Yup!
When I have made people aware of that reality, the usual reaction is…I didn’t know that!
You didn’t, and wouldn’t have no matter how polite or impolite you had been. People are invincible and brilliant, and unlike all the other morons out there who can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, they alone are perfectly capable of driving while playing Angry Birds.
Yes, but I can top that–unfortunately.
A few weeks ago, on my local newspaper’s blog, in the comments regarding an article about a drunk driving arrest, somebody posted a fairly long comment regarding his driving skills that are…so superior…that he drives better while drunk than everyone else is capable of doing when they are sober.
Occasionally, when I point out that someone is driving at night with nothing but DRLs, they tell me they’re driving a rental. That’s more forgivable than if it’s their car. What really bothers me is when I see a police officer drive past one of these cars and do nothing.
I’ve done ridealongs with cops for work in the past. I never understood why they’d let cars with no headlights go when nothing else was going on. That’s one of the top signs that the driver might be drunk.
1 Like
If they’re like so many of the cops in my area, perhaps they are distracted by the hand-held cellphone that they are using almost constantly.
1 Like
I have not noticed that phenomenon, though I have noticed more drivers thinking red light after yellow still means go.
A few months ago, while in stop-and-go traffic on the freeway, I was maintaining a safe following distance to the car in front of me
In other words, I was maintaining more than 6 inches of clearance between the car car in front of me, and my front bumper
Apparently, the right thing to do is floor the accelerator pedal, and then slam on the brakes, so that you narrowly avoid plowing into the car in front of you
And keep repeating this, over and over again
Well, that’s not how I drive
And the guy behind me assumed I MUST be texting on my cellphone
He rolled down his window and yelled at me to stop texting, and move up . . . !
I yelled back at him, what he can do with himself 
it really irked me, because he was assuming the worst of me, without him even being able to see what I was doing
In his mind, if somebody isn’t doing what he expects them to do, then they’re clearly doing something wrong
For the record, I spend VERY little time on my phone. It’s not even a smartphone. That should give you guys a clue as to its relative age. I can’t access the internet, sending messages sucks, etc.
It’s a flip phone, for pity’s sake
Every once in awhile, I’m pleasantly surprised to see somebody else still using such a phone. When I ask them about it, they reply they just want to make and receive phone calls, nothing else
I recently tried to find a cheap unlocked phone so I could, on a trip to Europe, buy a sim card and have a phone for a few months.
However, the only non-smart phone I could find was by an unknown Chinese brand with zero reviews. I would up buying a RCA “smart” phone for $60. But the instruction manual was useless, and I never did figure out how to use it. Probably should have bought the Chinese one. It looked good, nice large buttons…
Why do these old posts keep coming to life? Not that I mind but when replying did not realize, I mean June 2014? Really?
I tried sticking with a non-smart phone as long as possible, until my employer bought me an iPhone. I even avoided texting as long as I could when I had a flip phone, until I discovered I was missing out on messages due to the fact that everyone assumed they could text me at my cell number. When I realized I was missing out on important text messages from my landlord, I finally gave up and turned on text messaging.
To take this back to car talk, one of the conveniences I enjoy with an iPhone is that I don’t even need to look at or touch the phone to play music. If it’s plugged into a charger, all I have to do is say, “Hay Siri, play the Beatles” or “Hay Siri, play my ‘Best of ZZ Top’ play list” and she does it. It makes playing music in the car no more dangerous or distracting than telling a passenger to turn on the radio. I could have Siri read texts to me and compose responses to texts the same way if I wanted to, but I don’t.
Only recently??? It’s been a huge problem in the Boston area for years. I see dozens and dozens every day.
1 Like
I don’t even really listen to music . . . so that aspect of a modern phone holds no appeal to me
Seems to me you’re not paying enough attention to the road.
;-]
1 Like
that’s what all the drunks say