Texting While Oblivious

From Maryland cop dressed as homeless man catches drivers texting:

quote:

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Cpl. Patrick Robinson went undercover Tuesday morning equipped with a police radio and a body camera. He held a sign that read, "I am not homeless. I am a Montgomery County police officer looking for cell phone texting violations."

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Montgomery County police Sgt. Phillip Chapin and about eight other officers issued...31 tickets and 9 warnings to people caught using their phones without hands-free devices.

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--Percy

Nothing but appaluse here: The titanium and bone grafts in my spine were courtesy of a young lady late for classes and trying to speed and call her instructor at the same time.I wonder too about the proliferation of e-billboards on the roadside. I've seen the print and online ads about what can happen in the time it takes to read a short text, and I it takes longer than that to read some of these e-billboards, which include brightly colored text and animated graphics.

I just saw one of those this morning that said that moving ads are more effective. (You'll be glad to know I was on a bus at the time.) The more distraction the better, apparently.

I am 100% supportive of this.I've had several close calls myself regarding individuals who were either texting or talking on the cell phone while driving. One guy in a minivan almost ran me over as I was walking through a crosswalk. He turned abruptly into the crosswalk and I had to jump to avoid him. And he was obliviously chatting on his cell phone.Incidentally, I was chatting with a friend of mine who sells insurance for a living. He says that the texting phenomenon has actually changed the costs of insurance between the sexes to where young girls actually cost equally as much if not more to insure than young boys. When I was a young man, we generally had to pay about twice as much as a young woman for insurance and that had to do with the fact that we had much higher rates of accidents, due to aggressive driving. Apparently, aggressive driving has dropped quite a bit for young men but the most egregious offenders for texting in cars are young women. That has caused their insurance premiums to skyrocket.

And we had to be 25 to rent a car, women only 21. I believe that's changed, too.--Percy

Another example of people pretending to solve the problem.I have read of a number of experiments that apparently show that hands free is as bad as in hand. Since hands free would be hard to police and unpopular lawmakers just sort of ignore that and pretend to solve the problem by only banning one of themI find it bad enough without the phoine. The cars have too many distractions build into them. This is mitigated some by the addition of on the wheels easily feelable controls.It is one thing I worry about with the Tesla S which I have sat in and wish,wish, wish I could afford. A touch screen for all inputs isn't tactile. I have made a point of teaching myself to run the console controls by feel alone which is still mildly distracting but at least your eyes are on the road.

That is 100% true. The Mythbusters actually confirmed that as well. Hands free doesn't make much of a difference because it doesn't have any effect on how our brain is processing the input. Holding the phone to your ear is pretty involuntary. Could not agree more. My current car (a 2012 Acura TL) was the last series they made that still had all button inputs. And in actuality, people that reviewed it said that if one had a button 'fetish', this was the car for them. And that was one of the reasons I really liked it. You could feel your way to the controls and there were actually multiple ways to perform actions via buttons. But like you, a touch screen requires you to look directly at it thereby increasing the likelihood of an accident.
Additionally, if a button breaks on my car, it's a minor nuisance. But if a touch screen breaks or starts to malfunction, it effects everything including your sound system, climate controls, etc.Maybe I am just turning into an old fart, but my opinion is that certain technologies have their place in specific environments. But I don't think touch screens should be replacing buttons or other control surfaces in motor vehicle.

A few years ago when I was still driving I was in heavy traffic stopped in a long line at a signal, in the right lane of two left-turn lanes, when a pickup truck coming from behind crossed all the lanes to the right to get into my lane. He'd stopped, angled to get in behind me, blocking two lanes, holding a cell phone to his ear. I pulled forward as far as I could to let him in but instead of just pulling in behind me he shot through to the left turn lane on my left, apparently without looking, and there was a tremendous crash with a car that was moving down that lane. Not texting I guess, talking, but same problem. Light changed and my lane started moving, but cars behind me were probably unable to move for some time. That stuck in my mind as clear evidence that cell phones are dangerous in cars. Texting must be even worse since it takes your eyes off the road.

Agreed. There's just no excuse for aggressive driving. What's more, it doesn't even work. Again and again I've seen dangerous and aggressive driving that might have killed me or someone else, and yet we're dead level at the next traffic light. It doesn't get you ahead.(I am a rationalist. I have never used my phone while driving, tailgated anyone, honked my horn at anyone, or even in my whole life ever passed anyone on the right.)

You hardly ever write anything that isn't satirical or otherwise meant to be funny, a funny put-down that is, so I figure I'm missing your point. Put it this way, it SOUNDS satirical but I don't know what you're satirizing. Rationalists?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

No, seriously. I mean it. It is literally true that I have never tailgated or passed on the right, used my phone while driving, etc, because that might kill someone. When I'm driving a car, I'm steering a piece of metal weighing a ton and traveling at sixty miles an hour. That is a lethal thing if it ever hit anyone. I'm responsible for this thing and I'm absolutely terrified that I have this responsibility, because I know from experience that sometimes I make mistakes. I behave with the utmost caution.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This isn't really absolute in the way you're making it seem, is it? You're practical about this, aren't you?I have a friend who somewhere in his 50's decided that the speed limit was the speed limit and he wasn't going to exceed it any more. I'm sure he's a nuisance everywhere he goes.--Percy

Yes. I have never passed on the right. Ever.As to the speed limit, I do find that I have to keep up with the flow of traffic, so I have exceeded it. It would be almost impossible not to, often dangerous, and certainly discourteous. But if I ever want to travel faster than someone in my lane driving ahead of me, I overtake on the left or I don't overtake at all. Now you think I'm weird, what can I say? But as I said, the people who dodge in and out and around the traffic don't get there any faster. They're just more likely to kill someone.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

... come to think of it, everyone already thought I was weird. So I guess we're good.

Wow, a serious side of Dr. A. I'm impressed.I think I might have been a fairly aggressive nutty driver when I was young. When I became a parent I got very sober and cautious as a driver, and one thing I'm very proud of is that I taught my teenage daughter to drive and she's always been a very careful driver, I'm never uncomfortable when she's driving. Always a reasonable speed, never too close to the car ahead etc. She and her husband drive me crazy texting or just reading stuff on their gizmos for the first hour after they get up in the morning (at their rental house when they're visiting me), but they don't do it while driving. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.