Texting and driving.

[11C1P]

I'm sure like me, you see them doing it all the time, absolutely baffling to me. But I saw one now that really made my jaw drop. I was waiting for my youngest to get out of school, and here comes a guy on a gold wing looked at first like he was having trouble with his clutch, blinker, high beams or something on the left handlebar. as his hand was on it moving around quite vigorously and he kept looking down at it for extended times. A couple times he would jerk his hand towards his face and look at his hand (he had no helmet and was only wearing shorts and a t-shirt) then as he got close enough I realized he was freaking TEXTING while on his cycle and through a school zone as school was getting out! As he passed me he saw me looking at him and stuffed the phone in his pocket. I can only hope that he eventually wins the Darwin award he so richly deserves, and hopefully doesn't hurt anyone else (especially a kid) when he earns it.

 

[pmbug]

I don't get people who do that. Just pull over to the side of the road for a few seconds if it's really that important to text/call someone. Driving time should be unplugged time - free of electronic chains.

 

[11C1P]

I don't get people who do that. Just pull over to the side of the road for a few seconds if it's really that important to text/call someone. Driving time should be unplugged time - free of electronic chains.

Especially on a bike. I think it's something about gold wing riders, they want a loud stereo, A/C, heaters, cruise control, etc, etc. All that takes away from the experience IMO. I guess if you don't ride it's kind of hard to understand, Not to mention when you are on a bike, even a little fender bender with a small car and you could get killed easily not wearing a helmet, so you have to be extra observant and drive for everyone else around you.

 

[rblong2us]

I was once sent some pics of a car just removed from the front of a lorry and the dead occupant totally redistributed to appear lorry front shaped, with the phone still visible in the drivers hand.

It actually worked for me and now I almost never text while driving, only on an empty motorway where if I drifted sideways it would get noisy on the gravel drain or rumble-edge and no real risk to anyone.

 

[FPrice]

About two weeks ago my son and I were driving to get dinner. He was driving so I was able to watch things around us. We were on the main road leading from our house to the shopping area close by. On this four-lane road you can very easily get into a pattern where you have to stop at just about every light.

At the first light we pulled up along side of a young woman who was very busy talking into her iPhone. Light changes and my son starts driving. I happen to notice that the woman just stayed there, phone in front of her face, until someone had to blow their horn to get her to move. Both of us kind of laugh at her.

Well traffic was such that we had to stop at the next six lights, usually right next to or close by this same woman. At four of the six lights someone had to blow their horn AGAIN to get her to move. She would almost always catch up to us, on our right, and we would end up next to her again and again and she ALWAYS had this phone stuck in her face.

We finally get to where we need to turn right and start slowing down. I see here once more, blow past us, phone still in the same position. Must have been some fascinating conversation. I still wonder what Guardian Angel was looking out for her.

 

[Penn]

When I drive- my attention is on driving. I carry a cell phone- but that is in case I break down. I have a $5 plan for that. No bells or wistles.

 

[ancona]

Cars should be equipped with a device that disables telephones and small electronics. The USB port should have to be engaged with the vehicle so that the cars computer controls the device and turns it off before it can start. I see people doing all manner of idiotic shit on the motorways while driving. I used to do a fair bit of windshield time in my day, and I was guilty of the cell phone distraction myself. I happened across a horrific crash on the way to Pensacola one trip back before Hurricane Ivan, where a car dipped in front of a tri-axle dump truck full of rock. The car was destroyed and driver of both vehicles killed. The ensuing crash caused a massive pileup in both directions. It took me two hours just to get past that mess. When I saw it on the news, they were talking about how the driver of the car was seen chatting away on the phone immediately before the crash, and abouyt how she was chopped in two by the force of the ensuing crash, along with being totally crushed to oblivion. They also talked about the three fatherless children left behind by the completely innocent truck driver.

