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what made you stop texting and driving?

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ImpulsE69 said:
I have a keypad, I can text w/o looking at my phone. Touchscreens are what made it dangerous..well and idiots.
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This is wrong. I've ridden as a passenger with idiots who were perfectly good at T9 texting and did it without looking. Still, they would repeatedly have near accidents. Repeated glances at the incoming texts are just as dangerous.

I can't believe anyone ever thought this behavior was even close to acceptable, and then I rode around with idiots that would do it while I was in the car with them! Wow. If you see someone do it, tell them it's absolutely NOT acceptable.
 
Ichinisan said:
This is wrong. I've ridden as a passenger with idiots who were perfectly good at T9 texting and did it without looking. Still, they would repeatedly have near accidents. Repeated glances at the incoming texts are just as dangerous.

I can't believe anyone ever thought this behavior was even close to acceptable, and then I rode around with idiots that would do it while I was in the car with them! Wow. If you see someone do it, tell them it's absolutely NOT acceptable.
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This is wrong. You basically just said that someone shouldn't even tune the radio. People are dumb, not only with phones, but guns, cars, food, kids, drugs, booze, etc.

Can texting be dangerous? Yes. More dangerous than anything else in the car? Questionable. More dangerous with touchscreen? Hell yes, because they have to look at the screen the entire time. I stand by my point. People zone out while driving..even if they aren't doing anything besides driving. It's more about the person doing it, than the item itself...you know..like guns.

I'm not saying it should be acceptable, but it really is no different than the 100 of other things people do while driving a car. I've seen people putting on makeup, brushing their teeth, reading a book(that was crazy) all while driving. I know one of you masterbates, admit it.
 
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ImpulsE69 said:
This is wrong. You basically just said that someone shouldn't even tune the radio. People are dumb, not only with phones, but guns, cars, food, kids, drugs, booze, etc.

Can texting be dangerous? Yes. More dangerous than anything else in the car? Questionable. More dangerous with touchscreen? Hell yes, because they have to look at the screen the entire time. I stand by my point. People zone out while driving..even if they aren't doing anything besides driving. It's more about the person doing it, than the item itself...you know..like guns.

I'm not saying it should be acceptable, but it really is no different than the 100 of other things people do while driving a car. I've seen people putting on makeup, brushing their teeth, reading a book(that was crazy) all while driving. I know one of you masterbates, admit it.
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You can't seriously think tuning the radio and texting are the same. If I glance at the current channel, that's a number. That's not an entire message to read and comprehend. Messages come from multiple different people and you have to switch conversations. Scroll through the list of people/conversations to select the right one...then read the message...not the same AT ALL!

Knowing the current channel, you know which way to turn the dial. You can do that without looking and watching the number as it changes. Dials have detents to make this even easier, but you can just listen for the next channel as you tune.

For the record: I wouldn't "tune the radio" as you describe. Use presets or scan. I would press "Scan" and let it go on its own until I hear something I like. Then I'd push "scan" to stop on that song.

...and, yes. People do die while tuning the radio and I forbid doing it. Still, a reasonable person wouldn't say it's "just as dangerous as texting while driving."
 
losing a physical keyboard on the device. I used to be able to text/post/email without looking much at all.

with iPhones and Droids you can do voice recognition, but it's not that important to me.

If I have something urgent I will usually just pull over and fire up the laptop anyway.
 
Triumph said:
And idiots who think having a keypad makes it safe. I hope you crash and burn, harming no one else in the process.
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Even if he only causes injuries to himself by crashing and burning, emergency responders will have to risk their lives to get to him and to the hospital (and possibly puts others at risk by running red lights and the like). Then there is the hospital staff that will have to split their attention between him and others in need of medical attention. Of course, insurance will have to pay for the medical treatment, both in the hospital and the outpatient burn treatment, making everyones' insurance that much more expensive. Then there is the toll it will take on his family and friends. Perhaps his spouse will have to take time off of work to care for him or worse, have to quit her job. With neither working, the family will have to go on welfare (again another cost for everyone) and won't be able to afford to give their kids a GIJoe with the Kung Fu Grip(c). Perhaps, because he is not an able-bodied parent anymore and his spouse is preoccupied with his care and treatment, the kids become delinquents, then criminals ending up in prison (another cost for all of us).

So, you see, there is no such thing as "harming no one else".

MotionMan
 
That guy is probably one of those emo kids that sit touching up their mascara and eyeliner while driving and just pissed he can't afford a smart phone.
 
