The current issue of U.S. News & World Report sports a cover that touts their special report: 50 Ways to Improve Your Life in 2009. It's a great article and a good read for anyone interested in a healthier, happier, more prosperous 2009. So with gratitude to the magazine for suggesting the title of this piece, let's consider ten ways to be safer in 2009:
Use and Remove Your GPS – A GPS unit is a fabulous tool, both for convenience and safety. It can obviously guide you to your destination more efficiently. However, it can also add to your safety. For example, suppose you are heading from Boston to Springfield. The Mass Pike is experiencing a 10-mile backup near the Springfield exit and the flashing message signs are suggesting that you get off at an earlier exit to avoid the delay. You wisely take the detour, but you're not familiar with the back roads. Having the GPS in the car will allow you to recalculate the directions without guesswork and without having to stop somewhere to ask someone. Anytime you can avoid getting out of the car in a neighborhood whose margin of safety is unknown to you is a good thing. The downside to the safety a GPS unit offers is the attractiveness of the unit to thieves. They look for people who leave the GPS in full view on the dash or windshield, and then it's an easy target. Even when people remove the unit and the suction-cup holder, the telltale ring it leaves suggests to the thief that you have a unit and maybe you hid it in the glove box or under the seat. To avoid this, wipe the ring away with glass wipes or any other product designed to clean glass. As an alternative, consider using a mount that attaches to the car's air vents or one that fits inside the cup holders.
Get a Fire-Resistant Safe – We often think of safes as devices to protect items. However, how many times have you read about safes being carried away physically? Heck – even ATMs are carried away with the intention of being opened at some distant location. If you haven't seen an example of this, check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6WCfJPcIgk and you'll be convinced that no safe is, well, safe! Anyway, the point of a fire-resistant safe is not to protect items from theft, but to prevent your important papers and other small items from being destroyed in a fire. You should also note that documents and data storage media requires safes of different ratings since data media tends to melt at lower temperatures.
Scan/Photograph/Videotape Documents and Possessions – As a tandem recommendation to the one above, consider documenting your possessions and preserving your documents in other ways. For example, if you experience a housebreak, do you think you will remember every valuable that might have been taken? Will you have serial numbers handy? Will those precious family photographs survive a house fire? The answers to these questions would be "no" for most of us. With digital cameras and scanners being ubiquitous, it's easy to record images of your valuables and to scan important documents such as wills, deeds, insurance policies and other important papers. You can then store these on disks in your fire-resistant safe! It also makes a lot of sense to store your backup document disks in another physical location such as in a safe-deposit box or at a relative's home. There are also many free and for-pay web sites that offer online storage.
Use Seatbelts – Do you know what it means when you hear a news story about someone being ejected from a car? If not, please visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WGhUbUAjvY to see a demonstration. The way people get ejected from a car is by getting into a rollover accident, not wearing a seat belt and going through the window. The car continues to roll over them, causing serious injury or death. Did you know that Massachusetts averages three rollovers per day? A rollover can happen to anyone – even someone traveling the speed limit and minding all the traffic rules – because we can't control the behavior of others. The interior of the car is designed to contain you safely in the event of a crash. It's not foolproof – but belted people have walked away from cars that looked so bad that you'd assume no one would have survived. Every excuse people offer for not wearing a seatbelt is just that: an excuse. Resolve now to always wear a seatbelt, even for the shortest of trips. Do it for someone who loves you.
Get and Use a Shredder – Identity theft is real and can happen to anyone. According to the Javelin Strategy and Research 2007 Identity Fraud Survey Report, it happened to 8.4 million people in 2007. The numbers actually dropped from 2003, which might mean that people are being more diligent about safeguarding their personal information. We don't need to help crooks who dumpster-dive for information by providing them with personal papers that have dates of birth, social security numbers, account numbers or any other information that might be useful to the crook. Invest in a good cross-cut shredder rather than a strip-cut shredder, which provides an extra measure of security by turning the papers into confetti.
