When I was around the age of eighteen to nineteen, I was driving to my job at a golf course in my mothers minivan. I am not sure why I was not driving my assigned vehicle at the time, but that is a minute detail. In a hurry and a moment of teenage angst and stupidity I was changing shirts in the van. Once I had got the new shit over my head to the point where I could see I was driving in someones lawn. I swerved back into the road an luckily did not strike anyone or anything besides the blades of grass on this lawn. I was very lucky in that sense.
I now change clothes out of the car, and not in it.
I would now go on to a story about my then girlfriend and now fiancee but for the sake of my impending marriage, I would think it is wise not too.
Disclaimers: No disrespect intended with these comments; I’m sure your partner was riding appropriately and responsibly, and the person who killed him should be jailed for his crime.
I also used to be a cyclist myself. I rode road bikes and switched to mountain bike riding off-road when I figured out there were too many crazy drivers out there. I am sympathetic to riders’ causes, but also feel they should take responsibility for their actions. Physics is not in a cyclist’s favor.
That said, and not to imply any of these comments apply to your partner, sometimes cyclists bring problems to themselves. There are a lot of arrogant roadies out there who intentionally or unintentionally bait drivers. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been driving next to the bike lane and a cyclist has veered in front of me without looking, or was riding outside the boundaries of the bike path and not moving when an automobile approached from behind. Also roadies don’t often abide by automobile laws as they’re supposed to, unless it’s convenient for them. Sometimes I feel like yelling their mantra back at them, “Share the road!”
Anyway I can see both sides and my feelings most often come out on the side of drivers. Cyclists should find paths that do not expose them to traffic and should lobby their cities for safer places to ride.
The other day my sister and I were headed back to college after a nice visit home for the weekend. I was sitting in the passenger seat, and as she was driving, her phone got a text, so naturally she had to respond, even though I told her to concentrate on the road, and even tried to take her phone, but she resisted, and I didn’t want to cause a wreck. As my sister lost focus on the road and redirected it to the screen, I watched in horror as we drew nearer to a stopped car in the road at arund 55mph. I shouted out and could only watch as we screeched to a halt about .ooooooo1 inches away from this guys bumper. I got to spend the rest of the trip barking at my sister saying what an idiot she was and how if I hadn’t said anything we’d both be walking the rest of the way, and shed be carrying her own bags. Further down the road she got another text, and she reached for her phone again. I snatched it and did all the texting for her.
Jeez… some people just don’t learn do they?
Yesterday I was attempting to check voicemail and ran into a cactus in someone’s front yard. It was a big prickly pear and I was surprised how little damage it suffered.
I’ve always thought laws requiring hands-free devices for in-car phone use totally missed the point.
When you’re having a phone conversation, hands-free or not, your driving goes on auto-pilot – relegated to a part of the brain that might not be able to handle full-on emergency situations. I can’t be the only one to end a call only to find I’ve missed an exit.
One time, after an extended hands-free phone conversation, I found myself at a vegan diner eating a soy burger with a side-order of alfalfa sprouts. That experience has forever cured me of phoning while driving.
yes,about 8years ago.i was driving to work in my Turbo Beetle and was blasting some screaming-death metal(lol) and i didn’t hear an ambulance coming up behind me.luckily,i saw it in my mirrors in time to pull off to the shoulder.it did shake me up quite a bit,so i never play loud music while driving anymore.my current vehicle has such an awesome engine/exhaust note~i really prefer to listen to it instead of music anyway:)
You talk about the ambulance.
How about the AMBULANCE DRIVER driving distracted !
My co-worker rides a Harley all of the good weather days, and youall know how car/truck drivers just seem to have such a problem seeing bikers even with headlights ON.
–A quick glance in the mirror is not enough–
A ways ahead of him, driving in the same direction, the ambulance turns on his lights & siren for a call he just got.
--------then pulls a U-turn amidst 45 mph traffic . Although cars can stop on a dime ( there were only a few behind the bike at the time ) the bike had to be layed down ( as bikers learn to do ) but slid into the driver’s door . BAM ! broken ankle, foot, separated shoulder etc.