I stopped using my phone in the car then and there. Just turn the damn thing off. When I pull in a rest area from time to time, I turn it on, check in to the office and make calls if necessary. Otherwise, my message says that I'm on the road and don't use my phone while driving.

The first time you pass an accident where you see bodies covered with blue tarps waiting for an ME to declare them will be the last time you use a phone behind the wheel.

I've seen people put on make-up while driving, read the newspaper, read books, smoke a bong of weed, re-fill their drink with a bottle of Jack, everything imaginable. I'm certain many of you have seen similar things as well and just shake your head in disbelief. How many times have we all eaten a burger and fries while rolling down the road? How many times have we all driven to the point of drowsiness?

 

[11C1P]

Cars should be equipped with a device that disables telephones and small electronics. The USB port should have to be engaged with the vehicle so that the cars computer controls the device and turns it off before it can start. I see people doing all manner of idiotic shit on the motorways while driving. I used to do a fair bit of windshield time in my day, and I was guilty of the cell phone distraction myself. I happened across a horrific crash on the way to Pensacola one trip back before Hurricane Ivan, where a car dipped in front of a tri-axle dump truck full of rock. The car was destroyed and driver of both vehicles killed. The ensuing crash caused a massive pileup in both directions. It took me two hours just to get past that mess. When I saw it on the news, they were talking about how the driver of the car was seen chatting away on the phone immediately before the crash, and abouyt how she was chopped in two by the force of the ensuing crash, along with being totally crushed to oblivion. They also talked about the three fatherless children left behind by the completely innocent truck driver.

I stopped using my phone in the car then and there. Just turn the damn thing off. When I pull in a rest area from time to time, I turn it on, check in to the office and make calls if necessary. Otherwise, my message says that I'm on the road and don't use my phone while driving.

The first time you pass an accident where you see bodies covered with blue tarps waiting for an ME to declare them will be the last time you use a phone behind the wheel.

I've seen people put on make-up while driving, read the newspaper, read books, smoke a bong of weed, re-fill their drink with a bottle of Jack, everything imaginable. I'm certain many of you have seen similar things as well and just shake your head in disbelief. How many times have we all eaten a burger and fries while rolling down the road? How many times have we all driven to the point of drowsiness?

Cell phone use is illegal here while driving (I think a lot of states are moving there) but I don't think the fine is enough ($100) or there is enough enforcement, even though they have dedicated units to catch them. I don't have too much of a problem with talking if you have a hands free device as that wouldn't be worse than talking to someone in the car or singing along with a song on the radio, but holding the phone and carrying on a conversation and especially TEXTING is too distracting.

 

[ancona]

Agree 11C1P.

It wasn't all that long ago that we all got along just fine and dandy without cell phones and no one was the worse for wear. Now, mommies little buttercup just has to have his/her/its telephone for whatever trivial reason of the day and she'll fight to the fucking death, all the way to the state supreme court if necessary to protect their precious right to carry it with them at school and everywhere else.

Today's obsession with all things electronic has gone beyond anything I've ever seen in my life. I lived through the sixties and the Beatles and hippies thing. I lived through some weird fads in the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties, but when computers really started to go mainstream in early 1990 shit started to get real. When laptop computers began to become more affordable, that's when it got stupid. Then, along comes the "smart phone". Now I'm no luddite, but fuck me man! Where does this shit stop? How much information do we really need, and how fast do we need to get it? Can't that shit wait until we get wherever we're driving to for the love of God??

 

[Penn]

Mark- in general I am not in favor of kill switches.

As stupid as people are- and they want to be codled when they mess up- I am beginning to enjoy rubbing in the fact that I aint throwing you a pity party when you mess up -in such a stupid way.

 

[ancona]

I didn't say a kill switch Penn. The car doesn't stop, it simply won't start if it senses a cell phone. So if you don't connect the thing to the car so the car can turn it off you don't get to drive. Period. No one needs to text and drive. No one. Period. As far as using the phone and driving, what the hell is dialing a phone number if not texting? That's just as distracting as texting. Holding and fiddling with a cell phone is all it takes to cause a traffic accident. On the freeway, it can cause exactly what I witnessed, dead people on the side of the road. So you think that's OK?

