Woman texting in car kills 24 yr old. What a f***ing c***

[weltweit]

I was in the car with a relative driving and felt very safe driving slowly and predictably, then the relative took out a blackberry and started doing things with it in front of them on the top of the steering wheel. We were still travelling slowly and there were still no other vehicles in sight but I immediatley felt very unsafe and had to complain and make them stop!

 

[Bob_the_lost]

You might be willing to take the risk, but are the other people who share the road with you willing for you to take the risk?

Could it be that - *gasp* - it's not all about you?

Should i refuse to drive near schools because a paranoid parents thinks that any male who doesn't have children is either a paedophile or going to run over their children?

Could it be that it isn't about them either, that it's about calm, reasoned discussion and estimates of risk?

 

[Santino]

Should i refuse to drive near schools because a paranoid parents thinks that any male who doesn't have children is either a paedophile or going to run over their children?

Comparisons literally do not get any more apt than that. This is the acme of aptness. This analogy should be put in the dictionary under the word 'apt'.

 

[Herbsman.]

Should i refuse to drive near schools because a paranoid parents thinks that any male who doesn't have children is either a paedophile or going to run over their children?

Could it be that it isn't about them either, that it's about calm, reasoned discussion and estimates of risk?

You're clearly a paedo.

 

[HackneyE9]

yeah its a risk and i rarely do it. but i did it at lights the other day on the way to nosos' as he texted and asked me to do something so i quickly texted him at the traffic lights and occasionly if im running a bit late and someones asks where i am i send a quick. "20mins".

To be honest im probabley less distracted sending a 3 word text then i am changing my cd over.

Its not big or clever and is ceratinly a risk but its one i have taken every so often.

dave

How about a New Year's Resolution, dave? Don't do it anymore?

Who knows, this time next year it could save you from having killed someone...

 

[HackneyE9]

I am curious to how me taking my phone and sending "40" to someone without glancing at the screen more than three times on a quiet motorway is more dangerous than trying to get the right track going.

<scared>

Bob - can you "text" me in advance when you're going to be out and about on the roads, please?

 

[snadge]

I was working down near Sheffield and my mate was driving us to work and he put a fucking DVD on to watch as he was driving, "oh it's for you to watch " he said as he kept looking at the screen doing 80mph, I went fucking crazy, he does it all the time he said, not when I'm in the car I said.

 

[_angel_]

I mean - how many people do you need to kill in this country these days to get a life ban? Or is driving no long a privilige which can be removed, but a right?

I dunno.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

I find it amazing really, even the most hamfisted or moronic of us here have to engauge the area of our brain which containts our lingistic skills in order to communicate with one anonther.

event the ranty and spit flecked threads have natural pauses within them as people consider their response and then formulate that whilst also being aware of making it readable.

when you SMS this function is even further condensed as you have a charchter limit on the phone which makes you further consider how to optimise your message.

This takes a lot of brain power and is always something which is going to impare your driving in every circumstance.

I'm convinced that actually engauging that area of your brain and processing the resultant information you get from it text or phone call is also a distraction long after the end of the call as you will then also be thinking about the conversations topic and anything associated with it...

 

[soulman]

I think mobile phones shouldn't be allowed to be used by drivers, under any circumstances.

 

[soulman]

Fuck all this handsfree shit as well.

 

[Herbsman.]

only during emergencies imo

 

[HackneyE9]

only during emergencies imo

You'll certainly be creating an emergency if you use one.

 

[weltweit]

Fuck all this handsfree shit as well.

Quite right, drivers should also be penalised if they have been speaking to people in the back seats also! Eating a sandwich? Smoking a fag? glancing at a map? what would the world be coming to otherwise?

 

[editor]

Quite right, drivers should also be penalised if they have been speaking to people in the back seats also! Eating a sandwich? Smoking a fag? glancing at a map? what would the world be coming to otherwise?

So do you view the documented dangers of drivers chatting away on hands-free handsets as simply an acceptable risk to other road users and pedestrians?

