The National Safety Council is estimating 447 people will die in traffic accidents over the Thankgiving holiday and 23,7000 will be disabled. That’s down from 484 deaths last year. I don’t know how they’re figuring but they do say to wear your seat belt. You have a 45 percent better chance of surviving.

Seat belts will save 395 lives this weekend. If everybody wore their belts, another 103 would be spared.

If you spot a drunk driver, pull over in a safe spot and call the police.

Before the week is over, I should mention that it is Teens Don’t Text and Drive Week. They’ve got a day or week or month for just about everything nowadays. I wonder if there’s a czar somewhere you have to get hold of to see if you can have a day, like “Ed Friedrich Finally Writes a Blog Entry Day.”

Anyway, a press release from the National Safety Council says that more than 10 drivers ages 15 to 20 are killed in crashes every day, and another 745 are injured. It doesn’t say how much of that carnage is from texting.

It does say that not texting should be part of your GDL — Graduated Driver Licensing — along with setting a curfew, no speeding, no teen passengers, no cell phones while driving and seat belts at all times.

I can see how you could crash while texting. I can barely sit on the couch and do it.

A fund has been set up to benefit the five kids of a highway worker killed last week while clearing storm debris from Highway 101. Neal Richards died on Nov. 18.

Oddly enough, he had a sister who was a road crew flagger killed last year in a highway construction work zone.

Contributions can be made at any Bank of America branch.

Funeral and memorial services will be held on Saturday. A procession will begin at 11 a.m. at Drennan and Ford Funeral Home in Port Angeles and travel to Sequim View Cemetery in Sequim. Graveside services will begin at noon.

A memorial will be held at 2 p.m. ad the Elks Lodge in Port Angeles, followed by a reception there.

The D