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texting and driving advice pls

Last Post 09/25/2014 04:16 PM by Joe Rockbottom. 31 Replies.

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jacques_anquetil

Posts:245

09/15/2014 09:48 AM
interesting thread about how much to tell your SO about your riding, and observances about distracted drivers. what can we do about it? last week, me and the kid are out for a nice leisurely ride. We're on the bike path on a bridge and traffic is slowing. Right beside us, a car screeches to a halt, just barely misses plowing into the back of a pickup truck. I look over, the kid is texting. Roll over, knock on his window, and ask him to please don't text and drive. He says "i'm just GPS'ing" (as if that makes any difference). Tempers flare, words are exchanged. I tell him texting and driving is stupid and dangerous (forgot to mention illegal) and that i'd like to grow old enough to see my kid grow up and meet my grandkids. A bit hyperbolic, sure, but by this point i'm shaking with rage. Thing is, i see it all the time along this stretch of road. Traffic is backed up and the bike path is a major transit to the good riding areas. Easily one or two out of every car i pass that is sitting still the driver is on a device. So, we both continue on our way. Feeling badly for losing my cool, I figure i should go apologize thinking perhaps there was some overreaction on my part. The car is now waiting for the light further on, so I roll up and am about to say sorry when what do i see? He's still fooking texting! Now i just complete lose it on his punk ass. By the end he exasperatedly put the phone aside mostly out of fear at this raving, foaming-mouth lunatic cyclist. I'm not proud of my behaviour and am wondering how would you handle these kinds of situations? Do you think a "Please don't text and drive" card slipped under their windshield wiper work? I don't think confrontation works. People feel entitled and immediately get defensive and it's too easy for the situation to escalate. What are the best words to use? It's so hard to not let it become an emotionally-explosive situation. Really, texting and driving is fast becoming an epidemic (if not already), and it's not long until one of us falls under the wheels of their distracted-driving, don't-give-a-$4it asses. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/b...ation.html

huckleberry

Posts:824

09/15/2014 10:10 AM
I'm so with you, JA. So f#cking fed up with the majority of drivers here feeling they can talk/text while driving. Scares the crap out of me waiting for them to screw up which they do and will, but law enforcement will do nothing about it, despite laws. We live on a tight narrow road with a 15 mph speed limit and from our front window it is but 20 feet to the road, and I will stand in the window and count people using their phones as driving by on our essentially 2 way, one lane road - on average 7 out of 10 our on their phones going 10 to 20 mph over the speed limit. Tried talking to the cops, several times. Tried yelling at drivers, dozens of times. And I am not alone - several of my neighbors try also. I wish I had advice for you. People are just too selfish and lazy to do the right thing.

THE SKINNY

Posts:506

09/15/2014 10:59 AM
i'm still of he opinion that the texting function should automatically shut off when going over 5mph. sure it inconveniences passengers in the car but so what? what did they do before texting was invented?

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

Cosmic Kid

Posts:4209

09/15/2014 11:05 AM
Unfortunately, nothing will work for these guys......for some, it will require on god-awful, unretractable moment where something goes horribly wrong for them to "get it." I am somewhat encouraged by the current efforts by phone companies and others to make people aware of the dangers of texting and driving....the new program where you tweet "#x" indicating you are getting behind the wheel of a car, so don't text me is interesting. But for too many, nothing will make a difference until tragedy strikes. It scares the schitt out of me that my life is in the hands of some teenager who lacks the world perspective to understand that they are not immortal. Which is why I try not to focus on it while riding....it is completely outside of my control.

Just say "NO!" to WCP!!!!

Dale

Posts:1767

09/15/2014 11:11 AM
Posted By carl x on 09/15/2014 10:59 AM i'm still of the opinion that the texting function should automatically shut off when going over 5mph. Sure it inconveniences passengers in the car but so what? what did they do before texting was invented? ^ This ^ I wonder when someone will sue Verizon/ ATT/ Apple, etc over a death since they have the technology to disable texting while moving and haven't

Cosmic Kid

Posts:4209

09/15/2014 11:26 AM
Posted By Dale Dale on 09/15/2014 11:11 AM Posted By carl x on 09/15/2014 10:59 AM i'm still of the opinion that the texting function should automatically shut off when going over 5mph. Sure it inconveniences passengers in the car but so what? what did they do before texting was invented? ^ This ^ I wonder when someone will sue Verizon/ ATT/ Apple, etc over a death since they have the technology to disable texting while moving and haven't Fook that....how am I gonna text and ride?

Just say "NO!" to WCP!!!!

THE SKINNY

Posts:506

09/15/2014 11:39 AM
remember when we thought talking on a cell phone was bad? those were the days. i don't know how you change people's behavior. i mean, wearing seat belts became law in a lot of places and people begrudgingly wear them. people got the message about smoking and smoking has dropped off significantly. these are things that protect people against themselves. you would think people would have at least as much concern for other people when it comes to texting and driving.

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

huckleberry

Posts:824

09/15/2014 11:42 AM
The industry has happily created addicts. Adults and teenagers alike.

jacques_anquetil

Posts:245

09/15/2014 11:42 AM
what i don't get is why the fook can't you just NOT touch your phone when you drive? i get it, it can be hard to disconnect but put the phone in the back seat. in the trunk. whatever. have some self control. Huck, from the NYT article: “It’s in a sense a narcotic,” he says. That doesn’t mean that electronic devices are classically addictive; instead, many researchers say that these devices have addictive properties and are habit-forming, but that more research is needed before deeming them addictive in the way that drugs, say, can be.There is wider agreement among scientists that the risks are higher for young people, whose frontal lobes are less developed and therefore even less able to fend off the ping of the phone delivered from the more primitive part of the brain. But even for adults, the devices appeal to such primal social urges that they can be overpowering. “The cellphone, and other similar technology, meet a deep need for social connection with a greater ease and greater potential detriment to it in the same way that a vending machine that is right down the hall plays to our need for calories,” says Dr. Nicholas A. Christakis, a physician and a professor of social and natural science at Yale; he is an expert in the use of social networks across time. To some researchers, it feels like a process of neurological hijacking, the taking over of our decision-making process. “When the phone rings, it triggers a whole social reward network,” says David Strayer, a psychologist at the University of Utah who studies driver distraction. “And it triggers an orienting response that has been wired into us since hunter-gatherer times. You had to pay attention for survival. If you didn’t attend, you got eaten by lions. We’re hard-wired that way, no matter what we want to do. It’s extremely difficult to turn those things off. It’s in our DNA.”

jacques_anquetil

Posts:245

09/15/2014 11:56 AM
slipping something under somebody's wiper? could that work?

huckleberry

Posts:824

09/15/2014 12:13 PM
Call me a luddite, but I feel we have taken a dramatic loss in interpersonal communication skills over the past decade because of new technologies. Most people will argue we have increased our social interaction with advents such as Facebook, but I would argue against that. I like face to face.