Texting in the news – And try the simulator. There is a statistic that about 20% of people on the road would not pass a drug or alcohol test and are impaired drivers. Given the amount of cell phones I see, The statistic needs to be upgraded.
15-year-old Alexa Longueira was walking in Staten Island, New York texting on her phone when she fell into an open manhole, recieving minor injuries. She also lost a shoe in the sewage. Alexa said that her fall was "really gross... shocking and scary."
A nearby Department of Environmental Protection worker pulled her out and continued his job of flushing the sewer. The Department has issued an apology for the lack of orange cones or warning signs.
Despite the lack of warning signs however, many observers almost completely blame Longueira for not seeing an open manhole and being completely detached from her surroundings.
And from the New York Times
The first study of drivers texting inside their vehicles shows that the risk sharply exceeds previous estimates based on laboratory research — and far surpasses the dangers of other driving distractions.
The new study, which entailed outfitting the cabs of long-haul trucks with video cameras over 18 months, found that when the drivers texted, their collision risk was 23 times greater than when not texting
Compared with other sources of driver distraction, “texting is in its own universe of risk,” said Rich Hanowski, who oversaw the study at the institute, which is affiliated with Virginia Tech University.
Of the 2,501 drivers surveyed this spring, 95 percent said that texting was unacceptable behavior. Yet 21 percent of drivers said they had recently texted or e-mailed while driving.
About half of drivers 16 to 24 said they had texted while driving, compared with 22 percent of drivers 35 to 44.
“It’s convenient,” said Robert Smith, 22, a recent college graduate in Windham, ME, who says he regularly texts and drives even though he recognizes that it is a serious risk. He would rather text, he said, than take time on a phone call.
“I put the phone on top of the steering wheel and text with both thumbs,” he said, noting he often has exchanges of 10 messages or more. Sometimes, “I’ll look up and realize there’s a car sitting there and swerve around it.”
Mr. Smith, who was not part of the AAA survey, said he was surprised by the findings in the new research about texting.
“I’m pretty sure that someday it’s going to come back to bite me,” he said of his behavior
And lastly,
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gathered hundreds of pages of research and warnings about the hazards of drivers using cell phones, but withheld the information from the public in part out of fear of angering Congress, a newspaper reported Monday.
The former head of the traffic safety agency, Dr. Jeffrey Runge, told The New York Times that he was urged to withhold the findings to avoid antagonizing members of Congress who warned the agency against lobbying states. Runge said transit officials told him he could jeopardize billions of dollars of its financing if Congress thought the agency had crossed the line into lobbying, the Times said.
Rate your texting skills while driving with the simulator below
Posts
We only need one law:
ReplyDeleteNO driving while distracted.
So, emotional conversations (with or without phone calls), makeup sessions, breakfast, texting, alcohol, and... if your kids are screaming at you... you'd better pull over and deal with it - don't turn around to confront them while driving!
Doesn't this go to personal responsibility??
If you get in an accident while distracted the damage is already done. We would have to allow the police to document and remove 'distracted' drivers in the act - before the accident - to make the roads safer. I think that's where the 'big brother' conflict will come in.