The picture on the next day’s front page showed the ambulance driver with a neck brace being applied ( as IF ) claiming ‘failure to yield’ on the biker.
– my a** — I’ll tell you who failed to yeild !
Three days later, way back on page five, they talk of the ambulance driver getting the citation.
I drive a scooter as my primary form of transportation so playing on my cell phone or eating a sandwich are out of the question for me. I do get to drive with all the other distracted drivers though… One day on my way home from the studio I had a little red sport car try to merge on top of me in rush hour traffic, it was no fun. I ended up having to drive on the white line until the SUV next to me saw what had happen, thank god they were playing attention! Shortly after all that happened I ended up next to the sports car at a red light to see that low and behold the driver was texting on his cell phone. I politely knocked on his window to ask him to stop texting while driving unless he wanted to kill someone. The little bugger didn’t even know that he had cut me off and would have killed me had I not been on top of my game! I’m so happy that texting while driving is now illegal in Michigan, I can’t wait for the law that stops cell phone using while driving completely!!!
I agree entirely.
Pilots are a different breed than drivers. They actually have to, you know, learn how to fly before they’re given a license that says they can fly.
My driver training consisted of sitting in a high school classroom learning what shape a stopsign was, followed by a whopping 3 hours of on-the-road instruction. No emergency maneuvers, no skid avoidance, nothing.
Cell phones aren’t the problem. Following your post, pilots can fly (which requires controlling an extra dimension - up and down) while talking on the radio, entering commands into the Garmin, and adjusting settings that haven’t been seen on cars in over 30 years, such as mixture. Crappy drivers are the problem. The people who allow cell phones to distract them from driving are the people who view driving as just a means of getting from A to B. They don’t put any thought into it because whatever they’re getting away from at A or getting to at B is the important part. Driving is just an intermediary step that they have to muddle through in order to get to their destination. And because they aren’t thinking about driving, they want to occupy their minds with something else, like talking or texting.
The real problem is idiots, not hardware.
BTW, I’ve found Acura’s solution to the cockpit clutter to be pretty elegant. Sure, they have the digital dash and the touch screen / wheel click interface, but they also made every primary, and most secondary functions, voice activated. I can tune my radio, play a CD, adjust the temperature, make a phone call, ask the time, ask my location, and input a destination into the GPS (and more) just by talking.
Just today i witnessed a close call from a driver who was very distracted…
She actually Hit ME with her car, well a grocery cart actually. I was walking out of a grocery store and she turned without looking… (of coarse she was on the phone) and hit my cart that i was pushing across the pedestrian crosswalk… I was not hurt. Though, The grocers cart was, I dont think they were happy either
I proceeded to yell out profanities at her as she looked at me wide eyed… like it was my fault!
This has been studied many times scientifically. Anecdotal evidence is worthless.
The better someone thinks they are at multitasking, the worse they are at it.
Talking on a cell phone requires much more attention than talking to a passenger, though even talking to a passenger can be dangerous.
You can get away with tempting fate only so many times. If you understood mathematics, you’d realize that the more often you take such a chance, the probability of an accident grows exponentially not arithmetically.
There are 2 types of drivers: those who know they can’t drive safely while using a cell phone, and those who are in denial.
BTW, most drunk drivers say the exact same thing.
If you truly understood what goes under “scientifically” then you wouldn’t be so sure about it yourself. The fact is that we are constantly awash in moral panics. The cell phone driver is one of them right now.
If we want to reduce distracted driving to a minimum then we will have to ban several things in addition to cell phones - such as CD players & radios, iPods, drive-thru windows (or any food in a car at all), sunshade mirrors, small children, pets, annoying relatives, shall the list go on?
Lots of people are very poor and careless drivers - cell phones or not. Using a phone is very simply not in some danger class of its own.
Living in the City (our fair city) I am plagued by cell phone drivers attempting to shorten my life. Fortunately they have not succeeded. Crossing Mass ave in Boston (in a marked crosswalk and with a green crosswalk light, a driver comes barreling off the side street and turning onto Mass ave attempting to occupy the same part of the intersection that I was currently using. I jumped out of the way (a feat that is getting more and more difficult as I get older). I noticed she was on a cell phone.