 

[Termite Man]

She's facing a prison sentence; probably a long one. In that situation, wouldn't you do everything you could to excuse yourself?
.

I'd have thought showing regret for whats happened and that you've learnt some kind of lesson is a better way to stay out of prison . Saying " I can text without taking my eyes off the road" when you clearly can't because your in court for killing someone because you were texting isn't going to help is it !

 

[Roadkill]

Perhaps that's so - and I agree that on the face of it showing as much contrition as possible seems to be her 'best' option - but she evidently thinks, or she's been advised, differently...

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

So do you view the documented dangers of drivers chatting away on hands-free handsets as simply an acceptable risk to other road users and pedestrians?

I'm of the no calls at camp I'm driving I'll call you when i'm not, i cannot imagine a situation where it become neccessary for me to have that information instantaiously and besides i'm driving it's not likely i can do anythign about it at the time of the message anyways.

Emergancies only, but at redlights with handbrake on is fine provided that it's not goign to cause hold ups etc...

 

[weltweit]

So do you view the documented dangers of drivers chatting away on hands-free handsets as simply an acceptable risk to other road users and pedestrians?

I don't know about the handsfree headsets as I have never used one but fully installed in car hands free (costs about £100 and you get a speaker installed usually in the passenger footwell and a mike in the roof near your head) I have used and I don't consider any more hazardous than having a conversation with someone in the backseat.

And if you cannot have a conversation however short with someone in the backseat of your car without causing a danger to people I wonder if you should be in charge of a vehicle at all.

 

[i386]

The problem with the hands-free comm kit is that the user has to learn to prioritise his brain tasks, giving absolute high priority to analysis of road conditions over whatever is talked on the phone. Unfortunately not every driver was trained this way and some may never be able to do that.

But with texting there's no such prioritising opportunities. Texting has to compete human sights (yes you can type blindly but you can never read texts blindly) over observations of road conditions, at any snapshot of time you are either checking the text, or checking the keys, or checking the road but you can't do them at once as you don't have a spare eye.

Hence it's dangerous, especially at high speeds where 0.1s matters a lot.

 

[weltweit]

The problem with the hands-free comm kit is that the user has to learn to prioritise his brain tasks, giving absolute high priority to analysis of road conditions over whatever is talked on the phone. Unfortunately not every driver was trained this way and some may never be able to do that. ...

Yes the user has to prioritise road and vehicle control, but this is the case with every potential distraction and vehicle control, a chat with a passenger, a favourite track on the radio, tuning the radio or finding a cassette or CD for the player, sorting out kids in the backseat who are misbehaving.

Many (if not all) drivers imho find they automatically shift focus around depending on situations, or as the need arises.

Indeed I wonder if any will recall the odd feeling that one occasionally has that one has travelled a few miles with no recollection of the details of that part of the journey. This sometimes occurs when nothing has caused the brain to switch focus onto the immediate demands of driving and instead a distance has been travelled in some kind of distraction from the details of driving.

Anyhow, re car kits, I drove about a thousand miles a week for a period of about 10 years and in that time we first toyed with hand held phones but found them too dangerous, we then used installed hands free car kits and found them to be much safer than talking on a handset. I don't believe in doing things that are dangerous on the roads, I found that, for me, fitted car kits were "acceptable".

 

[i386]

Yes the user has to prioritise road and vehicle control, but this is the case with every potential distraction and vehicle control, a chat with a passenger, a favourite track on the radio, tuning the radio or finding a cassette or CD for the player, sorting out kids in the backseat who are misbehaving.

Many (if not all) drivers imho find they automatically shift focus around depending on situations, or as the need arises.

