Is texting while driving really this common?

GPS Location Rule:
I am pretty sure that recently in Calf. it was ruled that you can not have anything suction cupped to your windshield (ie; GPS, radar detector.) I guess they do not have an easy pass system?

Pull over to read a map:
I was once the "not at fault" party in a fatal accident. An 82 yr old man with an open map on the front seat, never stopped for his stop sign at a rural road crossing. We think he was looking for Ohio Rt 6 on the map as he crossed it and ran directly into the passenger side diesel tank of the Class B CDL, commercial box truck that I was driving. I walked away without a scratch. For him, the cab forward design of his Intrepid ended up having the cab much more forward.

I'm sure that the laws that will be passed will specifically say something like "entering characters into a cell phone" and will likely be implemented along with hands free laws requiring cell phone users to use hands free devices while driving.

Of course, if you have a smart phone like I do, you can dictate text messages while you drive. The real question is when my phone is using GPS to guide me and I pick it up to hit zoom or recalculate, if i'd be violating the law. who knows. The reality is that you'd have to be pretty stupid to be texting next to a cop in a state with one of those laws.

Like speeding, its all about situational awareness.

I just think it's ironic that people who apparently spend their whole commute peering into other people's cars believe the OTHER drivers are unsafe.

Racer1ab wrote: I just think it's ironic that people who apparently spend their whole commute peering into other people's cars believe the OTHER drivers are unsafe.

Sometimes I spent whole days like that. The joys of sitting up high.

I personally have my GPS mounted off to the drivers side where it sits just above where our state requires it's registratin sticker. That way it only blocks my view of a sticker not of the road. I can't understand how people can put the GPS directly in their line of sight. It would just drive me crazy to always be trying to look around it.

I also saw one woman eating Chinese food with chopsticks while driving. This was up in Simsbury CT, near the place where they has the big Avon mountain crash.

wbjones wrote: daughter of a women I work with is so "good" at texting she can text without even looking at the keyboard..... thinks that gives her the "right" to text any time she wants .... doesn't seem to realize that she isn't concentrating on her driving ,..... doesn't even understand the concept (won't even address the attention she gives an incoming text)

That level of selfishness is infuriating. I only hope that she hurts herself when she finally rams into something.

Car and Driver did a recent experiment w/ driving and texting and the level of impairment FAR exceeds drunkenness.

I'll say it again--wait 'til we start seeing the results of all these text-addicted teens who are getting licenses. The fatalities are going to be astounding.

I think anyone who gets in an accident as result of texting should be required, as punishment, to drive a '63 Chevy with three on the tree, manual steering, manual drum brakes, and only AM radio. That'll keep 'em busy for a while.

I almost got sideswiped today by a woman in an x-type jag while she was texting on rt. 80 in NJ. I was following her in a F-350 and a 8x16 foot shed on a trailer for about 5 miles...65 steady. Then all of a sudden, she touches the white lines on each side of the lane, straightens out, drops to 60, then 55, then 45. I pull out and pull up along side her, and see she is typing a text with both hands, looking down in her lap. I'm foot to the floor to get the shed up to speed, and she's getting closer, closer, closer... I give her a toot on the horn about the time the center of her car is on the white line between her lane and what was supposed to be my lane. She jumps, drops the phone, and swerves a little father into my lane before getting back into her own lane.
Then she almost hits another car in the lane to the other side of her as she reaches down to pick the phone up off the floor and flip me off. I'm sorry, I didn't know it was my fault. have a nice day and go berkeley yourself!

senador wrote: I also saw one woman eating Chinese food with chopsticks while driving. This was up in Simsbury CT, near the place where they has the big Avon mountain crash.

I got passed one morning in heavy 55-60 MPH six lane traffic by a woman eating breakfast. I'm talking grits eggs and toast with a fork and a plate. She was driving with her knees. Then there was the woman on I-26 with her dome light on at night, reading a furniture store flyer.

About GPS night blindness: my NUVI has a setting where in low ambient light the screen automatically inverts to 'dark' mode where the background is dark blue instead of white. Still easily readable but doesn't blind me. I also set my destination before I leave, if I need to change it's time to pull over. I don't particularly care to get killed just because I was trying to save 2 minutes.

I tried texting while driving once, and with a touch screen device you need full concentration to type, so driving was not my #1 concern, luckily for me I had sat in the same spot for like 45mins so I didn't have much to worry about while I texted. I wish driving were treated like a privilege in the states not a right, and I know it's a privilege but people don't treat it that way. I wish we were more Finnish

Kia_racer wrote: What ever happend to just pulling over to read a map?

No time, must hurry to work in order to get enough hours to pay the cell phone bill

I just got a Palm Pre... I have a hard enough time walking and texting. I do not want to even consider texting and trying to drive.

I must be too old

I have to confess. I don't get the big deal about texting. I can see where it would be very useful in spreading a timely message to groups of people with one call (e.g. The meeting has been moved up an hour.), but for simple inane conversation, I just don't get it.

For thousands of years, mankind had to send messengers when long distance information was shared. Then, near the advent of the Industrial age, the telegraph was invented. You wrote out a message, sent it, and it would be printed out and read. Major step forward. Then Alex G. Bell spent a good portion of his life perfecting a system whereby one person could speak to another, over great distance, in real time, without having to write it down, or print it out at the other end. Brilliant! Major step forward.

Now technology has come forward to the point we have palm sized phones that can call almost anywhere on the planet, having more computing power than the LEM (basically Star Trek come to life), and what do we do?

Use them as a telegraph, while driving 2 ton death machines, often with dire results. Sounds a little Darwinian to me. Major step.. backwards.

/Old Fart rant

I almost got hit three times on the freeway last week by texters.

jrw1621 wrote: I am pretty sure that recently in Calf. it was ruled that you can not have anything suction cupped to your windshield (ie; GPS, radar detector.) I guess they do not have an easy pass system?

Not that I know of. What we do have is a law that prohibits you from driving with the phone held up to your ear...and plenty of idiots who continue to do so.

As far as I'm concerned, only vehicular controls, (non-alcoholic) beverages, and tobacco and related gear should be within reach of the driver while the vehicle is in motion. And never mind the asshats with the loud stereos--I'd love to see "in-car entertainment" banned!

I have seen plenty of in dash DVD players with pop up screens. I even had a guy bring in a Chrysler 300 with DVD screens built into the front sun visors. WTF is up with all that?

This whole 'multi task' thing has gotten WAY out of hand. What happened to giving a particular task all of your attention so it gets done right the first time?

I see people texting all the time. And not just younger people. Just last month the head chef at the restaurant near here admitted he was texting while driving when he struck another car and killed two high school students. Two counts vehicular manslaughter- have fun in prison.

Twin_Cam wrote: Just last month the head chef at the restaurant near here admitted he was texting while driving when he struck another car and killed two high school students. Two counts vehicular manslaughter- have fun in prison.

May he rot and then be haunted for the rest of his life.

Just got closer to being outlawed in RI: http://www.boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/articles/2009/10/30/ri_house_approves_texting_while_driving_ban/

Hard law to enforce, though.