After getting off the bus near my house in our fair city, I was again crossing Mass ave. Again I was in a well marked crosswalk and I even had made sure that the cars on Mass Ave saw me and were going to stop. However the car coming out of the cross street (not stopping at the stop line, seeing the intersection was free of cars proceed to turn left again trying to occupy the same space I was using in the intersection. Again I jumped out of the way. To add insult to injury when I yelled are her for nearly killing me, she gave me a dirty look.
My final tale I hardly worth mentioning as it was not nearly as close, but happens quite frequently. I was crossing Mass ave again in a marked cross walk. To his or her credit the driver in the left lane stopped to allow me to cross safely. The driver in the right lane, one his cell phone, just kept going. As I said it wasn’t close as this is on old trick that drivers use to lure pedestrians to their death so I didn’t fall for it.
People wonder why pedestrians jay walk, I’ll tell you why, it’s SAFER! I’ve never had a close call doing that. Only in well marked cross walks have I nearly been killed.
Thanks for reading my little rant.
At least half the time I pass a car that is weaving, accelerating or decelerating spontaneously, going wayyyy too slow in the passing lane or otherwise ‘not right’ - it turns out there’s a JERK ON THE PHONE BEHIND THE WHEEL!. Would you read a book while using a circular saw? Would you shave blindfolded? Would would you talk on a phone and drive? Unless, maybe you’re an idiot. Are you an idiot?
While driving along a stretch of 65mph, 2 lane highway, I had a women in a 4 door sedan pull out in front of me causing me to brake aggressively to avoid rearending her as I couldn’t go around due to oncoming traffic. As she settled into the lane ahead of me I could see she was talking on her cell phone while applying her mascara while smoking a cigarette with her child standing up in the back seat! Some people are too stupid… they shouldn’t be allowed to breed!
We were rear-ended by a guy in a Caddy while waiting on a light in 1981. At the time his excuse was he didnt see us cause he was on his car phone. Thats as much as the confident types have learned since. Mums the word on them phones! As wood working professionals say about the table and band saws “I havent lost a finger. Yet!” Since then Ive been rear-ended by a limo driver while in line at a red light, he had two phones, neither one going, of course, my sister was T-boned and totaled by a visitor to this country with nothing but (no license, no insurance) a car and a cell phone. As a bike rider and bike store owner I got a scrapbook of cell phone stories, a few concerning pedestrians stepping out in front of you, even walking directing into you, in the midst of a precious conversation.
Everyone as pathetic as the guy who’s a “better driver after he’s had a few”!
E
Driving down I-26 East in South Carolina between Columbia and Charleston I was in slow moving traffic when I looked in the rear view mirror and noticed that the trucker in the 18 wheeler behind me was flossing his teeth. Then - he dropped something and reached for it so he had to look down for an instant. Very scary. Earlier the same driver had been tailgating.
my sister calls me from Denver in a panic. She was driving home from her job, coincidentally, as a talk radio producer. driving her 2008 honda civic in her typically distracted fashion. when, all of a sudden a fire truck comes rolling through the intersection. she slams on the ABS brakes and in the turmoil, as everything in her car flys towards the front of her interior, she accidentally pushes the automatic transmission into “PARK”…question is: with the ABS brakes allowing the wheels to roll to a stop, did she do irreparable damage to her transmission by moving it to “PARK” without being at a complete stop? and if she didnt have ABS brakes and pushed on the brakes sooo hard that the wheels were locked up would that have damaged the transmission less?..shes terribly upset and i didnt want to tell her “It could be really bad”…I told her to write to you…but Im certain she won’t…your thoughts?..
I don’t agree. Too many people drive aggressively out on the road and they don’t give enough space and respect for big trucks that may not be able to maneuver as quickly as you. It is difficult to give your full concentration and road awareness while talking on the cell phone, and it should be outlawed. I don’t know how many times I was stuck behind someone who was paying more attention to the person on the other line than giving respect to other drivers. And I don’t want to offend you, but females are the worst, especially young females.