So apparently the jackass who hit a busand killed 13 people in Texas was texting and driving. Just another one who probably though that he was a good enough driver and it wouldn’t be a problem to shoot off a few texts. No matter what his punishment, he will have to live with the guilt for the rest of his life.
While we’re at it, let’s also pit Texas for not banning texting while driving.
Edited to update the death toll, which has increased.
I think culturally, t&d-ing is seen as one of those “benign” crimes like torrenting movies or something. A paradigm shift in this attitude is needed, really drive it fucking home that multitasking while operating thousands of pounds of machinery at high velocity is asinine as it sounds.
Have PSAs of famous motorsports celebs saying “I can’t text and drive simultaneously. What the fuck makes you think YOU can?”
I think we’re getting driverless vehicles because ain’t no way people are gonna stop. I walk most everywhere. I’m standing on the curb waiting for traffic to clear, or at the light, etc. At any given intersection, of five cars, probably three are looking at or using their device. Shamelessly and overtly, no attempt to hide it!
It seems irresistible to people!
Add “putting in a CD” to the list of dangerous activities. A man who did that, took his eyes from the road, killed my father… He wasn’t even tried for the death, we can’t even find out if he got a ticket.
Apparently he was driving erratically for a while, so he must have been doing it for several miles. This is what I really don’t fucking understand. It’s not like his wife texted him “Add TP to shop list,” and he replied “K.”
HE WAS HAVING A GODDAM CONVERSATION!
Cripes, they have hands-free phones for this for a reason.
I do not, do not text and drive. My phone connects through my radio for hands-free, so I use my phone in the car sometimes, but other than that, no communication in the car. I don’t even change the radio station while in motion.
Something my husband does that makes me crazy is texting me when he knows for a fact that I am driving. I don’t read the text, and call him back.
I do have a quick-reply enabled, “Driving now. Get back to you soon,” that I can text with two buttons which I sometimes hit at a stoplight when I get a text from work or my son’s school.
I think it’s possible to turn things around and make texting while driving socially unacceptable, but it’s going to take a combination of law enforcement, individuals speaking up, and an awareness campaign. That’s what it took to make drunk driving unacceptable.
It also may take things like phones that make the text function unavailable when the GPS system is engaged. You know, if you are using something on the phone that 99% of the time indicates you are driving, the phone will not allow you to text.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind having the temptation removed. I would love it if I never saw texts that came through when I had the GPS engaged, and the phone automatically replied “Driving now. Get back to you soon.”
It’s been illegal to T&D in CA for years, but that doesn’t seem to stop anyone. It’s about as well obeyed as speed limits. And it’s not just teenagers. It’s all demographics.
I’m not entirely convinced “hands-free” set-ups really solve the distracted driving problem, although it’s almost certainly better than “hands on”.
Sorry, dualie driver in the accident linked to in the OP “I’m so sorry” doesn’t cut it. He should be up on negligent manslaughter charges at the very least.
I really, truly cannot fathom the mindset of people who text while driving. I can understand why people talk on the phone while driving, even though it’s proven to be dangerous, because it’s not intuitively obvious that it would be dangerous: Having a conversation with someone in the passenger seat is safe enough, and it doesn’t seem like it’s that different when the other person is on the other end of a phone connection (it is, apparently, but it’s not intuitively obvious).
Heck, I can even understand drunk driving. Being drunk impairs your vision, reaction time, and a bunch of other things that you need for driving, but it also impairs your judgement enough that you might not realize that those other traits are impaired. We expect people to make stupid decisions while they’re drunk, because that’s one of the effects of drunkenness.
But texting? In order to text, you have to take your eyes away from the road and look at something else for a while. It’s the same as if you were trying to drive with your eyes closed, and nobody (well, OK, almost nobody) would ever think to try that. What makes people (even sober people who should have their wits about them) such idiots about it?
Lay off the guy. He said he was sorry.
The news story that I read placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of Rick Perry, who vetoed legislation banning it, citing it as an example of government overreach. You really can’t make this stuff up.
The person who hit me while backing up in ShopRite was texting about the price of oranges. Her excuse? “I wasn’t going that fast.”
A friend of mine was crossing the street on a green light in a crosswalk when a texting driver hit her. What excuse did the idiot use? “It was her fault. She wasn’t watching where she was going.”
I’m absolutely convinced that it makes no difference at all. Hands or no hands, one is utterly distracted by focussing their mind on the virtual reality experience of phone calling. No cites.
If people won’t stop constantly texting at movies they’re paying $12 to see I don’t see what else is going to stop them.
Or at Broadway shows they are paying $100 or more to see, and they are too self-centered and addicted to realize they are distracting the people up on stage doing a live show~
There’s a difference between “When will you get to the office?” vs. “I have the client on speakerphone, I need you to explain the marketing campaign”.
The reason that people think that they can text and drive, is because while they were texting, they weren’t paying attention to driving, and do not realize how much they are swerving and not maintaining speed.
I learned this about a decade ago, while driving with someone who was convinced that he could text and drive. I will admit, before this incident, I was guilty of doing so very occasionally, but it was always a “k” in response to a short text. If the text took more time than a quick glance to read, or if the reply required more than a single letter response, i would wait until at least a traffic light, if not a place to actually stop and be out of traffic. Anyway, this guy was convinced that he could drive just fine while texting, and I was the passenger. Every time he pulled his phone out, he would start swerving around, usually crossing the lines into the other lanes. He would usually speed up as he was starting, and then start slowing down, until he realized he was slowing down, and then he would gun it to catch back up with traffic. He would then put his phone back away after his text, and say “See, I don’t know why other people have so much difficulty with that.”
After that ride, I never texted with the car in gear again.
Occasionally I see bad drivers that just seem to be bad drivers for no apparent reason, but most of the time when I see someone having issues with keeping their car going along safely, I can see the driver with their head bent down, looking at their phone. 3 times, I have sat at a green light while I watched a car run a very red light, and as they passed by, I saw their phone up on the steering wheel.
I have thought of a few sports related PSA’s that might help, they are free for anyone that thinks they can make them into something useful.
It’s march madness right now, so basketball works. My idea is to have a player making a run down the court, past the defenders, dribbling furiously with one hand. As he comes out into the open, you see his other hand has a phone in it. He goes for a slam dunk, misses, hits his head on the backboard, and falls in a heap. Fade to black. “Don’t Text and Drive!”
You can make similar ones for football or golf easily enough.
ISTR one from some rally champion, can’t recall which.
This is not an accident, it is mass murder. Driving drunk or distracted is like playing with a loaded gun.
Didn’t drinking and driving used to be seen that way? Not that people don’t still do that, but it’s generally considered to be a Major Bad Thing nowadays. So maybe—just maybe—we could see a similar change in the general public’s attitude toward texting and driving.
Which is why I hate built-in touchscreen consoles in cars. I’m sure it’s purely a marketing thing to sell cars, because people love shiny new things, but seriously, NOBODY in the design meetings thought of this?! There’s nothing wrong with physical buttons! Physical controls can be felt, their locations become simple muscle memory. That just doesn’t work with a touchscreen where everything is flat and a button can be anywhere. Adding features may sell cars, but adding distractions kills people.