Film at 11: WTF R U PPL THNKNG?

[athelind]

NPR: Government Eyes Crackdown on Texting And Driving

Okay, I can understand the argument that using a hands-free phone shouldn't be any more distracting than conversing with a passenger actually in the car -- I can poke several gaping holes in the logic, but I can understand it. I acknowledge the need for those "I promise not to play with the touchscreen while driving" disclaimers on the various HUDs that new cars have.

Texting while driving, though... glancing at messages is bad enough, but actually sending them when you're behind the wheel?

Why is this even an issue? Why is it common enough to be an issue? This should be something that crops up once or twice on the "News of the Weird" or, preferably, the Darwin Award sites -- something that is so flagrantly, suicidally idiotic that most people have to stifle a morbid laugh about it.

It shouldn't be something that's common enough to need a "Government Crackdown".

It's taking your eyes off the road and your hands off the wheel. Don't people listen to The Doors?

Why not read the news while you drive, or take a frakking nap? Hey, next month is NaNoWriMo -- why not write a novel?

Arrrrgh.

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Comments

[r-caton.livejournal.com]

Sister saw a woman knitting whilst driving....
and tales of foreign truck drivers watching DVDs are common in the UK... and one was apparently driving with his feet to make things interesting....

But I'd agree with your assessment of texting whilst driving...
and I'd extend that to pedestrians who wander in the road whilst texting or deep in conversation...

[snobahr.livejournal.com]

Silly leezard. You underestimate Human Stupidity. Unfortunately, medical advancements have made it that much more difficult to use the Darwin Option.

[toob.livejournal.com]

I think there are legitimate ways to do it though! Here's my texting while driving: on Wednesday nights I usually had to pick David up from school. It's a five minute walk for him from the heated rooms to the curb. Before getting in the car, I would type my text message on the phone telling him, "Come on out, I'm here." I would leave that message cued until I reached a stoplight approximately five minutes from the school, and then, when stopped at the stoplight, click send. :)

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Anybody who drives the roads in D.C. for any length of time will eventually see the people who read their morning paper while driving in to work.

At 75 m.p.h.

This is why the Beltway average six accidents a day.

-The Gneech

[pseudomanitou.livejournal.com]

Human stupidity should be left alone so that the weaker gene-pool can die off. Unfortunately, we all co-exist. Rarely do fools wreck themselves without killing a few others at the same time.

Usually, telling people they are stupid can help -- but when the law does it, stupid people tend to revolt: "You're not the boss of me!" *click-BOOM!*

[drleo.livejournal.com]

People do things in the car like putting on makeup, shaving, and other things that require taking eyes off the road and hands off the wheel. This is just the latest in the line of damn stupid things people do while driving. Perhaps this is just more widespread.

[cpxbrex.livejournal.com]

I understand your frustration, but almost all laws are against things that should be common sense. Like, it's really common sense that you shouldn't go around killing people, or taking their stuff, yet we need laws about it. ;)

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Okay, this is the best comment on this whole post -- in that it's the only one that not only didn't continue to stoke the fires of my outrage, it actually calmed me down and made me feel better.

You get a cookie.



It's still kind of annoying that a common-sense law SHOULD be controversial.

[leonard-arlotte.livejournal.com]

This is unfortunately the case. There is one person where i work who tweets all day long. He takes a class during the weekend, and there is a nearly constant twitter-stream coming from him during this class. When the issue of banning texting while driving came up a couple months ago, he got extremely indignant, saying he could text if he wanted too. The road from his home to work was nothing but a straight line for an hour. Is he supposed to not text for that whole time???

My response was to ask what times he commuted, so i knew when to avoid that stretch of road.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Hey, I can take a dump on his car hood if I want to, too.

[tombfyre.livejournal.com]

Its considerably more common than one might think unfortunately. I've lost count of the drivers I've seen zooming down the highway with their heads down texting. I've nearly been in several accidents because some moron literally wasn't looking where they were driving.

I recall at least teen getting killed up here over the summer because she was texting while driving, and had a head on collision with another big truck. :p People really do need to put down the phone and get their heads out of their asses while they're at it.

