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Letter: Please, don’t drive distracted

It’s April and National Distracted Driving Awareness month. 

Since I was a hit by a car walking across the street, I have become a safety advocate and encourage people to drive safely.

Ten people die and more than 1,000 people are injured every day in distracted driving car crashes and these numbers are low due to under-reporting of distracted driving crashes. According to the National Safety Council, someone is injured every seven seconds in a car crash. That means that in the time it has taken you to read this today, there were multiple crashes in the United States with injuries and fatalities.



I wanted to share an easy way to not use your phone in the car while driving: Set up Do Not Disturb on your phone. 

For some reason, Apple decided to set the default to manual (not on) on this setting, but it’s so easy to set up and once you do, your phone won’t ding when you get a text message and your phone calls will go to voicemail.  Since it takes away the sound, you won’t even realize you’re missing out on a message until you get where you are going.

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How to customize Do Not Disturb while driving settings on iPhone for convenience and safety:

  • Open settings and tap on Do Not Disturb
  • Swipe down if you don’t see DO NOT DISTURB WHILE DRIVING
  • Tap on Activate
  • Choose automatically or when connected to Bluetooth
  • Choose auto-reply to “all contacts” or “favorites”

When you get a text while driving, a message will be sent that says “I’m driving with Do Not Disturb While Driving turned on. I’ll see your message when I get where I am going.” You can change the message if you like. Be safe out there.   

The life you save may be your own or a loved one, so don’t drive distracted.

Robyn Nothnagel

Eagle


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