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Scribt --
There are plenty of all kinds of stories about people who get in wrecks while doing stupid things, including fumbling with cell phones, dealing with messy or spilled food, trying to retrieve dropped toys, burning themselves with cigarettes, setting their cars on fire with cigarettes, trying to light cigarettes, trying to retrieve cigarettes, throwing cigarettes out the window and into the cars next to them (this actually happened to Otter,) throwing cigarettes out the window and starting a fire....
Can you tell what I think is the most dangerous in-car activity?
I've always loved the saying, which may or may not be a bumper sticker, "In case of danger, I can drop my cell phone in my lap. What will you do with your cigarette?"
I'm actually extremely angry at the idiots who do stupid things with cell phones because they're ruining it for the rest of us. My family has had car phones since when they were car phones -- cell phones installed in the car -- back in the 80's. When the first portable cell phones came out, I bought one for Otter as a wedding present (he was in sales at the time and he traveled a lot.) This was in 1989; by 1990 we both had them. Which we always used with headsets, because -- DUH! -- who would even want to hold a phone to your ear while driving, even if you were the most excellent one-armed car driver in the world?
I also don't understand the concept of doing business on a phone while driving. I own my own business. I can't see how I could get or give accurate information without looking the client or vendor information on my computer or PDA. And you can't take notes! Maybe all those people have excellent memories. Or maybe they're just really bad business people and they all get fired.
I can't comment on the distraction caused by chatting with your friends on the phone while driving, because nobody I know has time during the day to chat away, and at night, we're all at home. But I can tell you for 100% sure that talking to someone while driving is not nearly -- not by a long shot -- as driving with a screaming toddler in the car. No way.
What they need to do is ban toddlers!
Or subsidize the installation, in every family vehicle, a P-Diddy-style soundproof, bulletproof, variable-shading retractable shield between the front and back seats. Ahhhhh......
posted by
Bunny
on January 16, 2004 at 9:44 AM
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Cell phones in vehicles
Er, North Carolina, Tuesday 13th or Wednesday 14th January 2004. Five-yr-old girl killed while boarding school bus which was hit by out of control tactor-trailer, driven by man with long list of driving-related convictions, who was TRYING TO RETRIEVE HIS DROPPED CELL PHONE. All well and good to take risks with your own life, but it's unacceptable to kill 5 year olds. England has banned cell-phone use in moving vehicles. I heard of a study that found that more distracted drivers in wrecks were eating than were doing anything else. I'm not making a case either way, just thought I'd make you aware of this incident. The bus was pushed along the road the length of two football fields. Obviously, this particular driver was likely, given his record, to have ignored a cell phone ban, but, on the other hand, a ban would, overall, reduce risk.
posted by
Scribit
on January 16, 2004 at 12:15 AM
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