More Dangerous Than Drunk Driving, Hope Paige Designs Presents A ThumBand To Promote Safe Texting

Online, February 11, 2011 (Newswire.com) - We're all familiar with the rules of the road and the dictates of common sense: two eyes on the road, two hands on the wheel. Then a driver's cell phone beeps: incoming text message! What happens next? Too often, curiosity trumps common sense-and lives get put at risk.

Hope Paige Designs, a national best-selling medical bracelet company, today unveils ThumBand, a unique finger ring that promotes safe texting. These silicone bands, designed to be worn on the most important texting digit-the thumb-come in colors that draw wearers' attention, and are engraved with messages that remind to text safely. Currently, the ThumBand inventory features three wake-up calls: "LIVE LONG," "TXTING KILLS" and "THUMB." Coming soon: "I'M SAFE." Custom ThumBands are also available.

The dangers of texting-and-driving are disturbingly real. "Distracted driving has become an epidemic," according to the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA). "The human toll is tragic." The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) reported that in 2009 more than 5,400 people died in crashes linked to distraction, and thousands more were injured. The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute concluded that drivers who text are 23 times more likely to crash than drivers who keep their eyes on the road. And studies by Car and Driver determined that texting while driving is more dangerous even than drunken driving. Small wonder, then, that 30 states now ban text messaging outright, and another 10 have restrictions in place for certain categories of drivers.

Distracted texting is not just a highway phenomenon. A female pedestrian recently became an unwitting YouTube sensation when security cameras at a mall in Reading, Pa. captured her tumbling headlong into a fountain while texting. The outcome might not have been so amusing had she been crossing a heavily trafficked intersection. ThumBand rings aim to help put a halt to such needless disasters-in-the-making.

"Our company is always proactively searching for ideas that will help others," says Hope Paige Designs president Shelly Fisher. "If we save even one life, or make someone stop and think, then we have done our job."

To order or learn more about the ThumBands, visit www.ThumBandStore.com or call us at 610-234-0093.