[drakegrey.livejournal.com]

I see, on a regular basis:

People reading hardback novels, while driving - while actually in motion, c. 30 mph.

People texting on phones, Blackberries, iPhones.

Women putting on mascara and eyeline (what is this, 1968??)

People reading the newspaper - opened to full tabloid size in front of them.

At least here in crazy messed up lala Los Angeles land I can confirm YES, we done got us a problem, yup. :p

[araquan.livejournal.com]

*points at his icon*

This was intended for computer stupidity, but it applies just as readily to automotive stupidity as well. Like the others here, I'm horrified at the things I've seen people do while allegedly driving.

[hafoc.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't mind, personally, if they banned texting everywhere. Period. I have no use for it. Of course I am a bit sour because I just found out that, for some unknown time probably lasting four or five years, my cell provider has been billing me $5 a month extra for 100 "free" text messages/month, when I have received four text messages (other than spams) in as many years, and sent exactly one. Without the five dollar text message package, they cost me ten cents each... you do the math.

I wish somebody could explain the whole attraction of this text thing to me. Email, yes- having been blessed with handwriting so bad that my parents had me learning to touch type at eight, on those rare occasions when I hit top speed I can bat out a message fast enough to make your head spin. But I can't see what is so great about cranking out an "email" one agonizing letter at a time, on a twelve-key keyboard where you have to press the keys up to four times to produce one letter, plus other presses for capitals and so on.

In fact, the only use I can think of for texting is "passing notes in class" or the equivalent.

On the other hand, I can see the attraction of speaking a message and having it automagically converted to text. I've seen a smartphone that does that with the voicemail messages it receives-- very slick. I can see that kind of "texting," where the speech recognition is done at the sending end rather than the receiving end, as being useful for a lot of things. (GETTING a text message is fine, it's typing them out that is the problem for me.) If you wanted to send a "text" from a place where distractions would be Bad, that would be the way to do it.

[astor-apatosaur.livejournal.com]

Will you pipe down? I'm trying to cook bacon and eggs on a hotplate next to me in the passenger seat while going 75mph in rush hour, here. You gotta time the flip just right when there's no potholes or else you break the yolks.

Texting while driving shouldn't be any more distracting than the shaving/makeup/sloppy tacos while driving, except those latter tend to END. You finish eating, or shaving, or makeup. But texting goes on as long as the conversation does. It's something someone could be doing from the time they get in the car until the time they leave.

Still, if you find your car constantly going onto the shoulder while you glance at your phone, it might be a sign that it's a bad idea. Especially when shaving with the other hand.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

You gotta time the flip just right when there's no potholes or else you break the yolks.

If you time the flip just right, then the pothole will do it FOR you.

[wy.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty good at IRC while driving. :P

[zeeth_kyrah]

My parents, for a few years, had this idea of wrapping a keyboard around the steering wheel, so they could type while driving. For a while, I thought this was a neat idea, but then, I hadn't yet seen someone who was a habitual texter, and cars still don't have a projected HUD on the windshield.

And frankly, there are much better things you can put on a HUD, like all-around radar so you can track your corners at all times, or color/intensity based warnings of nearby obstacles and vehicles.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Must be those Coast Guard reflexes; when I was active duty, I knew some guys who insisted that the more drinks they had, the better they drove.

[wy.livejournal.com]

Only about 2/3rds kidding. It's just like changing radio stations, or whatever. It's situational as to whether it's safe or not. Primary task you HAVE to do is still control a 1 ton chunk of metal at high speeds. I have a fixed mount for my touchscreen on my car. The only time I can actually tap at it is when there's no traffic changing vectors and even then, you can't actually type at any reasonable speed. But it's okay for short status updates and whatnot.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Oh, if you're only doing it when there's no reason to expect to need instant reactions, it's okay, then. It's not like unexpected things happen while you're driving.

Oh, and I wasn't kidding,
not even by a fraction. Hopefully, when you learn this the hard way, you'll be the only one who pays the tuition.

[wy.livejournal.com]

Flawed methodologies. It's no more distracting, if use properly, than any other console mounted secondary instrumentation on the vehicle. But hey, it's the new hysteria, so what-ev-ar.