Thursday, June 19, 2008
Cellphones in cars - why?
As much as I hate the UK, they have done one thing right even if they can't properly police or enforce it - they've banned cellphone usage in cars. Now if only America would follow suit. OMG. RU SRIUS?
Yes I'm serious. In the 8 years since I've lived here, I've provided accident witness statements to the police 11 or 12 times because of people having crashes in front of me. On 10 of those times, they were using a cellphone either to talk or text, and on one notable occasion, the woman was using a laptop on her passenger seat.
I think the problem is that for some reason, people in America perceive car driving to be a right instead of a priviledge, and consider it to be easy and thus something that should require very little mental effort on their part. That's why they spend so much time doing other stuff behind the wheel, and in Utah at least, that seems to be why they have so many car accidents.
Seriously. At what point is your brain malfunctioning so badly that it thinks it is safe to look at a phone to send a text message whilst piloting a 2-ton weapon at 70mph?
Here's an idea - and I know this is revolutionary to those of you who think you're so important that you must use a cellphone 24/7 - when your phone rings, pull over, or better yet, leave it. Cellphones have a wonderful feature called "last number redial" - use it. I find it entertaining when I'm driving with others in my car, and my cellphone goes off. I either leave it, or hit the 'stop call' button to send it direct to voicemail. At this point, I've had passengers genuinely shocked that I didn't answer the phone. "Aren't you going to answer that?", they ask incredulously. "No - I'm driving."
Yes I'm serious. In the 8 years since I've lived here, I've provided accident witness statements to the police 11 or 12 times because of people having crashes in front of me. On 10 of those times, they were using a cellphone either to talk or text, and on one notable occasion, the woman was using a laptop on her passenger seat.
I think the problem is that for some reason, people in America perceive car driving to be a right instead of a priviledge, and consider it to be easy and thus something that should require very little mental effort on their part. That's why they spend so much time doing other stuff behind the wheel, and in Utah at least, that seems to be why they have so many car accidents.
Seriously. At what point is your brain malfunctioning so badly that it thinks it is safe to look at a phone to send a text message whilst piloting a 2-ton weapon at 70mph?
Here's an idea - and I know this is revolutionary to those of you who think you're so important that you must use a cellphone 24/7 - when your phone rings, pull over, or better yet, leave it. Cellphones have a wonderful feature called "last number redial" - use it. I find it entertaining when I'm driving with others in my car, and my cellphone goes off. I either leave it, or hit the 'stop call' button to send it direct to voicemail. At this point, I've had passengers genuinely shocked that I didn't answer the phone. "Aren't you going to answer that?", they ask incredulously. "No - I'm driving."
// posted by Chris @ 08:19 3 Comments Links to this post 
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