5 Things To Do When Someone Dies

When someone close to you dies, it can be overwhelming and confusing. If you are in charge of making arrangements and notifying other family members of the passing, your life can be thrown into chaos as you handle funeral arrangements, public notifications, and sorting personal possessions. Then you must deal with the demands of everyone that loved the deceased. To help you through the challenging time, here are five things to do after someone dies.

1. Notification

There is no proper way to let family and friends know about the death, but all relatives should be told. You can call the children and ask them to let their individual family members know, or you can send out a mass email or phone alert notifying everyone on your list of the sad event. Be sure to ask each recipient of your message to pass the information on to their family members and the deceased’s friends.

2. Legality

You will need a legal document pronouncing the death of your loved one before you can notify anyone to whom the deceased owed money. A doctor, hospital staff, or hospice nurse can fill out the legal forms you will need before you can order the death certificate you required for notification most companies require.

3. Attorney

Contact the deceased’s New York probate attorney about the passing. This will allow the lawyer to gather necessary documents and prepare for the reading of the will, identification of trusts, and passing of estate issues. The attorney can also begin working on estate or probate taxes.

4. Funeral

The wishes of your loved one pertaining to the disposition of his or her body may take some time. Being an organ donor, asking for cremation, or having a plot at a local cemetery is information best found in the will. Check before you make burial arrangements to make sure the wishes stated in recent months are the same those as listed in the legally binding will.

5. Property

Make sure all personal property of the deceased is secure, including automobiles, homes, and recreational vehicles. If the deceased rented the property, notify the landlord and police that the apartment or house may be vacant for a few weeks, and ask them to keep an eye on the area if possible.

These are only a few of the many tasks associated with making arrangements for the dispersal of property and personal goods of someone that dies. Ask a family member to help you with the numerous tasks to get through them all quickly.

 

Beyond Texting: The Importance Of Avoiding Distracted Driving

What constitutes distracted driving? To many people, the phrase conjures up images of drivers texting behind the wheel, or perhaps trying to dial their phone to make a call. Beyond that, though, most assume that as long as your eyes are on the road and your hands on the wheel, you’re doing what you need to do – but the reality isn’t that simple.

To protect yourself and others when behind the wheel, it’s important to address all elements of distracted driving, which goes far beyond your physical stance. By paying attention to these three different modes of distraction, you can prevent car accidents and model appropriate behavior when on the road.

Visual Distraction

One of the three core types of distraction that contribute to car accidents is visual distraction, those actions that draw our eyes away from the road, and many things we do behind the wheel contribute to this kind of distraction. For example, if a child is clamoring for something in the backseat, a parent might briefly turn around to fetch a dropped item, or you might glance away to change the radio station.

It might seem harmless – how much could really change about road conditions in those few seconds? In reality, though, visual distraction can be deadly. In the United States, 9 people die each day because of the actions of distracted drivers.

Manual Distraction

The second major type of distraction implicated in distracted driving is manual distraction, and it often goes hand-in-hand with visual distraction. When you text and drive, for example, you’re not only looking at a screen (visual distraction), but taking your hands away from the wheel (manual distraction). A particularly reckless behavior, teens are particularly prone to texting and driving; 3,000 teens die every year while doing so, compared to 2,700 drunk driving deaths. Luckily, texting and driving laws do seem to have been somewhat effective at curbing this dangerous behavior.

In addition to texting and driving, other common forms of manual distraction behind the wheel include eating, applying makeup, making phone calls, and fiddling with GPS. During the past several years, many applications – specifically GPS programs – have implemented tools to keep people from using the programs while the vehicle is in motion. Often, it’s just an extra step like confirming that you’re the passenger, not the driver, but it’s a little bit of reinforcement that still helps.


Cognitive Distraction

Finally, the third type of distraction that can make our roads more dangerous is cognitive distraction. To drivers, this may be the least noticeable because it doesn’t necessarily involve physical behavior. For example, most people don’t think that replaying that fight they had in their head while driving is a form of distracted driving, but really it’s a type of cognitive distraction – it takes your mental attention away from the road.

Using hands-free devices, such as a voice-controlled, mounted cell phone, is also a type of cognitive distraction. Rather than focusing on road conditions, you’re focused on operating your device (often glitchy in voice control modes) and conveying your message. It may seem like a minor allocation of your overall attention, but that’s all it takes to make you a more dangerous driver.

Driving – whether you’re on quiet local roads or a major highway – demands all of your attention, and any time your attention goes elsewhere, you’re putting yourself and everyone around you in danger. Remember, you can’t control what anyone else does on the road, but you can control your own actions, emphasizing attentive, defensive driving so that you’re ready for anything.