Texting while driving - need to vent

[rusnak]

Originally Posted by island911

or give cop a big ol Samaria sword to lop off the hands of anyone caught holding a phone. .., or holding a radio mic like truckers use, or cops use when in high speed pursuit.

seriously, the law is for simply holding a device. I remember a time when I would drive briskly thru downtown Seattle holding a bowl of fried rice, eating with the other hand, with chop sticks. point being, everyone has different skill level. Some people have horrible accidents w/o being drunk or holding a device.

while I've certainly been annoyed by texters, it's not the device that makes them idiots. This law presupposes that anyone holding a phone is an idiot who needs to be treated like a drunk behind the wheel? Lowest common denominator thinking.

If you can eat fried rice with chop sticks, then you are indeed on another skill level!!

[island911]

Yeah, I got had skillz.

and, the old I get the better I was.

[island911]

Whoa! . . NOT ok...



Wait... he's wearing a helmet. He's safe.

[rcooled]

Originally Posted by Baz

Amazingly.....most states have yet to ban cell phone use while driving.

I was also T-boned a few years ago by a driver using a phone who blew thru a stop sign. I posted some of the following thoughts in a recent thread about this same subject:

Will laws ever be effective in getting people to stop playing with their phones while driving? Probably not. Do laws keep people from using heroin, or other dangerous and addictive substances? No, they don't. A great many people are now addicted to mobile devices and literally can't put them down, ever!
There's also much resistance to pass laws punishing drivers for using cell phones. It's a huge vested interest on the part of service providers, social media platforms, search engines, developers, advertisers, and the phone manufacturers themselves to have people engaged with their phones as much as possible. There are millions of lobbying dollars being spread around at both the state and federal levels to make sure that nothing comes between people and those beloved mobile devices. As we've all witnessed, laws regarding cell phone use while driving, and their enforcement, are a total joke. They just give politicians an excuse for their inaction by saying that they tried to do do something about the problem. "Hey, we passed some laws, what more can we do?"
The phone manufacturers and/or vehicle producers should be required by law to step up and prevent phones from operating while in motion at any speed above a walking pace. This is the only type of law that'll solve this problem. And if people are inconvenienced by it...too bad! How many more will wind up injured, crippled, or dead before pressure from lobbyists is ignored and common sense prevails?

[T77911S]

i had to rant on this a few weeks ago too.

saw a guy with his cell phone MOUNTED to the steering wheel.

gets me the people that can even put the phone down even when they are not using it.

I was coming up to a stop sign. a lady was turning right from the other road onto the road I was on. she had the phone in her right hand, left hand on the steering wheel. she could not turn the wheel far enough to avoid putting her SUV half way over the center line. do you think she bothered to put the phone down to make a proper turn? NO! I had to mover over and stop so she would not hit. did not phase her a bit.
I was able to loop around and catcher her at the other end of the road. phone still in hand I proceeded to ask her why she cant put her phone down to avoid an accident. she freaked out and threatened to call the cops on ME

[T77911S]

this just happened.

I am in the right lane at a stop light. the light turns green. my side does not move.
lady in left lane holds up traffic to move into right lane.
now her lane was clear. there was NO ONE in front of her but she HAD to be in the right lane.
my lane finally moves and she gets over.
I catch up and she is on the phone and she never turned right but she HAD to be in that lane at that time.

[island911]

Distracted walking - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hawaii-texting-ban-idUSKBN1AD2LS

[stealthn]

Rules in effect here, but enforcement is small. I am currently testing a ODB2 dongle that pairs with your phone and blocks all text email calls, etc. Unless you allow it via their website. As an employer I worry about employees taking a company email while driving and other than being unsafe, coming after me for liability (even though we have a mandatory hands free policy). Apple has said the new IoS will have a drive feature, but like anything the user can disable.

[rcooled]

Originally Posted by island911

Distracted walking...

[ckelly78z]

I try to stay alert while walking and driving. It seems everyone but me has a cell phone in their hand (whether it is standby, or actively being used), and can usually tell the cars in traffic that have distracted drivers. Unfortunately, this doesn't apply when they are moving towards yopu at a high rate of speed like the idiot that T-boned me in my 944 (we were both doing at least 60 MPH.

It also really annoys me that no one can engage in converstaion anymore without checking to see their phone for someone supposedly more important than the ones sitting in front of them at the dinner table.....just go to a decent resturant, and look at the cell phone usage going on around you. Are there that many ADHD bored people out there ignoring their dinner dates ?

[GothingNC]

Originally Posted by ckelly78z

I try to stay alert while walking and driving. It seems everyone but me has a cell phone in their hand (whether it is standby, or actively being used), and can usually tell the cars in traffic that have distracted drivers. Unfortunately, this doesn't apply when they are moving towards yopu at a high rate of speed like the idiot that T-boned me in my 944 (we were both doing at least 60 MPH.

It also really annoys me that no one can engage in converstaion anymore without checking to see their phone for someone supposedly more important than the ones sitting in front of them at the dinner table.....just go to a decent resturant, and look at the cell phone usage going on around you. Are there that many ADHD bored people out there ignoring their dinner dates ?

I noticed the same thing.

Sad seeing a large group of people gathered together all staring at their cell phones and they probably would not notice a Unicorn walking by...

[Baz]

Gotta get one of these......

[RKDinOKC]

[rcooled]

Originally Posted by GothingNC

Sad seeing a large group of people gathered together all staring at their cell phones and they probably would not notice a Unicorn walking by...

Like this father & son totally oblivious to each other while lost in their phones. They sat there frozen like that for about 20 minutes without ever looking up. BTW, that's the gorgeous Pacific coastline that they're completely ignoring there. Must've been something awfully interesting on those phones to pull their attention away from that. Why even bother to get up off the couch to go down there?





Here's another one...same time of day, near the same spot. Even the beauty of the Pacific Ocean can't complete with the allure of that little screen

[john70t]

I completely admit to burying my nose in the old iphone at the dog park. I'm socially awkward and sometimes there are people there who have a high propensity to tweak out if you say the wrong thing to them, only because I am the wrong type of person(swm) to dare exist in society in this day and age. People have trolled me trying to get in a political discussion and it's easier to let them go off on one another without me being involved. I just stare at the tiny screen and whistle while repeating the mantra "I can't hear you I can't hear you".


On the issue of car safety and distraction:
Basic mechanical controls you could *touch and feel* have been replaced by push screens and multiple menu levels of navigation for basic tasks.
Little known fact is that Siri is actually Tim the Enchanter and you have to respond with the average wingspeed of a swallow in Latin.
Try doing that in heavy traffic.

[Yeah I'm talking to you, Toyota Prius, and all four generations of your unsafe crap I've driven.]
[I still prefer the paper map because it works the way it is supposed to.]

[red-beard]

Once I saw the brake circuit, I will not get in a Prius.

[mattdavis11]

I was sitting at a red light today, admiring how well the new Michelin's were handling. I was in the right lane with a few cars behind me, some were also turning left in the far left lane. The middle lane was clear. When I looked left, I saw a pedestrian, and then in the rear view, someone going too fast in the middle lane. It just sprinkled, really slick road. I yell at the pedestrian, a young man with his head fixated on his phone, "WATCH OUT DUDE!".

He stopped, watched the truck skid clear of the cross walk, and looked at me as he passed behind the truck and in front of me. We both shook our heads. Me for two reasons.