged under the accelerator or brake pedal.
Similar to the flying objects warning, taking your shoes off in the car also turns them into harmful projectiles.
Chilling comments confirm the advice
Many motorists shared their own stories of random objects causing dangerous driving conditions.
“I was coming to a stop once and I couldn’t put the break all the way to the floor. It was my mother‘s car, and I had borrowed it to drive around for the afternoon and run some errands. I had a fender bender, and after calling the police and settling everything with the other car, I went back to my mom‘s car and I found there was a plate under the brake. My sister used to eat in the car and put the plate under my mom’s driver seat. I was very lucky not to get hurt that day.”
Another affirmed: “As a guy who’s seen 1,000s of cars after accidents . Kids don’t put it in you car if you’re not willing to be hit with it in the head very hard .”
“Yup, had a rollover while moving and got cracked in the head with a green Stanley thermos, a shoe, and various clothing items…not fun,” another posted.
Where can you put your stuff while driving?
Generally, you should make sure anything you don’t want to turn into a deadly object is either tied down or stored away. This means putting smaller objects in the glove box. Larger items can go in the trunk. You can also use the car seat anchors to clip or tie things down. For instance, one driver says they have carabiner clips and use them to secure their stuff inside the vehicle. Just think about safety for a second before starting out; it could make a huge difference in the event of a crash.
