Texting while driving
 

A penny for your thoughts on:
-the act itself
-the laws surrounding it
-exceptions to the rule
-people who do it
-who/what's to blame?
-etc.

Curiosity was triggered by: http://www.twitspotting.com/

I don't do it. I can barely type on my phone while sitting down nonetheless piloting a 2 ton hunk of metal going 65mph.

Wish the laws were tougher concerning texting and driving. I see it all the time, people swerving, not paying attention. People can barely walk and text here, nonetheless drive.
What they fail to realize is they're not just endangering themselves, but the other people on the road. Texting can wait, guys. If it's important,pull over. Please.

Like anyone's gonna admit to it.

I hate it. I see too many doing it, especially when I'm out running, and I have to watch every car, because they may not be watching me, and I don't have an airbag.

Well it's an anonymous poll so I don't see the point of lying except to fool your own conscience

I should have broadened it to "using phone while driving" as I just remembered I've actually seen some people actually flick through Facebook or Instagram while driving... *facepalm

Some people I know are always bragging about how they were texting in traffic right next to a cop car and they just got the shaking head, as if it's something to be proud about :thumbdown:

Seriously though, I feel like "staying connected" is an addiction... some just can't stand to be "out of the loop" for more than a second

I have enough problems changing music on my phone while driving. Typing anything coherent is beyond my abilities.

Oh, and does anyone else think it only became a problem with the advent of touchscreen smartphones? I remember the golden days of plastic flip phones and Nokia bricks that had just a numpad and then some... I could type accurate sentences without taking my phone out of my pocket on those, thanks to the tactile feedback and limited number of buttons

The act itself is incredibly dumb. The few times I've had to briefly input something into my phone or the headunit while driving, I was VERY distracted, and did so only in very clear conditions or kept losing my concentration on the task b/c I would keep my eyes always glancing up to the road b/c I was driving.

The laws surrounding it are stupid, however. It falls under "distracted driving", which should be and is a moving violation and a citable offense, and worse if due to it you cause a crash.

The people who do it are stupid and should definitely have points taken off their license and after several offenses in a certain period (say 3 years), be sent back for re-licensing.

I liken it to carrying a distractedly carrying an unholstered gun around, except worse. The worse a bullet can do is get lucky and puch a hole smaller than half an inch into or through you. Sometimes it gets lucky and kills you.

A car is worse. A heavy-hitting slug leaving the muzzle of a 4" barreled firearm is preferrably packing around 400 ftlbs or more of energy. A car is a multi-ton (that is, greater than a single ton, aka > 2000 lbs, or 909kg) that, assuming distracted driving on the freeway, is going about 60mph (100kph).

That is also about 5 ft (width) of vehicle being driven by a distracted driver.

So, if I'm all for appropriate penalties (and I am) for those who carelessly or recklessly handle loaded firearms in public, then I'm absolutely all for serious penalties for those who recklessly and distractedly mishandle an automobile on public roads. Their numbers, the traffic density, and exponentially greater lethality (compared to firearms) make it a bigger threat.

With great power comes great responsibility and with responsibility comes accountability. If you're recklessly driving (and distracted driving IS reckless by definition), then you should be held appropriately accountable for doing so.

Edit: with the advent of headunits which can mirror the phone screen, there's less and less excuse for NOT doing hands-free phone operations. The headunit turns your phone into a dash-mounted part of your automobile that can, by mirroring onto a larger screen, be used with far less distraction (assuming you're not trying to text or browse facebook or instagram or whatnot) than before. That is, for music controls and whatnot.

I am VERY connected in my car, but I do NOT do email, texting (except if a text is sent, I can read it on the HU, then hit the dial button to get back to the person if I need to send a response, instead of trying to type a response), internet, etc., except streaming content through the HU's interface. And I don't get involved in it so much that I take my concentration off the road (I try not to... sometimes I do get distracted and usually then thank God that I didn't have to do any emergency maneuvers then, and resolve to not do that again).

Driving distracted is like driving while drowsy or actively nodding off (VERY scary if it's happened to you, btw), except you don't have the benefit of still facing towards the road when the "oh shit!" moment occurs.

1.5 ton. :D

Fb, IG, this site ,bids on you tube and sometimes even when I'm fighting with the navigation

9/10 cars I see around my campus are texting. I would make bank if I was an officer giving out tickets, just sayin'.
People are morons here. People brag about driving drunk, wrecking their parents car, and that's some of the tame stuff I've heard.
Rules of the road need more enforcing.

You should be allowed to throw the person's phone off a tall building if a texter crashes into you. :bonk:

Well, like I said, I don't think we need stricter "texting laws", but simple enforcement of distracted driving laws, which are already on the books. Texting is just one subset of distracted driving. Mommy reaching back to hand junior a toy while she's driving the suburban across 3 lanes of traffic while yakking without handsfree (despite the car almost certainly having a bluetooth handsfree function) on her iPhone is even worse.

I don't mean to be sexist, but the subset of drivers I see who are most often oblivious to conditions b/c of that damned phone are women. I do see men do it as well, but not nearly as many as I see women. And women in big SUVs are even worse.

One reason I went from the Forester to the WRX was simply a HP upgrade (and to go to a manual, so I could downshift into a more powerful gear, unlike the utter slush the 4EAT in my Forester) to escape getting trapped in traffic near these idiots.

I'm constantly on the lookout for them in the BRZ. They are a menace and the biggest danger to the continued structural integrity of my and my brz's skeletal systems.

Don't even worry about the women comment. I say myself that women can't drive. (Most of the time they can't...)

Yeah,I feel rules aren't enforced at all.
I see people texting/running reds all the time with cops right there, and the cop does absolutely nothing.
No wonder everyone thinks my generation is so entitled, everyone is on their iPhone or whatever. I live near an elementary school and it's....Bad. People texting and driving, they don't even see you until you honk at them, and usually by then an accident occurs (knock on wood,none yet.) Plus the added danger of the kids walking around.
90% it isn't even important conversations,it's just casual texting.