How attached are you to your phone ?

Some of you know that I drive a Bus for Greyhound. We have another bus company that also uses our depot. One of their drivers was coming into the depot, was half way thru a right turn when he struck a pedestrian and killed her. Early reports are that she was Jay-walking and texting on her cellphone and walked right into his blind spot. 18 years old and 2 weeks from graduating from high school. People really need to wake up!
 
Not to speak about others and their actions or lack of them, but to resolve that for myself, there is no conversation, speech or text, so important that it cannot wait for me to arrive in a safe place to deal with it.
 
Speaking of distractions, I watched a commercial yesterday, by Nissan, about all the technology they have in one of their cars. It was like having a computer right on your dash. Through the whole commercial the driver was fiddling with it. It was every bit as bad as texting while driving. I thought that is the next killer. All that wonderful stuff to take your mind off driving!

Great commercial you posted. I will be forwarding it.
 
I had to get rid of my daughters car a few months back.
A 20 y/o was on the highway and sideswiped my daughter.
He admitted to police he was texting.
Noone was hurt.
 
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We had a 71 year old grandfather in our town this past winter who was getting his mail from his mail box and was hit and killed by a kid who hit and ran. After he go caught he admitted to texting and said he thought that he hit a snow bank.
 
When I am stopped at a red light I often watch what the green light drivers are doing as they pass by. At least 50% are driving with a phone to their ear. Many are texting. Try this in your area and tell us what you see.
 
Thanks for posting that Dave.
Our younger son, now 23, was terrible for texting while driving. I think he got a serious scare, because he suddenly shut it down.
This needs to be shared widely, especially to those in the "nothing will happen to ME" age group.

Now, if only those stupid noise-making tail pipes on those little souped-up cars would just go out of style....

By the way, I met a guy about my age driving on our busy two-lane road the other morning. He had the newspaper arranged on the steering wheel!
 
Anytime I have to head out of our neighbourhood to a destination I have not been to I use my iPhone as a car navi, I have a holder on the dash for the iPhone so I can see it without having to hold it.

When the phone rings and I'm driving I wait until I can get to a safe place and stop, then I return the phone call.

Like any tool you could mention these smart phones can be a great boon to the user, but they can be used improperly and cause a lot of harm too.

The advert is good, but how many of those people in Hong Kong drove to the theater?

There is a train station right next to the theater.

Still, interesting advert for sure.
 
Like Ted says i see so many people specifically in my area moms texting while driving. The other day i nearly got run off the road coming to a traffic light that was red. I was in the dirt to avoid this person. When we were both side by side with me on the sidewalk i looked at her and said really with my hands making the texting action in free space so she could see i knew what had caused the drift to my side. She gave me a nasty glare and went on doing it. Then when she pulled off she had her phone held on top of the steering wheel with both hands holding steering and phone and merrily carried on. I slowed down to a crawl to let her get far away from me.

Personally i think this disease is worse that DUI. My reasoning is simple. Not everyone in the world population drinks and even then drinks and then gets behind the wheel. But the number of drivers with a phone in the car and the numbers texting is way more than the bar population at any one time. Yet the penalty here if caught is still relatively light by comparison to dui. I think they should be equal.

I grew up in a country where the dominant vehicle transmission was stick. Given you had to have one hand on the wheel and the other moving the gear-stick and engage more of yourself in driving by comparison to an automatic i cannot help but feel its somewhat safer. That said i can just imagine that the same disease to drive stick and text exists elsewhere.

Great advert and good to see the auto industry taking a position on this topic. I do question the agenda behind it on their part. Its kinda like the gambling adverts or tobacco adverts that remind you of the dangers of their products just to mitigate their own participation in the problem. As Paul says they putting more and more into a vehicle for a driver to fiddle with while driving and marketing it as the next best thing. Guess we will all see how this plays out in our old age. :rofl:
 
Yeah Rob, you bring up a good point. I don't know how someone can text while driving a vehicle with a stick transmission. I tried it in my truck, but I kept spilling my beer. :beer: :rofl:
 
Excellent ad!!! Unfortunately, most people refuse to believe that could happen to them!

Different thing, but related: Bobbie and I were having lunch at a small restaurant a while back. Three women came in together and were seated a couple of tables away from us. As soon as they sat down, all three were on their cell phones texting. They spent at least a half hour there, most of it with each of them too busy texting to think about real conversation! :dunno:
 
When I am stopped at a red light I often watch what the green light drivers are doing as they pass by. At least 50% are driving with a phone to their ear. Many are texting. Try this in your area and tell us what you see.

the worst are the people who drive with the phone resting on the center of the steering wheel, and hold the phone and wheel with both hands, texting while they drive, and they drift into lanes going 50, 60,. 70 miles an hour.
complete idiots.
 
I don't know about other regions of the country but it seems like the majority of accidents that the media is reporting around here are head on collisions caused by one vehicle drifting across the center line into oncoming traffic. Police are quick to suggest that texting or other inattentive actions are the cause.
 
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