LiuKangBakinPie said:
This ban on texting while driving only makes things worse. Now I have to worry about driving, texting AND not getting caught texting.
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Very true. Before, people would hold the phone in front of their face so looking at their phone means looking slightly to the right. Now they hold it on their lap, and looking at the phone means completely turning away from the road.


The only way to end this bullshit is to force young drivers to drive dangerously small and unsafe cars like the Smart Fortwo then encourage them to text while driving. The ones who suck at it will die. The ones who are good will live. The ones who don't text at all will live as well.
 
smartphones. when i had a flip phone with t9 predictive text i could do it without looking. now with touchscreen/slide out qwerty keyboard it's not worth trying.
 
I stopped because I went from a blackberry to an iphone recently. How the hell you type efficiently on the iphone even when not driving is still puzzling to me.
 
hdeck said:
smartphones. when i had a flip phone with t9 predictive text i could do it without looking. now with touchscreen/slide out qwerty keyboard it's not worth trying.
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Why do we even have touch screens? I've never used one that I liked. I tried typing a message on my gf's phone and I couldn't even do it when I was looking right at it. My thumb is the size of 3 or 4 keys so it never hits the right one on the first try.
 
I guarantee some of the people acting so passionate here about THIS topic are the very same ones who drive after a few beers or stoned or SOMETHING.

I never said I text and drive. I used to. I quit when I got a phone that was touchscreen only, but if I do crash and burn, I'll be sure to text you from hell while your driving.

Getting BJ's while driving...THAT causes accidents. They need to ban that (well..ok maybe not. I like BJ's..but I hate driving..maybe that could help me like driving)

....and while we're at it ban people from gawking at accidents caused by people texting because they cause more accidents and make me late and road rage. Road rage kills people. *eyeroll cause I'm too lazy to look up the code*

Point is, quit governing me. Don't like it don't do it. They made a law, deal with it. Don't act all high and mighty. We all know you aren't always keeping your eyes on the road. Unless you're the most boring person alive.
 
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MotionMan said:
No, I don't. Muscle-memory is muscle-memory.

MotionMan
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I think my muscle memory has a calibration error of ±3" in any axis.
Touchscreen without vision is a no-go.

I can navigate my music selection by feel alone, though I do so when there is minimal traffic around, and only a few folder/file jumps at a time - all done by touch, thanks to a little joystick-type control.
 
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Im a tow truck Dispatcher. I've seen the mangled remains of hundreds of vehicles wrecked after the drivers crashed while texting/drinking/speeding/whatever. Sometime the vehicles still have body parts in/on/molded into them that the coroner could not remove from the wreckage. Its one hell of a wake up call. After seeing a bunch of these vehicles you tend to not do anything stupid while driving from having such a close connection to what could happen if you do. I never drink and drive(never did before) or speed more than 10 over or text anymore, ever. Im also alot more critical now about other peoples driving and refuse to get into a vehicle with a few of my friends now that still dont pay attention to the road or do stupid things while driving, my life is worth more than a text message.
 
Rifter said:
Im a tow truck Dispatcher. I've seen the mangled remains of hundreds of vehicles wrecked after the drivers crashed while texting/drinking/speeding/whatever. Sometime the vehicles still have body parts in/on/molded into them that the coroner could not remove from the wreckage. Its one hell of a wake up call. After seeing a bunch of these vehicles you tend to not do anything stupid while driving from having such a close connection to what could happen if you do. I never drink and drive(never did before) or speed more than 10 over or text anymore, ever. Im also alot more critical now about other peoples driving and refuse to get into a vehicle with a few of my friends now that still dont pay attention to the road or do stupid things while driving, my life is worth more than a text message.
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down here they do not release a vehicle until the body has been fully extracted...
 
alkemyst said:
down here they do not release a vehicle until the body has been fully extracted...
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Fully extracted can be difficult when the body parts are literally smashed so into the vehicle that you cant tell whats part of the vehicle and whatrs part of the body. You just find out days later when it starts to smell up our warehouse that they missed some.
 
I've been happily married to my wife for well over 40 years now, and we get along, almost never have a disagreement, argument, or harsh word.

But I screamed in her face a while back when she texted our daughter about something trivial, we knew was driving to a convention in a major city. G-- d--- it, if you have to tell her something at least just call her ON the phone, otherwise just f---ing wait till she gets to her hotel.

Wife isn't stupid, just wasn't thinking. The less here is don't text someone you suspect is on the road.

Fortunately my daughter ignored her phone until she could safe check her messages.
 
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