Sounds good my man. seeya soon ill tw |
Alexander Heit, 22 years old, was in the driver's seat, head down, while the car carrying him was drifting into oncoming traffic. The oncoming driver slowed and avoided a collision, but when Alexander looked up, he over-corrected, and rolled his car. Officers found his cell phone with a partially complete text message at 5:16 p.m.
His parents released an image of the message, hoping no one else has to die while texting and driving.
What lesson do we learn from this?
- Do not text and drive
- Pay attention to other cars (and trucks) erratic behaviour while driving, as there are many other people texting and driving.
- Do not over correct when you finally do get a chance to look up.
- Buy a car that has a low centre of gravity, with wheels set wide apart so that it resists rolling.
- If you must text and drive, do it only for important messages. As far as I can see, this message was not important. But if you are following a terrorist in a schoolbus with hostage children and a primed nuclear warhead, go for it. And by "go for it" I mean contact 911, not to text your buddy that you'll be delayed for a bit, but you'll see him later.
- If you must text and drive, (see above) keep it short. (i.e. "CU" is shorter than "sounds good my man. seeya soon ill tw") And actually, that would have been even longer if Alexander had not been killed before the end of the texting.
Here is a link to an article, it has a video with a commercial intro, so if you don't like that sort of thing, try the second link
http://www.9news.com/news/article/329758/222/Parents-hope-sons-last-text-saves-lives
http://kdvr.com/2013/04/10/family-releases-photo-of-last-text-son-sent-before-greeley-crash/
IMHO ... there is no excuse for texting while operating a motor vehicle. Period. End of discussion.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, there is no excuse for doing anything else but operating the vehicle. All too many people now seem to consider operation of the vehicle as a 'secondary' activity to texting, chatting on the cell phone, fiddling with their fancy stereo, applying make-up, disciplining their children, eating their breakfast ... the list is virtually endless.
It's dead simple: operating a motor vehicle is a complex activity ... there is no margin of error for distraction. An awful lot can (and often does) happen in the 500 milliseconds one's eyes are off the road. Even at 50 Kph, a vehicle travels almost 50 feet ... bad news if an unexpected object (vehicle, cyclist, pedestrian, animal, whatever) is suddenly present at 49 feet.
Has driver education now been so dumbed down that the concept of 'perception-recognition- reaction' times has been abandoned?
Although I respect the intent of programs like Manitoba's '' campaign ... https://www.yourlastwords.ca/en/default.aspx ... I suspect, like seat belts and drunk driving, it will take some time for the message to hit home.
Now the scientific evidence is in ...
ReplyDeleteFrequent texters tend to be shallow ... 'Young adults who send text messages more than 100 times a day tend to be more interested in wealth and image than leading an ethical life'
Small wonder they're causing traffic accidents. Selfish idiots - our right to an expectation of safety on the roads should trump their right to shallow, pointless, unimportant and narcissistic 'communications.'
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/story/2013/04/11/mb-texting-shallow-morality-research-university-winnipeg.html
http://www.nbc12.com/story/12390065/80-percent-of-crashes-caused-by-distracted-driving
Texting could become a bigger problem than the war on drugs. The dividing line for busy texting was was 50 a day! I have sent about 20, ever. I must be at the very deep end of the thinking pool.
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