It is also noteworthy that for average casual drivers and commuters, taking a phone call in the normal part of their life is usually a high priority task (for the brain), compared to other forms of communication. People of this generation were bred in a common sense that telephone communication has poor quality, high cost and not interactive (one party listens while the other talks). That's what had burned in people's nerve and what is practised daily in their offices -- you can see people putting up random gestures, scribbling nonsense on a piece of paper, or looking out of window at absolutely nothing when they are on call. That's a signal that the brain is pretty much used up during a phone talk; however all those funny things they do will not appear when they chat to people face to face.

I still remember the first time I used voice messaging on the internet with speakers and a proper mic -- and only to find out conversations over the line could be so much laid back with a) significantly increased sound quality (thus less brain consuming), b) being free from charge (thereby free from talk time available), and c) no need to hold a handset. The pace and the way people talk, in those situations, changed too.

In-car kits provide a quality upgrade to telephone conversations giving the current hardward but the bandwidth is still not enough for transmitting hi-fi voice calls. But it's already a relief from most other stresses and should be recommended rather than banned -- in extreme cases a panicking passenger could trigger an accident by just pissing off an inexperienced driver.

 

[bigbry]

I think it's a bad idea to spend ages fucking with your stereo too. I am curious to how me taking my phone and sending "40" to someone without glancing at the screen more than three times on a quiet motorway is more dangerous than trying to get the right track going. Or "stuck in traffic" when i've been still so long i've turned off the engine

You're not breaking the law if the engine is turned off - if you're parked up (even in a lay by) with the engine on you are committing an offence

 

[winjer]

Mobile phones are an additional distraction of course, but it's not like this sort of thing never happened before they were invented. My conclusion is that some drivers just don't give a shit, they are safe in their tin can and sod everyone else.

While cycling a few weeks ago, I was passed by a woman driving while on her phone, so at the next lights I took a photo of her, she wound down her window and said "You must understand, it's okay to use my phone, I'm a solicitor" I said so you know it's wrong? "If you take my photo again without permission you'll be arrested." I laughed.

 

[weltweit]

Just recently did a journey with family in the car, front and back seats, and I can state that it is possible to be very distracted by family in the car to the point of dangering yourself and others.

 

[Homeless Mal]

I was just up the street and me and 3 other folks nearly got run down by some stupid woman driving with two kids in the car and yapping on a mobile phone whilst turing into a side street through moving traffic. There should really be a crackdown on this. Using a mobile whilst driving is such an ignorant, selfish and dangerous thing to do.

 

[obanite]

I read somewhere (sorry, can't find link) that because the sound on mobiles is compressed, your brain has to work harder to process what's being said when talking on the phone as opposed to talking to someone in the car with you.

I always kick off if I'm in a car with someone who decides it's ok to send a quick text. Unfortunately it seems to happen depressingly often.

If everyone rode motorbikes this problem wouldn't exist

 

[DarthSydodyas]

Last night was a close call. As I approached a set of [red] traffic lights, a pedestrian was crossing them whilst maintaining a conversation on the phone. Just as she got to our vehicle the lights had turned to go green. Unfortunately, the right lane was empty and approaching traffic opted for that lane rather than a congested stationary one. She was totally invisible to the right lane drivers because the middle lane effectively masked her and she had not one iota of concentration on what was around her. Needless to say she was an inch or two from impact, as the cars in the right lane maintained their speeds to get past our lane. She just grinned and carried on walking as soon as the next car slowed down.

 

[Homeless Mal]

Last night was a close call. As I approached a set of [red] traffic lights, a pedestrian was crossing them whilst maintaining a conversation on the phone. Just as she got to our vehicle the lights had turned to go green. Unfortunately, the right lane was empty and approaching traffic opted for that lane rather than a congested stationary one. She was totally invisible to the right lane drivers because the middle lane effectively masked her and she had not one iota of concentration on what was around her. Needless to say she was an inch or two from impact, as the cars in the right lane maintained their speeds to get past our lane. She just grinned and carried on walking as soon as the next car slowed down.

 

[T & P]

If everyone rode motorbikes this problem wouldn't exist

I wouldn't be so sure... http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wDAw0e-uD4s