Monitor Credit Card Accounts and Get Your Free Credit Reports – Most people do not need to spend money for a credit monitoring service. You can do a good job of this yourself. Set up all your credit card accounts so that you can access them online – do this with your bank accounts as well. You can then log into your accounts as often as you want to keep track of activity and to investigate anything that doesn't seem to be right. Don't pay for credit reports either. You are entitled to one free credit report per year. Here is the really good news. There are three credit reporting companies: Equifax, TransUnion and Experian. If you time it right, you can get a free report every four months. Just request your free report from each company once per year, but at different times. For example, get the TransUnion report in January, the Equifax report in May and the Experian report in September. You'll be able to constantly review your reports and it won't cost a dime. You don't even have to log into the three different web sites. You can do this from one web site: www.annualcreditreport.com.
Avoid Flim-Flams – These have been happening forever, it seems, and no matter how many times they are reported on, people still fall victim to the plot. Let's review: Someone will call you claiming to be a friend of your UPS driver (or offer some other dubious connection to you) with the "dilemma" that his friend works for (fill-in-the-store) and they have an overstock of flat-panel televisions at a great price that they have to get rid of quickly - cash only, of course! You're told to meet the store representative in the parking lot. You show up at the appointed time and the "representative" has an official-looking sales receipt and maybe even an official name-tag or shirt bearing the store's name. He gives you a receipt, takes your money and tells you to meet him at the loading dock. He goes into the store, you go to the loading dock and your money goes away forever. PLEASE – there are no great deals like this!! No legitimate company conducts business like this over the phone or in a parking lot. Do not give a stranger several thousands of dollars and let him or her walk away. If you get a phone call like this, play along if you feel comfortable and then notify your police department at once. We have caught many of these people over the years through citizens being smart enough to recognize a scam and calling us early in the process. We almost never get your money back after the fact, so avoid seeking the "great deal" and call us if you are solicited.
Don't Tailgate – While not every accident is avoidable, one of the controls you have as a driver is to leave sufficient room between your car and the one in front of you. The traditional recommendation has been to keep a car length behind for every ten miles per hour of speed. That recommendation is a good start, but with driving habits generally getting worse and with more congestion, it makes a lot of sense to increase the distance beyond the recommended minimum. You won't get there any faster by tailgating – and maybe not at all if you're really unlucky. So back off a bit and enjoy the ride.
Get Your Child's Safety Seat Checked – Depending on the source, estimates of the percentage of incorrectly installed child safety seats range from 80% to nearly 100%. In our experience, the latter number is probably more accurate. Why is this so? Car seats are more complicated to install than expected. Weight variations for children, incompatibilities between car design and safety seat design, a misunderstanding of just how tight the seats need to be and the failure to strictly follow the installation directions all contribute to unsafe conditions. The best advice? Have the seats installed by certified technicians. These are police officers who are specially trained to install safety seats. They go through rigorous training and then install seats under the watchful eye of experienced installers before being certified. Many police departments offer periodic "checkpoints" where seats can be evaluated and reinstalled, if necessary. Some police departments also perform installations by appointment. The Burlington Police Department offers installations by appointment and these can be arranged by calling 781-270-1940.
Avoid Distracted Driving – According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, approximately 80 percent of all crashes and 65 percent of "near-crashes" occur within three seconds after a driver becomes distracted. The most obvious image is one of a person using a cell phone. While cell phones might be the leading cause of distraction, there are many others. Applying makeup, changing radio channels, reading and even shaving are some of the distractions that can be observed every day on the nation's roadways. In 2009, resolve that distractions will not be part of your daily driving routine. Turn off the phone when in the car. Pick a station on the radio and then leave it alone. Perform all necessary personal grooming before getting into the car. Just drive!
There are many other ways to be safer in 2009 that are not included on this list. However, address these ten and you will be off to a safe start.
