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‘Careful’ shows how to avoid everyday dangers

By David Martindale, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Published: May 28, 2017, 6:03am

There are no accidents.

Steve Casner, author of “Careful: A User’s Guide to Our Injury-Prone Minds,” maintains that almost every unintentional injury and death is preventable.

He knows whereof he speaks. The NASA research psychologist has dedicated the past 20 years of his life to ensuring the safety of people who are hurtling through space.

Casner’s mission statement in “Careful” (Riverhead Books, $26) is to point out everyday dangers and to provide tips to help “keep the casts off our legs and the tags off our toes.”

The book is informative, funny and frightening. After reading, you’ll want to wrap yourself in protective bubble wrap.

But the perils, he promises, can be sidestepped if we pay attention to the world around us.

One of Casner’s favorite soapbox topics involves texting and driving.

Conceding that he can’t persuade overly confident (delusional) drivers to stop texting for safety’s sake, he tries a different tack: “Wichita State University recently published a study that shows how the quality of our texting suffers when we are distracted by the task of driving a car.”

How’s that for a reason to put down the device?

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