Here's a little reminder to not use your phone while driving.
A few weeks ago in New York, five highschool cheerleaders were killed in a car wreck. It was recently discovered that the 17-year-old girl who was driving was sending and receiving text messages at the time she swerved into oncoming traffic and hit a truck head on.
I don't really text message much at all, but some people live by it, and almost everybody takes and receives calls while driving. It's been proven that driving distracted (like talking on the phone) can be worse than driving drunk or sleepy.
I fear that the iPhone, perhaps the coolest gadget to come out in the last five years, will contribute to this problem. The iPhone does away with the standard physical buttons, which can be used by touch, and replaces them with an image on a cool touch-screen, thus requiring a driver to take their eyes off the road to answer the phone.
And how would you like to be the caller that causes someone else to get into a fatal accident?
7 comments:
I totally agree that cell phones are dangerous while driving (for some of us they are just plain dangerous all the time, but I don't have the space to go into that tonight...)
Talking on cell phones while driving is actually illegal in Ecuador. We weren't aware of this until the other day in Quito (capital city) when we saw a traffic cop come up to a man in the car next to us at a stop light. The driver had his phone out and was getting ready to make a call while stopped at the light but the cop wouldn't even allow that until the driver pulled all the way to the side of the road and turned on his hazards. Never mind that the Motorola-toting driver nearly caused an accident pulling across 2 lanes of traffic or the hazard he posed by sitting on the side of a narrow, busy city street while he made his call!
What do you think? Should cell phones while driving be outlawed in the States or is that un-American? (I'm not sure what I think about that one, myself!) --Becca
Cell phones are NOT the problem. Idiots who use them while driving are.
Lets not ban everything please.. some of us out in the REAL usa (Not new york) like the freedom to take a quick call. Some do NOT abuse the cell phone in a car.
My calls while driving are usually as quick as "Give me a sec, Im driving, I will call you right back"
Most of my calls are the same way. "Let me call you back when I'm done careening through traffic."
Bluetooth is a great invention. I will turn around and get mine if I leave to go somewhere in the car without it. There is a tremendous difference in using a wireless headset and talking on the phone without it. I believe that talking to someone on the phone while driving with a headset is just as safe (if not more so) than talking to someone who is in the car with you. While I drive and talk with my bluetooth headset on, I have both hands on the wheel and my eyes on the road. However, when someone is with you and you are turning to look at them, handing something to them, or otherwise being distracting by something they are doing, you are taking your attention off driving.
The point is that you have to pay attention regardless of what you're doing and anything can be a distraction, especially kids and other passengers. I drive a lot of miles in my car and I see a lot of "stupid people" that should have their licenses temporarily taken away, and most of them are 1)teenages or 2)people doing something other than watching the road around them, and it doesn't always involve talking on the phone.
....most of those people are you Dustin! You are breaking records for most tickets by a Kansas Citian below thirty. Ride with him one time and you'd think walking through the Lions cage at the Zoo is safer.
~ Chad
... my most recent ticket was for going 50 in a 45 on Barry Rd. The one before that was a parking ticket. The one before that was for expired tags. Lots of tickets? Yes. Does that mean I'm a dangerous driver? Only with you in the car, Chad. I believe the only time I ever ran over a curb was when you were in the passenger's seat distracting me!
Dustin,
I like how you just conveniently forgot to mention the wreck you got into while not paying attention. Poor Pinky!!
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