I almost drove into a cow the other day. I was totally in the wrong. If a cop had been within 20 miles, I’d have gotten a well-deserved ticket.
Yup, I was texting while driving. At about 20 MPH on a road I know like the inside of my left nostril. I know every turn and bump and how long it takes to get to them, and there was a long straight and no reason not to answer this text right now, before I lost signal…
Sweartagod, if the cow hadn’t been smarter than me and gone into hyperdrive to escape, I’d have clipped her…
Fortunately there is little chance of that cow reporting your traffic infraction to the proper authorities.
I get into this discussion about the texting/tuning the radio/having a coffee, distracted driving thing from time to time. That whole distracted driving thing is such BS. The one area that nobody cares to look at is the Police and the gizmos in their cars. If it really bad for me to look at a text, then how good is it for a lone police officer to pay attention to the road while querying and receiving messages on a computer located on the passengers side of the dash? Think about it, they don’t have voice interface so, as they drive, they type on a keyboard and read a computer screen. As they do this how much attention is being paid to the road? These gizmos all direct the cops attention away from the road and into the cab of their cruiser. Add to that a constantly distracting chattering radio.
As I have said before, maybe it’s time to go back to the way it was and let dispatchers dispatch instead of risking lives while cops drive and play video games. After all, if it saves one life…
“If it really bad for me to look at a text, then how good is it for a lone police officer to pay attention to the road while querying and receiving messages on a computer located on the passengers side of the dash?”
Aren’t you forgetting? They are trained professionals… ;- )
I commented to a local cop about his Mobile Distraction Terminal and his response was “Yeah, one ah these days I’m gonna rear-end somebody while looking at it”. This was in the days of yore before people were texting while driving.
I was riding passenger with my wife driving when we had to swerve on to the shoulder to avoid a head on crash with ‘trained professional’ that was reading his computer.
Honestly, MJR, I don’t agree that concerns over texting drivers are BS at all. I used to catch rides with a young man who routinely scared me to death. It’s a classic case of a ‘condition white’ practice that can suddenly kill you or somebody else.
Of course that holds just as much for cops and all other ‘trained professionals.’
I don’t text and drive I have it set up where my phone will read any texts to me on the slim chance I get any. I do this because I know how fast things can go south on the road. The reason i say it is BS is because the rules apply to everybody except those who enforce them which is BS.
As for being trained professionals… Bah! I have seen several instances where the “trained professionals” have really screwed the pooch. In one case I had to stand on the horn to warn a cop who was on my side of the road. The worst one that I can remember happened a couple of years ago. There was a female cop who was responding to a call in bad weather. While she was merrily rolling along with lights, sirens etc somehow she ended up on the wrong side of the road and was killed in a head on. Looking at the cabin computer? Driver negligence? It was all hushed up and nobody would say. My guess was that she was looking at that damn computer. Point being if the gizmos were not in her vehicle chances are she would be alive today.
I sat take the computers out of the cop cars. What is good for the goose is good for the gander…
Possible tech solution . . .
If gear selector is not in “PARK” none of the gizmos are lit up.
What? Too logical?
Well, yeah . . .