 

[Penn]

Things are made shoddy. Some will figit even more with a device that they think should work- but doesnt. In the 50s companies added a weak link in the chain of a light fixture- the chain would break and this was good for sales.

These days we have no fitness of merchantability. Often things are broken when they are fresh out of the box. The new shoes I bought are already broken.

Our own government cant stop from being hacked.

It IS a kill switch.

I dont think more items should be built in the broken mode.

Sometimes there are un-intended consequences. One size does not fit all.

We dont really know how our progression to the transhuman era will go. That is where we are heading- man and machine are going to merge.

A kill switch is pretty much a toll way- the gate keepers will let you thru if you pay the correct dollar amount.

The danger we face is that as hackers take over and corporations maximize profits- when you factor in the lack of morality and the top law breakers who did not get punished for crashing the world economy- those forces are in play.

An elderly and disabled person is doomed. We are building a world that we wont be able to live in or want to live in.

Consider a remote control for a tv- an able bodied person can mute the commercials- but a frail person cant. Now add in that the remote doesnt work properly- it is cheaply made. Now you could pay a DVR fee- and get thru the toll gate.


More people have to examine society from an elderly/disabled point of view-- because that is where you are going and soon.

It is silly for a 50 year old to crave to be alive- at 50 you lived your life and now the issue is quality of life.

If you lived where your life was such that it was a productive day to get a shower- then it becomes clear.

The flip side of that is- do the frail have a duty to die?

When you factor too many barriers into life- then that is society telling me that I have a duty to die.

 

[11C1P]

Agree 11C1P.

It wasn't all that long ago that we all got along just fine and dandy without cell phones and no one was the worse for wear. Now, mommies little buttercup just has to have his/her/its telephone for whatever trivial reason of the day and she'll fight to the fucking death, all the way to the state supreme court if necessary to protect their precious right to carry it with them at school and everywhere else.

Today's obsession with all things electronic has gone beyond anything I've ever seen in my life. I lived through the sixties and the Beatles and hippies thing. I lived through some weird fads in the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties, but when computers really started to go mainstream in early 1990 shit started to get real. When laptop computers began to become more affordable, that's when it got stupid. Then, along comes the "smart phone". Now I'm no luddite, but fuck me man! Where does this shit stop? How much information do we really need, and how fast do we need to get it? Can't that shit wait until we get wherever we're driving to for the love of God??

I hear ya. Now don't think I'm not a hearty supporter of the first amendment but it always drives me crazy when anytime that some nutter takes a gun into a sitting duck zone (often jokingly referred to as "gun free") they start rambling on about how the 2nd amendment doesn't apply to modern guns and that you don't need anything more than a double barrel shotgun to hunt ducks (1 the 2nd amendment isn't about hunting, 2nd there's a lot more to hunt than ducks anyway) and they say we need "common sense" gun control laws. They never seem to be able to intelligently articulate what laws would have stopped the vast majority of these shootings, but that doesn't stop them. So I ask why can't we have some "common sense" speech control? Certainly the founders didn't have all these devices and forms of mass communication in mind when they wrote the 1st amendment. What do you need a smart phone to communicate for? Who needs 3G speed when carrier pigeon is more than adequate! Same with cars, who NEEDS a car that goes faster than the speed limit? Look how many people are killed in crashes every year! If we passed these "common sense" restrictions on speech and cars 10's of thousands of lives would be spared every year. Also just like they want to be able to sue gun manufacturers for shooting deaths/injuries, the same should apply to cell phone and vehicle manufacturers as well as the companies that supply cell service that covers areas where people drive! (how fast do you suppose all cars and cell phone companies figure out a way to jam cell phones for a 10 foot radius while the car is moving?) :judge: